What no one else knew—what Ian Devlin was keeping close to his chest probably to use in the future—was that Emery Saunders was actually Louisa Emery Paxton. She’d inherited the majority shares in her deceased grandfather’s company, the Paxton Group, a billion-dollar corporation that owned airlines and an aeronautical company.
If Jack attempted to insinuate himself into Emery’s life, Ian would only use him to get to her.
Tightness clawed at his chest as it always did when he thought about his father and brothers. Jack had tried his best to break away. Now and then, one of them would hound Jack to come back into the fold. And Jack did whatever he could to avoid fucking up and giving Ian something he could use to blackmail Jack.
All this time he thought he’d made it out. Free and clear of Ian.
But Jack realized now that he hadn’t.
When he finally settled down, it would have to be with a nobody. Someone Ian couldn’t use.
It couldn’t be with a woman as wealthy as Emery Saunders.
Disappointment that seemed out of proportion to the situation, considering he hadn’t even spoken two words to Emery, flooded him.
Cooper must have seen something in his face because concern furrowed his brows. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” Jack’s voice was flat. “Just realized you’re right. I’m not ready to settle down.”
His friend gave him a slow nod, but there was suspicion in Coop’s eyes.
Avoiding him, Jack looked up at the flat screen.
For the next two hours, he did his best to ignore the urge to look across the bar at Emery. He tried not to look at her when Iris and Ira came over to say good night while she hung back a little. If Iris hadn’t told him she was shy, Jack would think the New York princess was aloof.
She didn’t look like a New York princess in that long, clingy dress.
Christ, the image of her in that dress was imprinted on the back of his eyelids.
As the Greens departed with Emery at their back, Jack’s willpower fled, and he looked.
Just as Emery glanced back over her shoulder at him. When their eyes caught, she blushed again.
She made his chest ache.
Fucking ache.
Then she was gone.
His chest ached harder.
Jack’s reaction was an overreaction. But he couldn’t deny it was how he felt.
And for the first time in a long time, Jack got very, very drunk that night.
2
Emery
Hartwell
Nine years ago
Standing behind the counter of my bookstore café, I gazed in wonder at the space. No one would have believed the compact building that had housed the Burger Shack could look like it did now.
When my grandmother died, leaving me everything, including the rental properties she’d obtained up and down the East Coast, I’d spent weeks poring over it all with her business manager and financial advisor, Hague Williams. Hague was now in his late fifties, sharp as ever, and as devoted to me as he was to my grandmother.
I knew I didn’t want to live on her estate in Westchester. The house was too big and lonely. I’d had dreams of opening a bookstore since I was a child, and I wanted as far away from society life as I could get. Like my grandmother before me, I had to trust in other people to run the Paxton Group so I could pursue my own passions.
My grandmother’s interest had lain with real estate. She liked to travel the country looking for buildings that were unassuming but lucrative. For instance, the Burger Shack in a small beach town called Hartwell in Delaware’s Cape Region. Technically, Hartwell was a city, but it was tiny.
She bought the building to rent out because boardwalk property in the tourist city was worth a lot of money.
When I started investigating her properties, I did it physically. I went out to all the locations that interested me. And I knew as soon as I arrived in Hartwell that it was the place for me. I gave the tenants of the Burger Shack three months to make other arrangements and included a hefty compensation for their troubles, against Hague’s advice. I had to soothe my guilt somehow, though. I was kicking someone out of their business so I could launch mine.
“You own the building, Emery,” Hague had said, exasperated. “It belongs to you. Not them. It’s in the rental contract that you can end the contract with only six weeks’ notice.”
I knew that. But still.
After that, I began the hunt for a place to live. By sheer luck—or at least it seemed like luck—a beach house, minutes’ walk from what would become my bookstore, came up for sale. It was a sizable beach house with an open-plan living space, a wrap-around porch, and three bedrooms. I fell in love immediately. Mostly because the previous owners had attached a stunning porch swing that was almost like a bed. I could sit curled up on it every morning with coffee in hand and watch the sun rise above the ocean.