I looked at the clock on my desk. It was four in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep a wink. My mind was spinning thinking about what was going to happen in a few days. Jesus Christ…I’d have to see her again.
I narrowed my eyes, glancing at the wedding invitation. There was nothing in this world I hated more just then than a stupid ceremony with two people pledging eternal love. What bullshit.
I’d agreed to be Lion’s best man because I wasn’t enough of an asshole to say no, realizing that Lion’s dad was gone and that he probably wouldn’t want his brother, Luca, an ex-con to be part of the ceremony. But the closer the day came, the more irritable and nervous I grew.
I didn’t want to see her… I’d even talked to Jenna, had even tried to force her to choose, had said it was Noah or me, but Lion got so mad, he nearly whooped my ass.
I had a million reasons not to go, but none of them was enough to justify leaving my two best friends in the lurch.
I got up from my chair and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window with its stunning views of New York. There, on the sixty-second floor, I felt so far from everyone and everything… A glacial cold overtook me. That’s what I was: ice, a block of ice.
Those ten months had been a nightmare. I’d gone to hell, all on my own, had been burned alive, and had emerged from the ashes a completely different person.
No more smiles, no more dreams, no more feeling anything for another person beyond carnal desire. Standing up there, far from the world, I was in a prison, and there was no room for anyone else.
I heard someone walk up behind me. Then a pair of arms wrapped around me. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t feel anything anymore. I just existed.
“Why don’t you come back to bed?” I heard the girl say. I’d just met her a few hours before in one of the best restaurants in the city.
My life was one thing now. Work. Work, work more, make money, make more, rinse and repeat.
Just two months had passed since my grandfather’s body decided he’d had enough of this world and wanted to leave it. It was at that moment, when I received the call telling me he was gone, that I finally let myself break down. Another person I loved had been taken from me. And at that moment, I realized life was shit: you give someone your heart, you let them hold it for you, and then you find out that not only did they not take care of it the way you hoped, they actually crushed it until all the blood drained out. And the people who really did love you just up and left this world one day without even warning you; they didn’t leave a trace behind, and there you were, unable to understand what happened, asking yourself why they had to go…
Well, he didn’t leave without any trace at all. There was a document that had changed my life and turned everything upside down.
My grandfather left me absolutely everything. Not just his house in Montana and his properties—he even left me Leister Enterprises in its totality. My father didn’t inherit a thing. Not that he needed it—he oversaw one of the most important law firms in the country. But the empire, all the Leister corporations, even the financial arm, which my father had used to dominate the banking industry, was mine. I’d always wanted to work in finance with my grandfather. What I’d never imagined was that it would just fall in my lap like this.
All at once, I’d had to step into that post I had yearned for, and I was officially the owner of a vast array of businesses, all at the age of twenty-three.
I’d given so much of myself to my work, to show I could get through all the obstacles, to show I could be the best, that no one doubted my abilities anymore. I’d reached the top…and yet I couldn’t ignore how terrible I felt.
I turned and looked at the brunette chick who’d been trying to turn me on a few hours before. She was tall and thin, with blue eyes and perfect tits, but she was a warm body, nothing more. I didn’t even remember her name. She should have left a long time ago. I’d told her I just wanted to fuck, and when we were done, I’d book a car to take her home. But after dealing with a situation that made me angrier than I could admit, I felt the urge to get rid of all that tension that had built up inside me, and that meant keeping her around.
She rubbed my chest and tried to meet my eyes. “I’ve got to admit, the rumors were true,” she said, pressing against me.
I grabbed her wrists and stopped her. “I don’t care what anyone says about me,” I replied cuttingly. “It’s four a.m. I’ve got a car coming for you in half an hour, so you better make good use of the time.”
Those were ugly words, but she smiled.
“You’ve got it, Mr. Leister.”
I clenched my teeth and let her keep going. I closed my eyes, letting momentary pleasure and basic sensual satisfaction keep me from feeling the void inside. Sex was no longer what it had been, and for me…it was better that way.
