The Perfect Fake Date
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Naima Simone
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One
“If you think I don’t know that my purpose here tonight is being your beard, then you’ve seriously underestimated my role as your best friend. And my intelligence.”
Kenan Rhodes glanced down at Eve Burke, the petite woman on his arm and the woman who’d just called him on his shit. And with a smile. She was classy like that.
He snickered, nodding to a black-suited server as he nabbed two flutes of champagne from the man’s tray. After passing one to his best friend, he sipped from the other.
“You have such a suspicious mind. I think it’s a by-product of being a high-school teacher. So used to having kids lying to you about homework and bathroom passes.”
He smiled at yet another person staring at him, his mouth pulling tight at the corners. The older woman, draped in more diamonds than Cartier, dipped her head in acknowledgment before turning to the man next to her and whispering behind her gloved hand. Irritation prickled under his skin, and he deliberately turned away from the couple.
“What’s wrong?” Eve demanded, studying him through narrowed, dark brown eyes.
“Nothing.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You’re rubbing your thumb over the scar on your jaw. Do I really need to point out you only do that when you’re contemplating world domination or when something—or someone—is bothering you?”
He dropped the hand he hadn’t even realized he’d lifted to his face down to his side and shot her a disgusted look. Sometimes he really hated having someone in his life who knew him so damn well.
“Fine.” He paused, annoyance and frustration crawling through him again. “It’s been six months. Six. Months. Eve. And still they’re staring like I’m a sideshow act in a circus. Like we all are. As if we’re all in their midst for their entertainment.”
Admittedly, his entire world had been flipped on its ass when he’d received a certified letter requesting his presence at the reading of Baron Farrell’s will. Baron Farrell. The longtime CEO of the international, multibillion-dollar conglomerate Farrell International with the reputation of being a brilliant businessman and a ruthless bastard. Why he’d wanted Kenan, a marketing vice president in his family’s successful commercial-real-estate development company, to attend his will reading had been a mystery. A mystery that had been quickly resolved when Kenan discovered he was Baron’s illegitimate son. According to the will, Kenan and the two half brothers he’d had no idea existed had to stay together and run Farrell International together for a year or else the company would be broken into pieces and sold to the highest bidders.
Brothers.
Cain Farrell, the acknowledged heir Baron had kept and raised. And Achilles Farrell, a computer software designer and tech genius from Tacoma, Washington, whom Baron had abandoned, just as he’d done with Kenan. But Achilles had been raised by his single mother while Kenan had been adopted by his parents and raised in Boston.
Oh, yes. For the last few months, since the story had broken, Boston society had had a field day about the Farrell Bastards, as they’d dubbed Achilles and Kenan.
Eve’s hand wrapped around Kenan’s and squeezed, drawing him from his morose thoughts.
“They’re small people with small lives who breathe for any hint of scandal or gossip to brighten up their existence. And let’s face it, the Baron Farrell of Farrell International fathering two unknown sons? Sons he grants co-ownership of his company on his death? That’s the kind of drama these people live for. But just because they’re staring at you like a sideshow act doesn’t mean you have to perform. You’re Kenan fucking Rhodes. You don’t dance for anyone.”
Clearing his throat, he lifted his glass. “Drink your champagne,” he murmured.
Smirking, she did as he ordered. But then responded, “You’re welcome.”
He glanced away from that quirk of her wide, sensual mouth on the pretense of scanning the crowded ballroom. Either that or risk letting Eve glimpse the secret he’d managed to keep hidden for fifteen of his thirty years.
It wouldn’t do to reveal in front of God, country and all the guests attending the annual Brahmin Arts Foundation gala that he was in love with his best friend.
Unrequited love.
His hold tightened on the glass, matching the constriction squeezing his chest. Such a fancy, completely inadequate way to describe the hell of having your heart broken day after day when the person you crave more than air looks at you with wholesome...affection.
It killed a part of him.
