Page 17

Past: One Year Before the Accident—Twenty-Three Years Old

“She should be here soon. Thanks for doing this, man.” Liam slides his headphones around his neck and walks toward his room from the kitchen.

“No problem. I don’t have to work this weekend.” I feign nonchalance and tuck my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants, hoping Liam won’t notice them shaking.

My Nova is coming to our new apartment.

It’s her first time, since Liam always visits the mansion and not the other way around, and Alexis spends most of her time on campus these days.

It’s a wonder our paths haven’t crossed until now.

Fate is a shitty jokester.

“Knew I could count on you. And…” His voice trails off, drawing my attention back to him.

“What? Spit it out.”

“I don’t need to remind you—no funny shit with my sister, right? I know how women fall at your feet… Your broody persona and all that.”

I swallow and fist my hands in my pockets.

“Ethan? I need your word.” His voice carries a hard edge now, and he stands taller—the rule-breaking hacker shifting into a protective, older brother.

“My sister is off-limits. She deserves a good man with no commitment and trust issues—someone who can give her his whole damn heart and protect hers with his life. ”

My smile is brittle.

I want to be that man.

But can I? “You don’t have to ask.”

“Then I need your word. You Andersons take that very seriously.”

My word.

A promise. Fuck.

A knot tightens in my gut.

I feel sick. “You have my word. Alexis is off-limits.”

The muscles spasm in my neck and I level my stare at Liam.

He grins, his body relaxing.

“I’ll be inside working, but if you guys need me, just holler.”

As soon as he disappears into his room, I collapse into my chair.

Burying my face into my hands, I close my eyes.

An image of her appears in my mind.

Those silky orange locks.

The sweet lavender scent.

The smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose.

The way her breath hitched when I invaded her mouth with my tongue.

How her soft tits felt on my chest when I pulled her closer.

The way she gyrated her hips when she moved unwittingly over my thigh as our kiss spun out of control.

Blood rushes to my groin and my cock flares to half-mast. Fuck.

How am I going to do this—

Ding.

Dong.

She’s here.

Adjusting myself, I stand and head to the door.

I grit my teeth and wrench it open.

I promptly lose my breath.

Alexis stands there, her hair piled up in a loose bun, a few tendrils framing her face and grazing her creamy shoulders showcased by the wide neckline of her deep green sweater.

A flush blooms on her cheeks when she sees me.

Goddamn, she’s beautiful.

I want to pull her into my arms and kiss those pouty, pink lips.

That perfect cupid’s bow and the full bottom lip.

I want to taste them and savor her sweetness.

I want to swallow her whimpers and make it my life’s purpose to tease more out of her.

Find ten ways—no, a hundred new ways—of making her writhe in my arms .

Hell in a handbasket.

The air thickens between us, and her breathing quickens.

She bites on that bottom lip now, and I stare at the movement, hypnotized, a fire crawling up my body.

Every part of me is burning, my skin hypersensitized.

I can practically feel her.

Taste her. She’s so close to me and I can just reach out and—

“Dude. Are you going to let her in?”

We flinch and footsteps echo behind me.

How did I miss Liam stepping out of his room?

I drag my eyes away from my Nova and step aside, sweeping my hand toward the living room.

“Hey, Alexis. Come in.”

She brushes past me toward Liam, and a cloud of lavender perfume floats to my nose.

I breathe it in.

“Don’t go all big bro on me, Liam.” She pokes his chest as Liam mock growls.

“Too bad. You’re the only sister I have. It’s my job to boss you around.” He unleashes a shit-eating grin.

“You’re overbearing, insane, out of your mind—”

I clear my throat.

“We going to start? I only have an hour.” Sixty minutes of hell.

Liam frowns. “I thought you were free—”

“I forgot I have a call with Hong Kong.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Our hotels and clubs are open every day, you know.”

He harrumphs and Alexis squints at me, her arms crossed over her chest.

Bullshit , she mouths.

“Well, let’s not waste Ethan’s time then. I’m sure he’s very busy…running an empire and all.”

I narrow my eyes at her.

She knows I’m undercover at Fleur.

What the hell is she playing at?

She ignores me and stalks to the dining table next to the windows overlooking Central Park.

“Nice view. Glad to know my brother isn’t living in a man cave. ”

“Oh please, I’m an adult, Firefly. No more college frat boy lifestyle. And this fucker is anal about the apartment.” He jabs his thumb in my direction.

“Don’t leave your shoes on the carpet. Limit the crap you put in your bodies. Don’t be a slob even though we have a cleaning service. I can go on.”

“How you live reflects on you as a person, dipshit. I swear, why are we sharing a place again? It’s not like you don’t have money.”

“Because you’re lonely, dumb fuck. I’m here to save you from becoming one of those reclusive billionaires who rots for two weeks in his fancy penthouse before anyone discovers his corpse. And you like having me around.”

“To drive me insane,” I mutter under my breath.

Alexis snorts and I snake a glance at her, finding her lips twitching in amusement.

A smile curves up my lips and her eyes widen, the enticing flush blooming on her face once more.

God, I want to find a thousand ways to make her blush like that.

Forcing myself to look away, I set up my laptop at the dining table and pull up some notes I took from my Intro to Finance class back when I was a freshman.

“So, which areas have you covered and what parts are you confused about?”

Liam mumbles something about lunch and saunters back into his room as Alexis takes a seat next to me.

Every inch of my body tenses when I smell the soft lavender and feel her body heat radiating in the tiny sliver of space between us.

We spend the next hour going over the various financial concepts and some basic terminology she’ll need to understand for the rest of the semester.

