She glanced at Jonathan. “One minute?” she asked and he nodded.

She answered the phone. “Hi, Ethan. Everything okay?” He didn’t usually call during his business hours in the United States.

“It’s Parker.” Ethan’s middle brother, who she hadn’t had any contact with since her mother and his father had sent her away to boarding school. He’d been the quietest one, busy with his skiing and training for the Olympics.

“Is everything okay?” she immediately asked.

“I’m going through the numbers in Ethan’s phone and I know he’d want me to call you.”

“What’s wrong?” She stiffened with panic. “Is Ethan okay?”

“It’s Mandy,” Parker said. “She … passed away last night.”

Dizziness assaulted her. Ethan’s wife. The woman he loved, as much as she’d let him, anyway. “Oh my God.”

“Ashley?” Jonathan placed his napkin on the table, and leaned forward.

She held up a hand. “What happened?” she asked Parker.

“Accidental overdose.”

She swallowed hard. “How is he?”

“Shaken up. Hurting. I know he kept in touch with you over the years and you two are close. He’d want you to know.”

“Thank you for calling. How … how is the family?” she forced herself to ask.

“It’s been a shock but we’re dealing,” Parker said. “I saw your email was in E’s contacts. I’ll send you the funeral information.”

“Thank you,” she said again. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

She disconnected the call, eyes glazed with unshed tears for Ethan and Mandy, a woman she’d liked very much.

She brushed at the tears in her eyes, worried about Ethan. He wasn’t used to relying on other people. Instead he was the caretaker, she thought. Knowing him, he would try to push forward, but he was the brother who had stepped into the parental role his real father didn’t know how to perform. And now he’d need someone to handle things once the immediate shock wore off and reality settled in.

He had his siblings—Parker, who was obviously taking charge, and Sebastian, who, as far as she knew, was still the playboy he’d always been. He also had his younger sister, Sierra. But they’d all be hurting. Ashley could lift the burden and be there for Ethan much as he’d always been there for her over the years.

Jonathan cleared his throat, bringing her back to the present. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You look upset.”

She met his gaze. “That was Parker, Ethan Knight’s brother.”

Although Jonathan knew she and Ethan Knight were close friends, he didn’t know her past with the family and how she’d ended up on this side of the pond, as he liked to say.

And didn’t that explain just another reason why she couldn’t marry him, she thought. He didn’t know the most intimate details of her life—because she hadn’t chosen to share them with him.

“His wife passed away,” she explained. “And I need to go back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but back? To New York?” he asked, sounding surprised.

She nodded. “Ethan is like a brother and he’ll need me now.”

“But for how long?” Jonathan asked, his expression puzzled, as if he was trying to figure out where he fit into her plans.

“I don’t know.” But considering she’d just declined his proposal, distance would be a good thing, she thought, though she wouldn’t say such a thing aloud. She didn’t need the stress of him pressuring her or her friends asking her how she could have turned him down.

Jonathan paid the check in awkward silence and he drove her home, their parting even more uncomfortable. In her mind, they were over. She cared about him and was sad, but their relationship had been more about convenience than love. And right now she could only focus on Ethan. The one true friend she’d ever had at a time when she otherwise would have been completely lost.

And that meant she was headed back to the States. She couldn’t call it home. Sebastian had made sure of that. If only returning home didn’t mean dealing with the only man who’d ever held her heart.

Before she’d locked it up for good.

Chapter Two

The day of the funeral, Sebastian tried to act as a buffer for his brother, but people had come to pay their respects, and they wanted to talk to Ethan in person. The family gathered, Ethan, Sebastian, Parker, and Sierra, in a small room where a revolving door of guests came in and went out again. Sebastian lost track of who he’d seen, personal friends and professional colleagues giving their condolences, but there was a book outside that would keep track of who’d come and gone.

His best buddy, Ryder Hammond, was there, a long-time friend of the family and Sierra’s one-time boyfriend. Back in high school, they’d gotten together, and man, it’d been serious fast, only to burn out when Ryder panicked and broke up with her before her graduation. These days, Sierra was engaged to a great guy, who was away on business and couldn’t make it back for the funeral. Even so, they all approved of the man for Sierra, and as far as Sebastian knew, she’d made her peace with Ryder. But that didn’t mean he didn’t catch lingering looks between them at family gatherings that made him uneasy and left him wondering if they had unfinished business.

Tags: Carly Phillips The Knight Brothers Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net