And every time she brushed those soft, almost too-full lips over his cheek in a platonic kiss, or pressed her sexy, lush curves against his body in an amicable hug, another piece of him died another death.
“So tell me—” Eve nudged him with her elbow “—what overzealous socialite am I warding off tonight?”
He inhaled, taking in her earthy musk of cedarwood, roses and the shea butter she’d massaged into her skin for as long as he’d known her. If he was blindfolded and shoved into a warehouse filled with thousands of open perfume bottles, he would still be able to select her erotic, hedonistic scent. It teased him when he was awake and haunted him in his sleep. He couldn’t escape it—couldn’t escape her.
Even when he prayed to. And, God, sometimes he did pray that he could exorcise this damn love for her from his heart, his soul.
Sweeping his gaze over the packed ballroom of the former turn-of-the-century hotel, which was now an art museum, he quickly located a woman who would provide a suitable scapegoat to satisfy Eve’s curiosity. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on the point of view—the woman seemed to sense his scrutiny and smiled in his direction, the invitation in her gleaming eyes clear and unmistakable.
“Never mind.” Eve snorted. “Question answered. And I should’ve known. She’s just your type, too.”
“My type?” Even knowing he’d probably regret asking, Kenan did, anyway. Because one of the prerequisites of being in love with an unavailable, oblivious woman? A healthy dose of masochism. “What does that mean?”
She shot him a look that might as well have had the caption “Seriously? Is this what we’re doing?” underneath it.
“Almost as tall as you. Size two, or hey, I’ll be generous, a three. I’m betting on hazel or green eyes. And I’m not accusing you of colorism, mind you, but I am saying she’s passing the ‘brown paper bag’ test. Also, her hair is ruler-straight either by a great keratin treatment or with the best Brazilian weave money can buy. And she’s flawless. Like, ‘a blemish would be too humiliated to do something as plebian as mar her face’ flawless.” She arched an eyebrow. “Ring a bell?”
Yes. In other words, the women he dated—he fucked—were anti-Eves.
Tall where Eve was petite. Slender where she was curvy and thick. Light, multihued eyes instead of a chocolate, nearly black shade that he could fall into. Fairer-skinned instead of a smooth mahogany that he hungered to drag his fingers over. Straight hair instead of the explosion of beautiful, dark brown natural curls that framed Eve’s fascinating assembly of delicate bone structure and large, bold eyes, nose and mouth.
There was one area she wasn’t their opposite—one area those other women couldn’t compete at all.
Flawless?
Eve Burke was incomparable.
He bowed his head over hers, adopting a smirk. Pretended he wasn’t affected by this fragile dance of innocuous flirtation and friendship. He was a pro, after all.
“I didn’t know you paid such close attention to who I...entertained,” he teased. “I have a question, though. Why do you care?”
She shrugged. “I don’t. But it doesn’t bother you to be so...cliché?”
Her criticism was a bee sting he couldn’t dig out from under his skin. Because it was her. Because she had no fucking clue.
An unreasonable anger stirred within him, goading him to push, to sting back.
“Bother me?” He leaned farther down until their foreheads nearly brushed, until he could almost taste her champagne-flavored breath. Could feel the hitch of her swift intake of air on his lips. “Why should it? I’m not marrying them, Eve. Surely, you’ve heard the rumors about me. I know I’m your friend and you might consider yourself to be on the periphery of Boston society, but you’re not deaf. You’re smart. You read gossip columns.” He dropped his voice to a murmur, narrowed his eyes on her mouth and studied the plump, overripe curves, before lifting his gaze to her eyes. “You know what those women use me for just as much as I enjoy being used.”
Silence and a tension that damn near hummed sprung up between them. She didn’t move, and neither did he. In a sea of people, they were statues, the tides of the crowd flowing around them as they stared at each other.
