Welcome to Fairmont, where it’s an everyday occurrence.

  But then I stop myself as Rhett’s words ghost through my mind.

  It is an everyday occurrence here. Just like it is every-fucking-where.

  “You have them where you want them, Holden. They’ve offered to lower the price some just to close the deal. They’re desperate. What about—”

  “I just got off the jet. I’ll be in the office later. Call me then.”

  “But what do I tell them in the meantime?”

  “Nothing.” I proceed through the intersection with caution now that the light has changed.

  “Nothing?”

  “I believe I made myself clear.”

  “Yeah. Okay, boss. I just—”

  “Stop questioning me, Bob. It’s all part of the game. You make a move and then you have to sit and wait for its effects to be known. To take hold.” I chuckle. “Then right as they get settled, you make the next one.”

  “Keep them guessing.”

  No shit.

  “Mm-hm. Make them stew on it for a few days. It just makes the knife a little sharper when it goes in.”

  I end the call as I pull up to the curb of the old complex. The graffiti is gone on its facade. The rusted wrought iron pickets have been repainted a matte black. The wood on every front porch that faces the street is now a muted brown. The tagging on the cement sidewalks is now covered by crude squares made by gray paint.

  He fucking kept his word.

  My smile is automatic as I get out of my car and round the hood. I need to see it closer up.

  A front door opens a crack at the place where Leo’s bike had been last time. It stays slightly ajar for a brief moment before a woman walks out and shuts the door at her back. She eyes me warily, her gaze steadfast on mine as she makes her way over to me.

  “You Three-Piece Holden?” she asks, hand over her forehead as if it’ll make her see me better.

  Three-Piece Holden. I smile. Audrey gave enough information for him to know me but not know who I was.

  Perfect.

  “I am. Should I assume you’re Leo’s mom?”

  “What do you want with him?” she asks. She’s a little over five feet with the same features as Leo. Her hair is a little darker and she’s built a bit stockier but there’s no doubt in my mind she’s his mom. She’s wearing a set of worn scrubs with the name of a medical facility embroidered on the top right chest.

  “With Leo?”

  She nods again. “What are your intentions?”

  I shrug. “I used to live here. I used to be him. I don’t know. I saw him. I spoke with him. I thought he was a good kid and offered him a chance to earn some extra cash to help out.” I hold my hands up. “No strings attached.”

  “Everything comes with strings around here.”

  “Not what I have to offer.”

  “It’s the people with the fancy cars and shiny shoes you have to sometimes worry about the most. The flash blinds most from the bad they’re doing right beneath their noses.”

  “Agreed. You have no reason to believe it, but not when it comes to me.”

  “Then why Leo?”

  “From what I can tell, he has a good head on his shoulders. Simple as that. I looked at him and saw me, saw my brother when we lived here years ago, and wanted to give him an opportunity I wish I’d had.”

  “Mmm,” is her only response as she scrutinizes me.

  “I know you’re busting your ass to provide for him. I didn’t mean any offense by the help. It’s just … if he’s sticking to his word, if he’s doing the chores, then he’ll get paid as promised.” I point to the building behind her. “And it looks like he’s doing just that.”

  “Don’t fill his head with promises, mister, if you don’t intend to fulfill them. He’s been hurt enough by all of the men in his life. He’s starting not to trust them. I can’t have that—can’t have you hurting him too—if he’s going to succeed in life.”

  “I understand that more than you know,” I say softly. How is it I don’t talk about this shit with anyone, and I feel completely comfortable confessing it to her?

  Because she understands. She knows. She is standing in your family’s old shoes.

  “Mom!” We both turn to see Leo jogging down the sidewalk toward us from the direction of the bus stop. His backpack is slung over his shoulder, his baseball hat low on his head, but his smile—pure relief—when he sees me, sees that I came back, is everything I didn’t know I needed. “Oh my god. I’m sorry, Holden. I fucking begged her not to bug you. I promise—”

  “Leo,” she warns, I’m assuming for the cursing.

