Hero (Hero 1)

His apartment was now our apartment—it was also barely recognizable. Gone were the white leather kitchen stools and the stark black color scheme. In their place was comfortable and gender-neutral furniture with not-so-gender-neutral cushions and throws strewn on them to emulate the coziness of my old apartment.

Caine didn’t even say a word.

To be honest, I think he barely noticed.

He was used to my style now, and wasn’t a guy who was interested in soft furnishings.

“I don’t remember you being this crazy when it was our wedding.” Caine scowled down at the massive folder filled with Nadia’s wedding arrangements.

“That’s because I wasn’t. Moreover, Henry and Nadia’s wedding is for a hundred and fifty guests. We had six.”

“I liked ours better,” he murmured, sipping his coffee.

“Me too.” I laughed at his petulance, but I really couldn’t blame him. Nadia and Henry’s wedding seemed to be taking over my life at the moment.

“If they weren’t our friends.” He eyed the folder again.

“You can’t burn it,” I said.

Caine grinned at me. “Get out of my head.”

“I don’t want to.” It was my turn to grumble. “I want to dive into your head and take you to bed and have my wicked way with you.” I pushed the map away from me. “Instead I’m spending today hopping from one bridal boutique to the next trying to find the perfect bridesmaid dresses because Nadia has become obsessed with using homegrown designs.” I bugged my eyes out in frustration. “She’s not even from Boston.”

His lips twitched. “This is why you shouldn’t work with friends.”

“We did okay.”

“We were lovers. We were never friends.” To make his point he got up to put his mug in the sink and as he passed me he pressed a kiss to the side of my neck.

Three years on and he still made my toes tingle. “That’s not true. You’re my best friend.”

In answer Caine wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me back against his chest. “You’re mine too, baby. That’s why I’m asking you to put the folder of doom aside tonight so we can go out for a nice meal and spend some time together.”

There was nothing in this world I’d like to do more. “We can’t. We’re having dinner with Nadia and Henry.”

My husband dropped his forehead to my shoulder and groaned. “There’s such a thing as too much ‘friend time.’ ”

I shook with laughter. “We made these plans ages ago. We’re going to the opening of that new restaurant, Smoke.”

“Oh, that sounds appetizing,” he remarked dryly as he pulled up the stool beside me so our knees touched. “A restaurant opening. That means the media will be there.”

He looked weary just at the thought of it and I understood. From the moment Caine and I moved in together, the society papers went nuts. It was even worse when we were seen out and about with our friends. Caine, Henry, Nadia, and I would turn up to events together and the photographers would go mad trying to get pictures of us. Of course, it was a juicy story that Nadia was dating a Lexington. It was an even juicier story that the black sheep of the Holland family (that would be me) had accused her half brother of attempting to have her killed, and was now dating one of the wealthiest men in Boston.

Oh yeah, that was good tabloid fodder.

Not so good for my family.

To his credit, Grandpa had stood by me throughout the whole ordeal. Perhaps part of it was to make amends for his involvement in covering up Caine’s mother’s death, but I knew it was a difficult time for him because my grandmother had left him. Their relationship remained strained and distant up until Matthew’s hearing, where it was decided we had enough evidence against my brother to go to trial. My grandmother started to see sense then and she and my grandpa worked on patching things up.

She still refused to meet me, but I didn’t need her in my life. If her rejection stung a little, I only had to remind myself that I was used to it, and I’d learned some time ago to only want the people in my life who mattered, who cared.

Vernon Holts and Matthew’s case went to trial seven months ago. Holts was convicted of three counts of assault and one count of attempted murder. Six weeks later he was sentenced to twenty-eight years in a maximum-security prison. Matthew was advised by his lawyer to plead guilty because the evidence against him was significant. Not only did we have Holts’s witness statement, but there was also the jewelry that Holts had pawned. Every single piece led back to the Hollands and Matthew’s wife’s family. These were expensive pieces—pieces that were secured in the Hollands’ vault where only family members had access to the code. There were witness accounts from my grandfather’s staff that saw Matthew removing jewelry. But the real stinger was that he’d stupidly confessed the crime to his father-in-law when Holts got out of control. For whatever reasons, whether it was to protect his daughter and grandson from his son-in-law’s stupidity, or his sense of justice, Matthew’s father-in-law came forward as a witness in my case.

Matthew was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced a month ago to twenty years, a reduced sentence because he pleaded guilty.

I was just glad it was finally all over.

And as promised, Grandpa had taken me out of his will.

As for my father and me, just as I suspected, we’d lost touch since the trial ended. I intended to send a birthday and Christmas card each year so he knew that he was in my thoughts … but I couldn’t forge a relationship with him. As sad as it was, sometimes there really was too much damage between people. Sometimes we were better apart than we were together.