His words echoed in his head, over and over, the taunting tone growing louder, and an ugly part of him—the part of him that resented her for not seeing him, not wanting him—rejoiced at the shock that parted her lips, darkened her eyes.
But, God... His cock thickened, hardened behind his tuxedo-pants zipper. Lust and wonder, one a demanding howl, the other an awed whisper, twisted and purred inside him. Clawed and petted. Left him struggling not to reach out and stroke the tender skin beneath those beautiful eyes.
Eyes where desire glinted.
For...him.
Fuck.
Yearning pumped through his veins, piping hot like the strongest coffee, and it shot through him with the same kick of adrenaline.
“Eve...” he murmured.
“Kenan. Eve. I thought I saw you two.”
Kenan stiffened at the intrusion of the new but familiar voice that doused him in a frigid wave of reality. Slowly, he stepped back from Eve and turned to face his older brother. Forcing a smile to his face, he pulled Gavin Rhodes into a hug, clapping a hand to his shoulder. He didn’t glance back as Gavin greeted Eve—couldn’t.
Not when he grappled with the truth and couldn’t risk allowing either of them to glimpse the pain tearing into his chest before he managed to conceal it.
Because with Gavin’s appearance, he got it.
That desire in Eve’s eyes hadn’t been for him.
God, how could he be so stupid, so foolish, to forget?
The only thing worse than being secretly in love with his best friend was for his best friend to be in love with another man—his brother.
“Eve, you look beautiful,” Gavin said.
“Thank you, Gavin.”
Kenan didn’t have to peek down at her to catch sight of the pretty blush that undoubtedly painted her graceful cheekbones, or how the fringe of her lashes would sweep down and hide the adoration in her eyes. He’d witnessed her reactions to his brother’s presence so many times they were branded in his brain like scar tissue.
He also didn’t need to look at his brother to know Gavin would take in the thick curls brushing skin bared by her off-the-shoulder, deep red, mermaid-style dress and only see their father’s executive assistant’s daughter, and not a sensual, gorgeous woman who stared at him with need in her eyes.
Gavin might be heir apparent to the Rhodes family business—groomed to be even before they’d adopted Kenan—but he was still a “blind as fuck” idiot.
Bitterness, hot and caustic, crawled through Kenan. And he hated himself for it. Especially since he should be used to it by now.
Coming in second in a father’s love was an old, sad story. Spare to the heir? So unoriginal.
Yet, it was the reason he couldn’t bring himself to reveal the truth about his feelings to Eve. He might be second best in love and in business to his father. But he couldn’t bear to be second best with her.
Not with Eve.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” Kenan asked.
“Dad was held up by Darren and Shawn Young. They wanted to talk about a possible new project in Suffolk Downs.” Gavin cocked his head to the side. “Just a heads-up. Darren mentioned your name and what it would mean to have you involved. I think Dad intends—” He broke off the rest of the sentence, nodding and smiling over Kenan’s shoulder. “Be right back. Duty calls,” he grumbled, still wearing what Kenan labeled the “social smile.” Gavin clapped Kenan on the shoulder and strode away.
Leaving Kenan with a hollow pit in his gut.
“I heard what he said.” Eve stared after him. Hell, did she even realize that she couldn’t hide the hunger, the longing in her eyes?
He slid his hands into the front pockets of his pants to hide his fisted fingers. When she turned back to him, tilting her head, yearning still shadowed her gaze, and a lesser, pathetic part of him wanted to pretend that yearning was for him.
Pride insisted he not tumble down that slippery slope.
She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, and even though the ever-present tingle of awareness, of need, tripped over his skin, so did the soothing comfort of her touch. That calming essence that was pure...her.
“Don’t let that...omen ruin your evening, Kenan. If you decide not to talk business with your father tonight, then that’s your choice. And he’ll have to respect it.”
“Will he?” He shook his head, arching an eyebrow. “You have met Nathan Rhodes, right?”