  “It’s okay. She’s just being a good mom, wanting to make sure I’m on the up-and-up.”

  He stops a few feet before us and looks from her back to me. “You’re not mad?” The cautious fear in his voice is fucking brutal. Almost as if he thought his mom questioning me would make me go back on my word.

  “It’s fine. All good.” I point to the work he’s done. “I’m impressed. You’ve done a great job since I was here a few weeks ago.”

  He bristles with pride. “You think?”

  “It looks great.” I reach in the window of my car to pull out a small gift bag with tissue fluffed out of the top of it. Cash. Gift cards to the grocery store and Walmart. Another for a sporting goods store. All packaged like a small present from Audrey’s swift thinking. “As per my word.” I hold up my hand when he goes to dig through the tissue paper and pulls out what’s sitting on top, a teddy bear.

  “What the—”

  “You know there are eyes on us, Leo. Every apartment. Across the street. Curiosity isn’t always a good thing. Open it inside. No one needs to see what’s in there. For all they know it’s a stuffed animal. Let them keep thinking that.”

  Leo’s mom nods subtly. She understands what I mean. That locks on doors can’t prevent gunfire through walls or baseball bats through windows in a quest to take what they’d see is in that bag if he opened it now.

  “I promise you it’s there.”

  Leo’s eyes hold mine, and he nods. “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve got to get going.”

  “That’s it?” he asks and then catches himself and what it sounds like. “I don’t mean what’s in the bag. I mean…”

  I smile. Motivation is a strong thing. “More stuff to do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give me a few days. I just got back in town. But call Audrey the day after tomorrow and she’ll have more work for you.” God knows there’s endless work that can be done here.

  “Okay. I will.”

  I smile at both of them, and then as I start to walk around the car, Leo says, “Hey,” and jogs over to me.

  “Yeah?” I ask but when I look at him, he’s looking down at his hands fiddling with the handle of the gift bag.

  “Just wanted to say thanks for coming back. For keeping your word is all.”

  “Funny. I was going to say the same thing. Good job, Leo. Thank you for keeping your word to me too.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  Holden

  My feet fall heavy as I walk down the office corridor.

  There are too many fucking people here. Too many employees. Too many visitors. Just too many obstacles to getting the one thing I’ve been thinking about for the past five days I’ve been gone: fucking Rowan.

  Figuratively and literally.

  Especially with the last text exchange we had before my flight took off. Something about how she gets on her knees for no one. Of course, she was talking off the cuff about work, but fuck if her pause after she said it didn’t have me growing hard thinking about her on her knees before me as she takes me to the back of her throat.

  The thought makes me pick up the pace a bit more.

  And of course, she’s nowhere in sight. Not in her office. Not in the lunchroom. Not in the … there she is.

  I open the conference room door and four sets of eyes whip up to meet mine.

  Men. There are three men in the conference room with Rowan.

  Three men around her. Talking to her. No doubt distracted by the swell of her tits sitting snugly in her fuchsia sweater.

  Fucking hell does she look incredible.

  “Holden. You’re back,” Rowan says, her eyes lighting up and her smile growing a little wider as she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

  “Straight from the airport.” Why are these assholes here? I’m in serious need of a spontaneous off-site visit where Rowan shows me the lay of her land.

  “Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Holden Knight. He’s the incoming—”

  “We know who he is,” Eager Joe with the mismatching tan suit says. He stands and reaches his hand out. “Akiro Nishikawa with GWA, Don Staley, and Josh Jackson.”

  “GWA?” I ask as we shake.

  “GlassWare America,” Akiro responds.

  “They’re one of the largest glass bottle suppliers on the East Coast,” Rowan says. “We’ve been working through a structural contract and pricing pyramid that will give us mutually exclusive incentives if we decide to onboard them as one of our new suppliers.”

