Chapter One Evan Sterling’s POV (Present Time)

“I already said I would be there, Jacob, could you please stop hounding me!” I snapped as soon as I pressed the ‘accept-call’ on my dashboard.

“I will stop calling as soon as I can see you onboard your jet!”

“Christ, do you think so little of my integrity?” I said in exasperation.

“It’s not your integrity I am worried about, but your apt ability to freeze everyone out without notice. It’s already getting late, are you sure you are coming?”

I let out a sigh because he was not wrong, but I have never broken any of my promises to my friends before. I am just very good at being evasive. I used to enjoy social gatherings — I could think of a few I enjoyed a tad too much, but all that ended months before I got married. My heart constricted at my line of thought and I quickly shook my head to dispel it as if it was that easy.

“I will give you a video call in about two hours. I need to meet up with — Father for a brief meeting before heading out,” I said in my bid to reach a compromise, but hated having to call Edward ‘Father’. I clenched my jaw.

“Christ! How many meetings do you have in a day, man?! It’s Friday, I thought people have less workload on Fridays!”

“Not everyone is a tech tycoon, Jacob.”

“You don’t say,” he replied. I chuckled despite my mood. “I’m going to call you back in an hour, Evan, and you had better be on the plane then.”

“I said, I would call you—”

“Good. We are both in agreement,” Jacob said determinedly.

“Jacob—” I started to object, and he ended the call. “Son of a—-” I let out a few expletives, pressing hard on the accelerator.

Jacob was one of my college friends, and even though we kept in touch over the years, I recently reconnected with him when we met at a fundraising event in New York two years ago. He has since been trying to get me to attend a few social events with him, but I have been as slippery as a catfish. I suppose I can understand his stubbornness to make sure I attended his wedding since he had cleverly made me one of his groomsmen. Me, Evan, a groom’s man? Only Jacob would think of making me do such. I suppose he still thinks of me as the Evan he knew back in college.

Most of my friends in Charlestown would think twice before approaching me with such. I was no longer the ‘Evan Sterling’ Jacob knew. I’m afraid he will find out soon enough.

I drove inside the Sterling Estate and I found myself automatically tensing up. This place used to be home. And now the very thought of gracing the gates makes me almost physically sick. I forced myself to face the front, not wanting to glance left or right with the fear of what it might trigger in me. I wondered why the old man asked me to come here. I supposed he figured being mysterious about it would prompt me to come. But I’m sure by now he must know I hate the place with the same passion as I do him.

Parking in front of the English-style stately mansion, I killed the engine and pushed the door open jerkily. Marching up the front porch to the front double door. A footman at the door, upon sighting me, pulled the door open.

“Welcome, Mr. Sterling,” he greeted.

“Evan,” I corrected automatically, and patted the older man on the shoulders before walking inside, and emerging in the double-floor grand foyer.

I balled my fist by my side and marched stiffly towards the twin stairs flanking another flight of stairs that descended to my father's study and the visitors’ receiving room.

Framing the stairs' landing was a floor-to-ceiling French window, showing the view of a portion of the expansive mansion grounds with its endless green lawns and flower beds. The sky was already darkening and the garden lights illuminated the well-tended grounds, exhuming some deep memories from me.

I quickly jerked my eyes away from the view as memory began to form and shook my head again. Exhaling hard, I knocked on the door to the right and waited for my father’s familiar voice to ask me to enter before pushing the door open.

“There he is! My boy!” Edward Sterling said, getting up from the sitting area to the left of the room. At a glance, I couldn’t help but notice he had gained weight since the last time I saw him. Which was a while. I make it a point to avoid him like the plague.

We used to have similar frames but I am a head taller than him. And thankfully that was all I got from him. Otherwise, I would seriously hate looking in the mirror and having the same bloody gray eyes staring back at me.

He walked towards me and I knew he would want to touch or hug me and I would rather keel over and die before I let that happen. Before he could get to my spot, I slipped my hands into my pocket and nodded a greeting to the other man in the room, and walked away to stand by my father’s bookshelf, pretending to be interested in the collection which I knew I could recite in my dream, completely ignoring my father.

“Why am I here?” I said, turning around to look pointedly at the other man. He was one of my father’s friends and his property was down the road from ours. I could use the same description for almost all the Charlestown elites. They were almost like a community of cultists run by ten major families and if you are not a direct descendant of any of them, choosing to live in the area would be near impossible. I could say I was the only Sterling who chose to break the status quo to my father’s dismay.

“Straight to business, I see,” the man said, flashing a smile, and I just stared, steely, back at him until the smile disappeared from his face and he began to squirm on his feet.

Compared to my father, the man was short, his height couldn’t be more than 5 feet 7 inches. I suppose his full, ginger-colored mustache was supposed to make up for the lack of hair on his scalp, otherwise, I have no idea why someone would choose to keep such bushy upper lip hair in this century.

“Mr. Anderson here is the head of—-” My father started to say.

“I know who he is, I only asked why I am here?” I said again, cutting the introduction. In the corner of my eye, I could see my father bristling at the tone of my voice and my rude question, but I really didn’t care.