“A time or two.” She waved her glass in front of his face. “I usually reserve this for emergency situations, but if the evening calls for it, I will pull out the ‘it went down the wrong windpipe and now it’s triggered an asthma attack’ shtick. I haven’t used it since Christina Nail’s wedding reception five years ago, but I’m willing to bite the bullet.”
He widened his eyes, issuing a mock gasp. “For me?”
“Page three, paragraph six, clause A, line two of the friendship pact demands I be willing to surrender my pride and lungs to the cause.”
They looked at each other, then snickered.
“I’m almost afraid to ask what the two of you are up to,” his oldest half brother, Cain, drawled as he stepped up next to them with his fiancée, Devon Cole, on his arm.
“I’m voting for no good.” Devon grinned, and with her beautiful green eyes sparkling, she reminded Kenan even more of a lovely mischievous fairy than usual. “It’s the only explanation why you appear to be having the most fun of everyone here.”
“Behave,” Cain admonished, but a smile tugged at the corners of his stern mouth—it was a miracle that most of Boston society still marveled at. Cain Farrell. Smiling. Devon Cole didn’t walk on water, but she did perform other feats of wonder.
Kenan shrugged a shoulder. “She’s not wrong.”
“Who’s not wrong?” Achilles Farrell, his other half brother—or “Jan” as Kenan called him just to irritate the bearded giant since he was the middle Farrell son—asked as he approached their group. “If it’s Devon, I agree. She’s right. If it’s Cain, Devon’s still right.”
Cain shot Achilles a narrowed glare while Devon smiled at Mycah Hill—now Mycah Farrell—his wife. “You’ve trained him well, I see.”
Mycah nodded sagely, then sipped from the glass of water Achilles handed her. Since she was nearly five months pregnant, she couldn’t indulge with the rest of them. “It’s all about positive reinforcement.”
“Sex,” Kenan stage-whispered to everyone else. “She’s talking about sex.”
Laughter erupted in their small group, and the knot of dread that had twisted his stomach at Gavin’s announcement about their father loosened. In spite of a rocky beginning, he, Cain and Achilles had grown closer. He trusted these men—thought of them as brothers, not just half, not strangers whom he’d only found months ago.
That heaviness thickened in his chest again, pressing against his sternum as he lifted his head and found Gavin. Even if the price of that closeness with his found family had been the relationship with his adopted family.
“Kenan.” Achilles hiked up his chin at him. “A minute?”
“Sure.” He squeezed Eve’s hand, which was resting on his elbow, then shifted to the side with his brother.
Cain nodded, indicating he would watch over Eve, and another wave of wonder uncurled inside him that now he and his brothers had evolved to unspoken communication. Shaking his head, he followed Achilles, who only moved several feet away, far enough that they could talk privately but close enough that he could keep an eye on his pregnant wife.
Kenan didn’t bother stifling his snort. Just a couple of months ago, Achilles had been one of the most emotionally shut down men Kenan had ever met. Breaching a heavily guarded medieval citadel would’ve been easier than getting through to him. But Mycah had accomplished it. And she’d given Cain and Kenan all of their brother.
“I have some news for you,” Achilles said, lifting a dark brown beer bottle to his mouth.
“Seriously?” Kenan snapped, jabbing at the beer. “Where’d you get that?”
Achilles smirked. “Jealous?”
“Hell yes.”
“This—” Achilles pointed at the bottle “—is a perk of being one of the common folk attending these pretentious events. You bond with the other common folk at the bar and they hook you up.” His grin flashed in his thick beard. “For once, being the Feral Farrell has its benefits.”
Kenan clenched his jaw, trapping the curse threatening to escape at that fucking nickname so-called polite society had given Achilles.
“I’m kidding, Kenan.” Achilles nudged him with his elbow, the blue-gray eyes that identified him, Cain and Kenan as Farrell offspring soft with understanding. “You know that shit doesn’t bother me anymore. Let it go. I have.”