She struggles with the numbers and math but seems to understand concepts as long as I use real world, everyday examples.

Alexis is smart, and it pains me to see her doubt herself.

I think she just hasn’t had the right teachers who’ll tailor their teaching approach to her.

“What about formulas? How are you with those?” I cross off a few of the syllabus items on the notepad in front of us .

“We’ve covered the basics. Some are familiar because of the class I took in senior year. But to be honest, none of this makes sense to me. Numbers and cents. Present value. Future value. Interest rates and cash flows. It might as well be Greek.”

“Hm.” I see where she’s coming from.

Numbers have always been easy for me.

Like science, they’re reassuring.

There are rules. There’s order.

But Alexis is a dreamer.

She loves reading, traveling, and experiencing new things.

She likes human psychology and feeling the expanse of human emotions.

She doesn’t know it, but my Nova thrives on the mess that is the world.

Your Nova? My stomach sours.

I shove that thought away.

“So, when I first studied finance, I found mnemonics helpful, especially with formulas. Have you taken any East Asian languages before?”

She shakes her head.

“Well, Chinese characters are a bit like Egyptian hieroglyphs, in a sense they’re based on pictures. Each word has its own character and, unlike English, you can’t sound it out. So, you have to memorize many words in order to be literate.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

“ Wo ke yi jiang zhong wen, ” I reply, enjoying the way her mouth drops open.

“I just said I can speak Chinese. The basics. Took seven years of it between high school and college.”

She’s still staring mutedly at me, and I add, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Nova.”

Her breath hitches.

“You called me Nova.”

My nostrils flare and I ignore her comment.

Damn it, I have to be more careful.

Looking at the textbook in front of us, I continue, “Many teachers recommend spinning up a story about these characters. For example, this is the character for heart.” I write it on the paper.

“Kind of looks like a human heart, right?”

She nods and leans closer.

I rake in a deep inhale of her sweet perfume.

So damn sweet. I can get drunk from the scent .

Wetting my lips, I point to the first formula on the opened chapter—how to derive the future value of an investment based on a present value.

“So for this formula, FV = PV x (1+r)^n, imagine a garden where the future blooms from my efforts in the present, nurtured by my persistence and care over time. So, the future value is equal to the present value multiplied by one plus the interest rate to the power of n, or the time period. Does that make sense?”

Alexis stays silent for a bit, and slowly a soft smile graces her face.

“It’s almost like poetry.” She turns and stares at me.

“You, Ethan Anderson, are a poet hiding behind a fancy last name and a broody personality.” The smile turns impish.

“Makes sense. All the greats…Byron, Keats…they’re all sensitive, grumpy souls.”

Her tongue dips out to wet her lips and my eyes snare on the movement.

More heated blood rushes south and my cock stiffens.

Her breathing grows heavier.

Louder. The swells of her breasts move with each breath, inviting me, beckoning me to lean in and taste them.

My nostrils flare and I curl my fingers into a fist on the table.

“Nova,” I whisper and lean in.

“Yes, Keeper?” Keeper.

I’m her keeper.

She’s mine.

“I…” I swallow. Take it, Ethan.

Take what she’s offering.

You’re her keeper. Screw the promise.

Liam can fuck off. Why is it so hard to breathe in here?

But what if you hurt her?

I think back to Cleo, how heartbroken she sounded when I broke it off with her.

Or Maxwell, and how much colder and withdrawn he is after his high school sweetheart died.

Who buys their dream car before they even get a learner’s permit?

Our faces are now inches apart, and suddenly, I feel her soft hand on top of mine, and electricity courses between us, setting me on fire.

I need to think. I need to distract myself.

“Best thing this week?” I blurt the first thing in my mind.

Of course, it has to be what we used to tell each other—the journal entries I treasure .

“Seeing you, Ethan,” she murmurs.

I watch as her eyes darken, the pupils encroaching on her irises, a siren singing her song, luring me to crash into her rocks.

Swallowing, I close my eyes, feeling her breath graze my face as I dip my nose into the crook of her neck.

A sound escapes her lips.

It’s needy. Hot. Somewhere between a moan and a whimper.

My Nova needs me. Only I can give her what she needs.

The possessive thought crashes in from nowhere, a tsunami obliterating all rationality.

I part my lips and kiss the pulse beating at her neck before sucking it.

Hard.

A shriek tumbles out of her mouth, and I slap my hand over her lips.

She returns the favor by biting my fingers and grabbing my shoulder, her body melting against me, her tits thrusted against my face.

My brain short circuits.

I don’t remember why this is a bad idea.

All I know is, I need to haul her on my lap, kiss her, shred the damn clothes separating our bodies, make her scream my name in pleasure, and then I’ll do it again, and again.

Then—

A loud thump sounds from Liam’s room and jolts me from my insane thoughts.

I slam back in my chair, getting as far away from her as possible, my lungs short on oxygen, because that’s the only rational explanation for why my brain stopped functioning.

Alexis’s breaths are heavy, her eyes that were drunk with lust and passion moments ago, now carry a glimmer of pain.

She blinks rapidly, and her lips tremble.

I’ve hurt her. I’m a fucking bastard.

I bite the inside of my cheek, focusing on the pain instead of my impulse to reach out and comfort her.

“You know, I can deal with my brothers. They don’t run my life. They’re overprotective, but they want what’s best for me. But you…I don’t get at all.”

Her nostrils flare, her lips pressed in a hard line.

“The worst thing about this week,” she says thickly as she gathers her papers, “is seeing you pull away.”

With that, she shoves her papers and books into the bag and leaves the table. Fuck.