“Mr. Farrell, you had several messages while you were in your meeting. I placed them on your desk and emailed them to you as well,” Charlene Gregg, his executive assistant, informed him as he stalked past her desk. The polished brunette had been with him for the last five years, and she was a godsend. Her protective, six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound bruiser of a husband and adorable two children thought so as well.
“Thanks, Charlene,” he ground out. Another perk of having an assistant who’d been with him so long. She ignored his bad moods. “Hold all calls for the next twenty minutes.”
“Of course.”
He entered his office, barely managing not to slam the door behind him. Control. He’d spent the formative years of his childhood developing it. Growing up in a chaotic household where the slightest offense—real or imagined—could earn him a verbal, soul-stripping assault or a punch to the chest, he’d been a quick study on reining in his emotions and reactions.
But coming out of a meeting with his... Hell, he still couldn’t call them his brothers. Achilles Farrell, the brooding giant who shared his last name, and Kenan Rhodes, the charmer with the wide smile and steely eyes, were strangers. Strangers who, only a week after their initial meeting during the funeral reception, were carving a piece out of his company for their own.
He hated the intrusion.
Guilt thrummed inside his chest, but the simmering anger that had become his constant companion prevented it from sinking a foothold. Logically, he got that his rage was directed toward a dead man who’d screwed him over, but Barron wasn’t here. His illegitimate offspring were.
Thrusting a hand through his hair, Cain circled his desk and dropped into his chair. His gaze lit on the thick file he’d been studying for the past week. Immediately after the will reading, Cain had contacted Farrell International’s private detective and had him open investigations on Achilles and Kenan.
Achilles Farrell. Born in Boston, but raised by a single mother near Seattle, Washington. Software developer and something of a genius. And an ex-con who’d spent two years in jail for assault. Seemed like a chip off the old block.
Kenan Rhodes. Born and raised in Boston by the wealthy family who’d adopted him. VP of Marketing in his family’s business and brilliant at it. And a consummate ladies’ man, according to the number of times he appeared in society gossip pages. Again, chip off the old block.
And once both men had agreed to Barron’s terms, they’d informed Cain they didn’t plan on sitting back as figureheads while the year crawled by. Each intended to make their mark on the company. Achilles with the IT department and Kenan in Marketing. Everything in Cain howled at handing over the reins of any part of his business to strangers. But, because of Barron’s will, Cain couldn’t object. Couldn’t do anything but sit there, fuming. And powerless. That grated the most. As soon as he left his father’s house, he’d vowed never to be weak, vulnerable again. And yet...
He raised his arm, his fingers curled into a fist, and aimed it toward his desktop. But at the last moment, he halted the swift downward motion before his hand could slam onto the wood.
Control. He couldn’t lose it.
Heaving a sigh, he leaned back, squeezing his eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose. Unbidden and inexplicable, an image of Devon—he never did ask her last name—wavered then solidified across the screen of his mind.
It wasn’t the first time the woman who’d appeared in his mother’s garden like a pinup version of a fairy featured in his thoughts. Petite, with breasts he suspected would spill into his palms. A cinched-in waist that those same hands could easily span. A delicious flare of hips that completed a wicked hourglass figure. The stilettos she’d worn should’ve added height to her small frame, but they hadn’t. Yet, damn had they done amazing things for her toned, thick thighs.
Yes, Devon possessed a body that made a man jerk awake in the middle of the night, sweating, his dick strangled in his fist. But her body couldn’t compare to the beautiful emerald eyes that seemed so innocent yet contained age-old secrets in their depths. Or to the gentle slope of her elegant cheekbones that he hadn’t been able to resist touching. Or the lush, damn near indecent curve of her mouth that even now had a dull ache throbbing in his hardening flesh. That top lip–heavy mouth had combatted the impression of purity that stubbornly clung to her.
What man could look at her and not lust to be the one who thoroughly corrupted her?
He wasn’t that man.
Objectively, he acknowledged that some men might call her features plain or unremarkable.
And those men would be fucking blind.
Yet... Out of all that, it was the humor, the self-deprecation, the sympathy and selfless comfort she offered in her guileless words and wine that calmed him. A week ago, she’d unknowingly given him the strength to return to that library and face his father’s mess.
Cain, who lauded himself on needing no one, clung to the memory of a woman he’d met once and would most likely not see again. The irony was not lost on him.
“Mr. Farrell.” Charlene’s voice through his phone’s intercom ripped him from his thoughts and he jerked forward with a grimace. “I know you instructed me not to interrupt you, but there is a Gregory Cole here requesting to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he claims it has something personal to do with your father.”
Tension streaked through him, and for a moment a terse “no” burned his tongue. Who just showed up uninvited at the executive offices of a billion-dollar company asking for an unscheduled meeting with the CEO? It could be one of the many journalists he’d turned away with a barely polite “No comment.” Hell, it could be another brother.
He jabbed the reply button, irritation swirling in his gut. No, whoever it was could turn around and walk out the way they came in. And if it was that important, he could set an appointment before he left.
“Send him in, Charlene.” Releasing the button, he rose behind his desk, growling, “Dammit.”
His father. And personal. He wanted to resist the lure of that bait, but couldn’t.
Moments later, Charlene entered his office, an older man following close behind her. Tall and distinguished with neatly cut salt-and-pepper hair and clothed in a perfectly tailored suit Cain knew cost at least three thousand dollars, he strode forward, hand outstretched.
“Mr. Farrell, Gregory Cole,” he greeted. “I’m glad to meet you, although I wish it were under different circumstances. I was very sorry to hear about your father’s passing.”
The words were appropriate but his gaze, green and somehow familiar, didn’t hold the solemnity that matched. Disquiet crawled beneath Cain’s skin as he quickly shook the man’s hand and dropped it.