“Yeah.” Kenan rubbed a hand down his clean-shaven jaw. And he’d try. Seeing his brother so happy would help, but he still resented the hurt the people in the world Kenan lived in had caused. “So what’s going on? What did you need to talk to me about?”
“It’s about the search for your biological mother. You’re still certain you want me to work on that, right?”
Kenan drew in a breath, held it. His pulse echoed in his head like the steady pounding of fists against a heavy bag, fierce and powerful. It vibrated through him, and when he released his breath, it trembled.
“Yes.”
The answer resounded against his skull, shaking as well, but sure.
He needed to know where he’d come from, who he was. Because his brothers had been raised with their natural mothers, they possessed that very basic, vital information, but Kenan was missing that part of himself. His adoption had been closed, and regardless of his desire to know, all his life, Kenan’s parents had been stubborn about keeping it that way.
But Baron’s will had toppled that mandate. At least as far as his biological father. Yet, Nathan and Dana Rhodes had remained firm regarding his birth mother.
So Kenan had turned to his brother. His brother who was something of a genius when it came to computers and research.
Guilt slicked through him, as it always did whenever he considered how he’d violated his parents’ wishes regarding his birth mother. Since he’d been old enough to understand the concept of adoption, he’d weighed his complicated, tangled feelings of betraying his love for Dana against his desire to know about the faceless woman who’d given birth to him.
He’d tried to bury this insatiable hunger to unearth his identity. God, he’d tried. Out of loyalty to his parents. Out of self-protection for himself. Even for the woman who’d given him up. But with the introduction of his brothers into his life...
Yeah, he had to know.
“Once you open this Pandora’s box, Kenan...” Achilles studied him. Maybe this man, who saw way more than others because he spoke so much less, recognized Kenan’s resolve, because he nodded. His mouth firmed. “Okay. But have you at least tried to talk to your parents about this again?”
Kenan shook his head before Achilles even finished speaking. “There’s no point. They’ve been adamant about my biological mother not wanting to be identified or found. And they’re determined to respect that. Besides they feel, rightly, that they are my parents, not the woman who abandoned me—”
“She placed you for adoption. Sacrificed to give you a better life. She did not abandon you,” Achilles interrupted on a growl.
“I agree.” Kenan paused, waging that aging, dusty battle of loyalty versus knowledge. “But there’s no point in getting into it with them. Especially when there’s nothing to tell. There is nothing to tell, right?” Kenan asked.
“A little more than nothing. I just needed to make sure this is what you want before I shared because there’s no going back once we start.” Achilles sighed. “I’m pretty sure I located the lawyer who facilitated the adoption for Baron. You already know from Baron’s PI that he was aware of you and me all along and did nothing to claim us until it suited him. So your mother was free to give you up without any interference from him. And I think I found the attorney who handled that process with your parents and your biological mom. I’ll do some more digging and keep you updated.”
Relief, excitement and—God, he couldn’t lie, not to himself—fear barreled through him, and he closed his eyes against the power of it. A big hand cupped his shoulder, the strength of it bracing him, and he leaned into it.
“It’s okay,” Achilles murmured. “We got you. Whatever we find.”
Kenan nodded. Couldn’t say anything else.
“Let’s get back. Eve keeps glancing at us, and I think she’s about to plan an intervention if I keep you over here any longer.” Achilles squeezed his shoulder, and Kenan glanced at his brother, who cocked his head, his narrowed scrutiny almost uncomfortable. “Just out of curiosity... You plan on ever telling her you’re in love with her?”
“What the hell?” Kenan’s head jerked back so fast, a twinge echoed in protest at the back of his neck.
Achilles shrugged a large shoulder. “Just asking.”
“You...” Kenan shook his head. Tucked his trembling hands into his tuxedo pockets. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Achilles stared at him for a long, silent, even more uncomfortable moment. Then said, “Ah.” He rubbed a hand down his beard. “Sorry. I’m a people watcher.”
