CHAPTER ONE
Ophelia
I pull my Bugatti into a parking space outside the old apartment building and blow out a breath. This neighborhood is a far cry from mine, but I’m definitely no stranger here, considering my housekeeper, Leeza, forgets her heart medication at least once a week. With my mother living in Prague indefinitely and my father practically sleeping at the office, I’m the only one home on a consistent basis, so I’m required to fetch it for her.
Well, not required exactly.
There might be a slight chance the kooky maid has grown on me.
Not that I’ll ever admit it out loud.
I was on my way to the beach when Leeza called me, bemoaning her forgetfulness, and I made a quick turn, speeding to Queens, where Leeza has lived for decades in her small two-bedroom. I’m going to grab the medication, drop it off at my family’s townhouse on the Upper West Side and attempt to reach the beach by sundown. Honestly, I graduated high school a week ago and haven’t gotten a single ray of sunshine on my pale behind. It’s time.
Adjusting the strap of my bikini top, I climb out of the car and lock it behind me with a beep. I use the set of keys Leeza gave me long ago to enter the rusted metal door of the building and climb the filthy staircase to the second floor. We pay Leeza a small fortune to clean the house and feed us, enough to live in much nicer digs, but she refuses, claiming she doesn’t need anything fancy to be happy.
I can’t help but think she’s on to something, since my parents have a billion dollars and I’ve never met two more miserable people.
As for me…I don’t exactly know if I’m happy.
I know I should be. Right? I have everything an eighteen-year-old girl could want. I’m going to Princeton in the fall. Just like my father, mother and various grandparents. I’m driving a car that isn’t even for sale yet in the United States. My future is secure.
I’m sure this impulse to run screaming in the opposite direction will pass.
There is also the teeny tiny issue of me being blackmailed by my father’s business partner. Yeah. We can’t forget about that.
As if I could. Part of the reason I’m escaping to the beach today is so I won’t stare at my cell phone terrified, waiting for it to ring. Terrified to hear that snide voice that has been haunting my nightmares for a month, ever since Wagner started calling.
Making demands.
Determined to forget about the fact that my family’s future might be in jeopardy—unless I comply with Wagner’s demands—I shake out the correct key to Leeza’s apartment door, insert it into the lock and turn. I’m so accustomed to entering Leeza’s place and going straight for the row of pill bottles on her kitchen windowsill, I almost don’t notice the man sitting in the leather easy chair by the window.
When I do notice him, my heart careens into my lungs and I stumble sideways into the wall, gasping for breath. “Oh my God,” I wheeze. “Who are you?”
His face is shrouded in shadows until he leans his huge—and I mean freaking huge—body forward and his silver-gray eyes cut through the mid-afternoon haze. Jesus, is that…Thor? God of Thunder? They could actually be twins. Although this guy is definitely the bad twin. The tattoos adorning his musclebound arms are a collection of skulls, death and mayhem.
“You first,” he rasps, his long, inked-up fingers flexing where they rest on his knees.
I eyeball the door, judging I can escape in two, three seconds tops. “Um…I-I forgot the question,” I stammer.
Did I imagine the corner of his mouth jumping? “Who are you?” he says, slowly. “And why are you in my mother’s apartment?”
Mother?
Everything clicks at once.
This is Leeza’s son, Ezra. Although she’s talked about him hundreds of times, I’ve never met the man face to face.
I simply haven’t had a chance since he’s been imprisoned in Rikers Island for seven years. She mentioned him coming home soon but didn’t give a specific date.
When did he get out?
My heart starts to race even faster when I notice the packed duffel bag across the room. Did he get out of Rikers today? The evidence certainly suggests so. But before I can try to talk or act my way out of this suddenly hairy situation, Ezra rises to his feet and I’m knocked back another step. My God, his dirty-blond head almost reaches the ceiling. If I try to run from this man and he catches me, I’ll have no chance of escape, plus he’ll be pissed off.
This is not a man one pisses off.
I definitely shouldn’t be…attracted to the danger surrounding him. Definitely not.
He takes a step forward into the light, highlighting the planes of muscles beneath his worn white T-shirt, the thickness of his thighs…and I feel a weird clench in my tummy. One I’ve never experienced before. It’s part fear, part excitement and I’m not sure if I like it. I do know I want to feel it again so I can make an accurate judgment. That’s only fair.
“I’m waiting for an answer, little girl,” he says, his voice dark and muddy.
My nipples tighten into painful points and I cross my arms to shield them from his view—and that’s when I remember I’m wearing a bikini under the slinkiest of beach cover ups. The sheer, white kimono barely brushes the tops of my thighs. When I put my outfit on, I didn’t expect to get out of the car until I reached the beach and this attire was acceptable. The tiny pink triangles over my breasts and feminine mound hardly seem sufficient now, with this powerful giant staring down at me.
“I’m the, um…neighbor. I live down the hall.” I’m not sure why I lie, exactly. Maybe because people tend to hate me because of what they perceive to be my easy street lifestyle. I’m not sure if I want to avoid Ezra’s hatred because I’ll be safer that way. Or if I just want to be a woman to him. Just a normal woman without a twenty-million-dollar trust fund.
It tends to make people weird.
After eighteen years of everyone categorizing me as a spoiled brat upon hearing my last name, I just want to be someone else for five minutes.
“What are you doing here?” Ezra prompts again.
“I’m watering the plants,” I respond, smoothly, gesturing to the dying greenery on the television stand. “Your mother asked me to come by. I’ve…never seen you here before.”