  There’s my girl. Kicking ass and taking names.

  My girl?

  What the fuck was that, Knight?

  “Great.” I take a seat, jet-lagged as fuck, but curious as to how Rowan works in these situations. “Don’t mind me. Carry on.”

  Rowan gives me the strangest of looks before taking a deep breath. “Now, where were we?”

  The four of them continue their conversation. Price points. Inventory thresholds. Markups. Restocking fees. The give and take. The back and forth. Over and over.

  I’m turned on by her all the time now, but Rowan Rothschild negotiating? Now that’s fucking hot.

  She’s firm when she needs to be. Auspiciously compliant when it suits the request. There’s a savviness to her that I knew she had but I had yet to see in action.

  I’m impressed. More than I expected to be and that’s a rarity for me.

  Audrey texts me that she needs me. Torn between getting to her and leaving this negotiation, I decide to jump into the conversation.

  “Great. Perfect.” I rise from my seat and draw the attention of the room. “How about we shave two percent on sticking point one. Offer a referral program under number three. And since we’re shaving on one, Akiro, you take what we’ve offered on point four.” All eyes stare at me. “Good? Good.” I don’t wait for a response. If you leave an inch, the opposition will take a mile. “Great to have met you gentlemen. I look forward to doing business with you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some pressing matters to get to.”

  I exit the conference room with a few handshakes and a nod, then spend the next hour catching up on things with Audrey. There’s too much to do and not enough fucking time—land deals to squash, buyers to vet, unknowing enemies to reacquaint myself with—but isn’t that the best part about all of this?

  Being right under their noses and them not knowing it? Shaking hands. Looking them in the eyes. And getting the knife ready for their backs.

  “Holden?”

  “Mmm?” I don’t look up at Audrey’s voice as I continue typing my email.

  “You’re being called down to storage. Something about an issue with the server—a break in the firewall that someone—Harold, I think—wants to show you,” Audrey says at my doorway.

  “Because that’s the last thing I want to do,” I grumble.

  “I can go for you.”

  “You, look at firewalls? C’mon now,” I tease. Audrey is a self-proclaimed ostrich, purposely keeping her head in the sand when it comes to anything other than the basic tech.

  And I’m fine with that for a lot of reasons.

  But this? Our IT manager summoning me for something that he should be able to take care of himself is a tad irritating.

  Then again, why is someone other than me poking their nose in our firewall? A few keystrokes from my desk could easily find out the answer. But Harold needs to know that I know what I’m talking about.

  “I’m going.”

  “See and be seen, huh?” She raises an eyebrow.

  “Exactly.” Especially after there was an apparent temper tantrum while I was gone. A very loud, very public freak-out by Rhett.

  One that may have had me pouring a glass and toasting my empty hotel room while I gloated after Audrey told me about it.

  One that I may have had a small hand in.

  “We’re at that stage of the purchase already?” she asks because, to everyone besides Rhett and myself, the timeline is unknown.

  “We’re at that stage of seeing which managers are competent enough to stay onboard.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “Fun times,” I say with a sarcastic lift of my eyebrows that she’s known me long enough to interpret—someone might be about to get fired—and I rise from my seat. I’m on the elevator and off at the seventh-floor storage room within minutes. The receptionist there, Gina—I think her name is Gina—is on her cell phone and throws it down like it’s on fire the minute she sees me. If she was trying to hide that it was a personal call, she needs to learn how to be more subtle. But she’s young, biding her time with this job while she gets her degree, and more than intimidated by me.

  As I like it to be.

  For that reason alone, I let it go.

  “Oh. Mr. Knight. Hi. I wasn’t—I didn’t know you were coming.”

  My smile is efficient when I offer it. “Harold’s office?”

  “But he’s not—it’s back there.” She points vaguely over her shoulder. “The last door on the left. I mean—”

  I nod. “Last door on the left? I thought his office was on the right.”