“Damn.” Kenan briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them and met his brother’s sympathetic gaze, he fought not to wince. “Please don’t look at me like I’m dying of an incurable disease.”
“Since I was in love with a woman and didn’t believe she returned those feelings just months ago, I can’t help it.”
In spite of the pain and humiliation punching a hole in his chest, Kenan chuckled. “That’s fair.” He hesitated. “Am I that obvious?”
“No.” Achilles held up his hands, palms out, when Kenan tossed him an incredulous look. “I’m not lying to you. Like I said, I’ve spent a lifetime watching people and I was right where you are. Which is why I can ask, why not put yourself out of this particular hell? You two are best friends and from what I can see damn perfect for each other. Why not just tell her?”
A humorless smile twisted Kenan’s mouth. Spoken like a man who’d found his happily-ever-after and wanted the same for everyone else. On the other side, it seemed so simple. When it was so far from it.
“Because she’s in love with my brother.”
“Well, fuck.”
A bark of laughter slipped free at Achilles’s blank, wide-eyed expression of horror. Followed by another laugh. Achilles blinked, then after a second, a chuckle rumbled out of him.
“That’s screwed up.”
“It is what it is.” Kenan sighed, his humor disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. “Thanks, Achilles. For...”
“You’re welcome.”
With a dip of his chin, Kenan turned and the two of them headed back to their small group. When they reached them, Eve immediately stepped close to him, her gaze searching his. And he reached for and found the familiar mask he’d donned since he’d been a teen and realized the girl he’d called friend for most of his life had become so much more. He wanted so much more. He wanted her.
She brushed her fingers over the back of his hand. “Everything okay?”
“Fine. Just a couple of work things he wanted to go over with me.” The lie rolled off his tongue. Because that was another thing he’d become proficient at over the years with her—lying. Every day he made the decision to conceal the truth, so it’d become second nature.
“Kenan,” Cain said, his voice threaded with warning. “Incoming.”
He hadn’t needed that heads-up. Not with Eve’s hand wrapping around his and squeezing. Not with the snarl of love, unease and frustration tightening inside him until he couldn’t breathe past it.
Just as he’d done with Eve, he donned another mask; that was his life, after all. One for the charismatic playboy that charmed Boston society. One for the serious businessman that worked with his industry associates. Another for the wise-cracking, carefree younger brother of Cain and Achilles.
And one for the adopted son trying to prove himself worthy of being chosen by his parents.
That last mask had so many cracks and fissures from his many failures, sheer will and hope were the duct tape keeping it from falling apart.
“Mom. Dad.” Kenan moved forward, greeting Nathan and Dana Rhodes as they approached. Pride and love swelled within him, temporarily eclipsing the tendrils of dread weaving through him.
Handsome and distinguished, Nathan Rhodes cut an imposing figure through the crowd. In a ballroom full of multibillionaires, he might not be the wealthiest, as a mere multimillionaire, but he was definitely one of the most respected. He helmed one of the oldest, most successful real-estate-development companies in the state, and Rhodes Realty Inc. enjoyed a solid national reputation. Kenan’s mother, beautiful and elegant, might be one of Boston society’s ruling matrons, but she also sat on the family company’s board and helped run it.
Google “power couple” and his parents didn’t populate just one definition, but the top three.
“Kenan.” His mother extended her hands toward him, gripping his, and drew him forward to brush kisses over his cheeks. “You look handsome. But then, you are my son.”
He grinned and kissed her cheek. “Of course. I get it from my mother.” He turned to his father, offering him his hand. Nathan grasped it. “Dad.”
“Son. I thought you were coming by the house for dinner before the gala. We missed you.” Guilt speared Kenan as his father’s gaze flicked over his shoulder to Cain, Achilles and their women. Nathan’s eyes chilled, then returned to Kenan. “You were probably too busy.”
