His words pierce my chest like a knife. He’s right. But that version of Caelon Beckett died with my wife. I’m not him anymore. And as much as I know I need to be more, togive more, I have nothing lefttogive. Nothing but wrath and rage and my relentless obsession with revenge.
‘I’m trying.’ I swallow the hard, suffocating lump forming at the back of my throat. ‘It’s just fucking hard, man. It’s hard waking up knowing I’ll never see her again. Never touch her. Never hear her breathing beside me at night. And it’s fucking unbearable knowing that the man who ordered the hit on herisstill breathing, even if it is behind the bars of Ravenhill maximum-security prison.’
A thunderous expression clouds James’s face. ‘We still don’t know it was him.’
‘We do. You know it as well as I do. Jack O’Connor ordered the hit on Issy. And one day we’ll prove it. And when we do, God fucking help him.’ My molars clank together so hard they’re in danger of crumbling. ‘There isn’t a man or beast capable of stopping me carving out his heart, the way he carved out mine. Even if I have to commit murder to become his cellmate to do it.’
James flinches. ‘If there’s a connection, Killian will find it.’
Our brother, Killian, owns the most sought-after security company in the country. He provides everything from state-of-the-art CCTV to lethally trained bodyguards. ‘It’s been two years and nothing.’ I thrum my fingers on the marble counter.
James places his palm on the back of my hand, stilling the movement. ‘Give him more time. We can’t start another war with the O’Connors until we have proof.’
The O’Connors and the Becketts have been bitter rivals long before James and I were born. I don’t need proof they were behind the ‘accident’ that killed my wife. Even if the timing didn’t coincide with our last altercation, I feel it with every fibre of my body.
‘Sit tight, brother. The truth always emerges in the end,’James assures me. He signals to the barmaid for another round.
So much for ‘just one more,’ but conversations as morbid as this would send anyone searching for oblivion, either in the form of alcohol or sex.
Seeing as the alcohol isn’t cutting it tonight, I need sex. Hot, meaningless, filthy sex.
I glance towards the door, watching as a short, striking blonde struts in. She’s wearing a low cut, sequinned blush-coloured mini dress which stops several inches above her knees and shimmers with every step she takes.
Her glossy hair is tousled in casual-looking beach waves that cascade over the bare skin of her tanned, toned shoulders. Bright blue eyes glitter. She exudes sass and sexuality as she scans the busy bar. Cherry-red lips lift into a grin as her hips subtly shimmy in time to a sped-up remix of Taylor Swift’sYou Need To Calm Down.
I’ll try not to judge her for that.
Sunshine emanates from her every pore. She’s so young. So fresh. So flawless – basically everything that I’m not.
But her sharp eyes scan the room like she’s on the prowl for something. Or someone.
So, perhaps we have something in common after all.
I take another sip of my drink without taking my eyes off her.
She shimmies towards us, well, towards the bar anyway, effortlessly graceful in silver, six-inch stilettos.
She’s a knockout. No doubt about it. My dick stirs in my trousers.
Those huge sparkling eyes finally land on mine. Without a hint of hesitation, she strides towards us with more confidence than Beyonce. She bulldozes past the gaggle of women James scared away and squeezes into the space beside us. Dainty fingers pluck up a cocktail menu as her head flicksround. Her tongue dips out to wet her lower lip. Another cat-like grin reveals the perfect Hollywood smile.
I don’t return the gesture. I’m incapable. I’m looking for a fuck, not a BFF.
Her pupils dart between James and me, then rove thoughtfully from my face to my torso, then back up again to lock eyes with mine again.
‘Cheer up, for fuck’s sake.’ Her honeyed voice is just as sunny as the rest of her. ‘Christ, you two look like someone fucking died.’
Chapter Two
IVY
It was supposed to be a joke. An ice breaker. Instead, a thick tension swirls through the air. But not the sexual type of tension unmistakably radiating from the sullen but sexy guy from forty feet away.
Oh, I didn’t miss the innate broodiness he oozes. In fact, it was one of the things that caught my eye, along with his sculpted, muscular shoulders encased in an expensively tailored ebony suit that fits so perfectly it had to have been made for him. Mr Tall, Dark, and Tortured has this repressed look in his big black eyes, like he’s in pain and desperate to unleash himself on someone. His jaw is locked so tightly he reminds me of a firework waiting to go bang.
And after being babied by my big, burly, overprotective brother for the past three weeks, scratch that – for my entire life – I’m in need of a bang – one that makesmesee fireworks.
If I have any hope of getting laid tonight, it’s imperative I find a suitable candidate before my brother, Dermot, bulldozes in with his size thirteen Burberry patent loafers and a warning look that would terrify an army of blood-thirsty gladiators.