  “It is … but servers are on the left.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  I stride past her and down the long hallway, irritated to be called for such a trivial thing, and more than ready at this point to put Harold on notice. Or just fire him.

  But when I open the door to the server room, the hulking, six-foot-five meek giant Harold isn’t there to greet me.

  Not in the least.

  It’s Rowan and her lips find mine almost as fast as her fingers find the lock on the door at my back.

  We’re on each other like it’s been a year rather than a mere five days. But those five days felt like fucking torture, and it’s only intensified now that I have the taste of her kiss and the warmth of her body against mine.

  Her hands are on my belt and she’s undoing my pants as her tongue teases mine. And without warning, she’s dropping to her knees and yanking my slacks down with her as she goes.

  Good fucking god. It’s my only thought and as it is, the thought is sucked from my mind as Rowan looks up at me and takes me inch by inch between those fucking perfect pouty, pink lips of hers.

  My hips buck in reaction and my hand reaches down to the side of her face as I hit the back of her throat.

  I fight the guttural groan I want to emit. It’s brutal to not let it out—from the sensation her warm, wet mouth evokes and the visual of her before me with her cheeks hollowed out around me.

  She may be on her knees, but I’m at her fucking mercy.

  She begins to work me over. Her hand twisting and her mouth sucking and tongue expertly applying pressure exactly where it needs to be applied.

  My whole fucking body is on fire as the coil in my lower belly and balls begins to tighten. Each lick with another fucking twist in it. Each hit of the back of her throat a fucking euphoria like no goddamn other. Each scrape of her fingernails against my balls an added bonus.

  My hand is fisted in her hair as I fuck her mouth. Over and over. Again and again. I beg for it to happen faster at the same time I want it to slow down. To prolong this moment. This goddamn pleasure.

  “Yes. Row. God, yes.”

  My cock swells.

  “All the way in. Take it for me.”

  Hardens.

  “You suck cock so fucking good. Fuck.”

  Hurts with the best kind of pain as she works me toward my orgasm.

  And right as I’m on the cusp, about to the point of no return, Rowan releases my cock from her suction with a loud pop and rises to her feet.

  A protest is on my lips, my body revolting against her stopping. “Row?” It’s a croaked plea. “Please.”

  She chuckles as she leans into me, her lips inches from mine, her finger pointing into my chest, and her eyes wild with fire.

  “How’s it feel, Knight?”

  “How does what feel?” I all but plead with my tone, my cock in my hands and my pants around my ankles.

  “Not getting to seal the deal.” She takes a step back and smiles.

  “What?” What the fuck is she talking about?

  “I spent weeks on the GWA deal. Endless fucking hours negotiating, bargaining, and putting all the work in all by myself, and then you walk in and close the deal without letting me finish it myself.” She glances down to my cock, at the pre-come dripping off its tip before meeting my eyes again. Her smirk is a taunt I’d like to fuck right off her face and would if I weren’t preoccupied with being stunned.

  “What are you…?”

  “It feels kind of like this. Working yourself up, waiting for the release, just on the verge of coming, and then bam, having it yanked away. All buildup and no finish.”

  “Are you fucking serious right now?” I laugh the words out, my head dizzy and my balls aching.

  “As a heart attack.” She takes another step back and unlocks the door. My eyes all but bug out of my head as she shrugs. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have another meeting to get to.”

  She opens the door and then shuts it. I stare at the door she just walked out of, hang my head, and just laugh.

  That’s all I can fucking do because I’m sure as shit not stroking myself off in the server room. Besides, my hand has nothing on Rowan’s mouth.

  Fucking Rowan Rothschild.

  No woman has ever done something like that to me before.

  And I kind of like it.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Holden

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  “Mom. There’s someone at the door.” I look into the bedroom of our apartment. To the bed the three of us used to share. To my mother curled in a ball on it with Mason’s flannel shirt and pillow bunched up in her arms, her nose buried in it to remember his scent.