The guilt crystallized into diamond-bright anger—hard, faceted and gleaming. His aversion to returning home had everything to do with Nathan, and Kenan’s choosing not to deal with another of his father’s lectures about loyalty and family. He was a grown man, yet minutes in Nathan’s company could render him a boy seeking his father’s unattainable approval.
That was all on Kenan and had nothing to do with the men standing behind him.
But neither his father nor his mother would hear him on that—they wouldn’t listen to him on anything having to do with Baron Farrell or his brothers. His leaving Rhodes Realty was nothing less than a defection in their eyes, an unforgivable betrayal, and the only absolution he could receive would be if he returned to the family business.
Didn’t matter if his chances of advancement in his own family’s company were hobbled by the mere circumstances of his birth.
Didn’t matter that every contribution he made was either dissected and discarded, or grudgingly accepted then credited to another.
Didn’t matter that his creativity smothered and died a slow, painful death.
All they saw was his perceived abandonment.
“Not at all,” Kenan said, the same ice in his father’s gaze filtering into his tone. “I just didn’t have time to stop in. Which is why I promised to try instead of saying I would.” He smiled, and probably shouldn’t have bothered if it appeared as forced as it felt. “Of course, you two know Eve.”
“Nice to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes,” Eve murmured.
“You, too, Eve.” Nathan nodded.
“Eve. You look beautiful.” Dana’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Your mother didn’t mention you were attending the gala tonight when I saw her at the office earlier.”
Eve’s lips twisted into a small rueful smile as she shot Kenan a sidelong glance. “It was a bit of a last-minute invite.”
“Ah. I see.”
Kenan waved an arm toward his brothers. “And you’ve met my brothers, Cain and Achilles. I’d like to introduce you to Cain’s fiancée, Devon Cole, and Achilles’s wife, Mycah Farrell.”
Dana nodded, all warmth leeching from her expression, leaving her beautiful features cold, hard. His father didn’t bother with even that small acknowledgment, and just demanded, “Can I speak to my son alone, please?”
Humiliation and fury lodged in his chest. “Dad—”
“We’ll see you inside for the auction.” Cain cupped his shoulder, squeezed. But the reassuring message did little to cool Kenan’s temper, to assuage the pain. His brother meant to relay that they were fine, but nothing about this shit was fucking fine. “Sir. Mrs. Rhodes.”
You don’t have to go. Don’t leave. Stay.
The demands, the pleas, crowded into the back of Kenan’s throat. He detested how vulnerable they sounded, even in his own head. Hated more that he dreaded the thought of being alone with the two people who’d raised him.
“Kenan.” Eve tugged on his hand until he tore his gaze from his father and lowered it to her. “You don’t dance,” she murmured. “Remember that.”
Delivering the reminder of their previous conversation, she left with his brothers. Left him.
“It’s not enough that you walked out on your family business to join the company of a man who did nothing for you but donate sperm. It’s not enough that you’ve made it clear to us that you prefer those...men you dare call brothers by not even attending dinner. But now, you’re announcing that preferential treatment by publicly aligning with them over the family that took you in, raised you, when that bastard and his son wouldn’t even acknowledge you until it benefited them.”
“Careful, Dad,” Kenan warned, stepping close to his father. He’s speaking out of anger, out of hurt. He repeated the words to himself, but the unfairness of his father’s accusations pummeled him, leaving emotional bruises that wouldn’t heal as quickly as physical wounds would. “You sound very close to blaming the son for the sins of the father. And since we both know Cain is as much of a victim of Baron’s manipulations as me, I can’t imagine that’s what you meant.”
“Kenan, don’t twist your father’s words,” his mother snapped.
“I’m not,” he said, not removing his gaze from Nathan’s. “I’m just clarifying. Just as I’m sure he didn’t intend to imply that I’ve chosen anyone over my family. Unless that is what you meant, Dad.”
