The Wrong Man (Alpha Men 3)

Craig nodded and strode off purposefully, a man on a mission, and Sam diverted his attention back to his mother.

“How old is this one, Mum?”

“He’s twenty-seven.” Seven years younger than Sam, then. “Not very clever, but I don’t keep him around for his scintillating conversation.”

“Ugh. I don’t need to hear more.”

“Yes, enough about Craig. Tell me how long you’ll be in this hospital. Afterward, I insist you stay with me. In Milan. I can’t stand London in spring. So damp.”

God, no. The notion was horrifying beyond reason. He’d have to witness her affair with Craig fizzle out, then watch her go on the prowl for a replacement and listen to her nag on about her “stingy” ex-husbands and, worst of all, endure her inevitable smothering attention. He’d go crazy in a day.

“No, Mum. I have other plans.”

“You do? Please don’t tell me you’re staying with your father—you know how that woman’s smoking affects your asthma.”

“Her name is Rita,” Sam said wryly, referring to his father’s lovely wife of twenty-seven years. “And she stopped smoking about a decade ago. And I never had asthma, remember? Just allergies . . . which I outgrew round about the same time I hit puberty.”

“So you are staying with them?” His mother seemed affronted, and Sam huffed in exasperation. His mother, the consummate drama queen, always treated Rita like some home-wrecking other woman, when in fact his father had met and married the woman years after their divorce. Sam would never stay with the Brands, though—his father had always been kind but distant. The obligatory holidays Sam had spent with the man and his other family had been strained. And Sam definitely didn’t get along with his three half brothers. They were so respectable. And boring. They were uptight, tightly wound arseholes.

Maybe he was being a bit harsh. They weren’t bad guys, they were just . . . a unit. And Sam, being a number of years older, had never been a part of that unit. He didn’t know or understand them and had always regarded them as little nuisances whenever he had stayed with his father during seemingly endless summer vacations. Sam recalled the way the boys had whispered to each other behind their chubby little fingers and stared at him when they were old enough to recognize that he was a stranger in their midst. It had gotten progressively worse with each holiday. They’d started trailing after him, hiding behind furniture and walls to spy on him. And whenever he spotted them, they had scattered like frightened mice. Sam had always felt like an interloper and a freak during those vacations and had been supremely grateful when they ended after his seventeenth birthday.

His half brothers had sent him a nicely worded get-well-soon card. Just one card from all three of them and their wives. His father and Rita had called. His father had suggested it was time he grew up and got a real job. The man didn’t really know Sam well enough to comment on his work ethic, or lack thereof—he simply assumed that Sam enjoyed the same freewheeling lifestyle as his mother. Sam didn’t care enough to correct the man’s misconceptions about him. They casually observed the familial relationship, but there was no real depth to said relationship.

“No, Mum. I’m not staying with them. After I get out of here, I’ll need extensive rehab and time away from the job.” True enough, even though he really had no intention of not working. The place would fall to ruin without him to keep an eye on things. If his former business partner, Mason Carlisle, was still around, Sam would be a hundred percent more confident about taking the time off. But as it stood, Carlisle had sold his shares of the company to Sam nearly three years ago and was recently wed and now studying architecture.

Sam trusted his guys, but none of them were the type to sit in an office and crunch numbers or schmooze potential clients. Which meant he would have to run things remotely. Not ideal. Well, that taught him to go out into the field. Never again, no matter the client.

“So where will you stay and who will take care of you?” his mother asked.

“What’s wrong with staying at my apartment in Chiswick? I could hire a nurse or something.” His mother cast him a jaundiced look, clearly not thrilled with his answer.

“I know you better than you think I do, Samuel. You won’t be able to resist going to the office. If you insist on staying, then I’ll have to stay with you.”

Dear God, no!

“I didn’t say I was staying here; I just asked what was wrong with it,” he backtracked quickly. His phone buzzed, and, grateful for the distraction, he yanked it up and stared at the name on the screen with wide eyes. Think of the devil.