“What’s going on over here?” Gavin appeared at Nathan’s elbow, his gaze shifting from their father to Kenan.
Concern darkened Gavin’s brown eyes, and guilt seeped inside Kenan like water creeping through a crack. Guilt because even as Kenan loved his brother, he resented Gavin because the only woman Kenan ever wanted could only see him.
“Ask your brother. And while you’re at it, ask him to define loyalty. From his company tonight, I think he might have forgotten that his last name is Rhodes. Maybe he wants it to be Farrell.”
Pain barreled into him. Staring at his father and mother with their almond skin and dark eyes, and his brother, who was a perfect combination of their features, he’d never felt like more of an outsider. They stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, an unconscious united front against him. The adopted son with the blue-gray eyes that proclaimed him different. Announced that he wasn’t...theirs.
That he didn’t belong.
“Nathan,” his mother said, laying a hand on her husband’s arm, “please.” She shot Kenan a pleading look.
“Can we not do this here?” Gavin demanded, voice low, urgent. “People are staring and talking. That’s not good for us as a family, and it’s not good for business. Let’s table this until later. Kenan.” He lifted a hand toward him. “Are you joining us for the auction?”
Kenan stepped back. “I’ll see you in there,” he said, not committing to it. “I’m going to refill my champagne.” He held up his half-full glass, then turned and strode away before they could call him back.
He headed in the opposite direction of the room that held the charity auction. The tall double doors that led to the exit beckoned him, and he answered, shoving through to the quieter hall. Several guests milled about, but he easily skirted them to escape...
Escape.
Fuck, how he hated that word.
Didn’t change what he was doing, though.
The corridor ended, and he stood in front of another set of towering doors. He briefly hesitated, then grasped the handle, opened them and slipped through to the balcony beyond. The cool April night air washed over him. The calendar proclaimed spring had arrived, but winter hadn’t yet released its grasp over Boston, especially at night. But he welcomed the chilled breeze over his face, let it seep beneath the confines of his tuxedo to the hot skin below. Hoped it could cool the embers of his temper...the still burning coals of his hurt.
“For someone who is known as the playboy of Boston society, you sure will ditch a party in a hot second.” Slim arms slid around him, and he closed his eyes in pain and pleasure at the petite, softly curved body pressed to his back. “All I had to do was follow the trail of longing glances from the women in the hall to figure out where you’d gone.”
He snorted. “Do you lie to your mama with that mouth? There was hardly anyone out there.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “So I didn’t go with the others and watched all of that go down with your parents and brother. I waited until you left the ballroom and went after you.”
“Why?” he rasped.
He felt rather than witnessed her shrug. The same with the small kiss she pressed to the middle of his shoulder blades. He locked his muscles, forcing his head not to fall back. Ordering his throat to imprison the moan scrabbling up from his chest. Commanding his dick to stand down.
“Because you needed me,” she said.
So simple. So goddamn true.
He did need her. Her friendship. Her body.
Her heart.
But since he could only have one of those, he’d take it. With a woman like her—generous, sweet, beautiful of body and spirit—even a part of her was preferable to none of her. And if he dared to profess his true feelings, that’s exactly what he would be left with. None of her. Their friendship would be ruined, and she was too important to him to risk losing her.
Carefully, he turned and wrapped her in his embrace, shielding her from the night air. Convincing himself if this was all he could have of her—even if it meant Gavin or another man might have all of her—then he would be okay, he murmured, “You’re really going to have to remove ‘rescue best friend’ off your résumé. For one, it’s beginning to get too time-consuming. And two, the cape clashes with your gown.”
She chuckled against his chest, tipping her head back to smile up at him. He curled his fingers against her spine, but that didn’t prevent the ache to trace that sensual bottom curve.
“Where would be the fun in that? You’re stuck with me, Kenan. And I’m stuck with you. Friends forever.”
Friends.
The sweet sting of that knife buried between his ribs.
“Always, sweetheart.”
