Chapter 1

Chapter

1

There were

days Samuel Wilde didn’t know what drove him. The rain soaked him, and his lungs were burning as he struggled for a simple breath, running faster and faster.

Why did he push himself to the edge, his body, his mind, as if this were the only way he could find peace, quieting the voices in his head just a bit? He knew he was an asshole. Maybe that was why he needed to punish himself. He pushed himself hard, driving himself to a place that welcomed the burn in his legs, the bite in his chest, the pace he set for himself—brutal, to the point that anyone watching might wonder what was wrong with him and why he was pushing so damn hard. He was only a junior lawyer at Pike and MacGregor, and there were days it seemed the lines between right and wrong tended to blur and morph. But his confliction wasn’t just about the law. It was about who he was and about his brothers, whom he didn’t know when he’d pushed away.

As he rounded a corner through the park, hearing the traffic that had picked up, he pushed harder, faster, past the thumping of his heart, his feet pounding the pavement, and not even the puddles soaking his track pants could slow him down. He welcomed the cold rain, wishing the chill would relieve the ache that had become part of him. As he spotted the familiar corner, the coffee shop where he stopped every morning on his way to work and the high rise where he lived with Jill, there it was, that giant ache that came with just thinking of her and his brother Jake.

He fisted his hands, feeling himself being swallowed once again in the hurt and anger, just as a horn blared when he stepped off the curb. He jumped back, lifting his arm to shield his face from the splash of the car speeding curbside.

“Asshole!” he shouted, then gestured with his middle finger to the prick in the car. But the rain had picked up, and the sounds of the morning traffic drowned him out. What the hell was wrong with him, running out into traffic without looking? It seemed everything he did was wrong. His legs were shaking as he stood there, his knit hat soaked to his head. He started moving again, jogging in place, because standing still was when his thoughts became his worst enemy.

The crossing light flashed, and the early morning traffic stopped, and he forced himself to look right and then left, hearing the honks, the noise of Seattle, which at one time he had thrived in. He stared up at the gray concrete high rises, the glass-fronted businesses, and the endless steel, the endless dismal rain, which matched his mood. Another step closer to the high rise where his condo was, where Jill would be waiting, but he needed this time to himself. Just him and his thoughts, his dark thoughts.

As he reached the open glass front door to his building, his sneakers squeaked on the dark tiled floor, and he swiped his hand across his face, wiping away the water, before he pressed the button for the elevator. In the shiny steel doors, he glimpsed the reflection of his light beard, his wet gray tracksuit and knit hat, everything drenched. Droplets ran down his face, and he was unsure whether it was sweat or water from the image staring back at him. Even Samuel had to admit he looked like a thug, unapproachable, dangerous.

The elevator dinged, and he shivered as he stepped inside and jabbed the button for floor twenty-five, which was also his age. Nothing in his life was as he’d once imagined. He leaned against the back of the elevator, feeling his legs start to tighten, his heartbeat slowing. He pulled in a deep breath, knowing he still needed to stretch, as he’d pushed himself hard that morning, much as he had every day for weeks. Lately, he had embraced the burn in his body as he pushed himself to the brink, the only thing in his life he could control. It was madness, because this physical ache was something he could fix, but it did little to help the hurt and the distance he felt from his family.

The elevator slowed and opened to his floor. He nodded to his waiting neighbor, a portly man with thin hair in his sixties, who was wearing the same blue trench coat he wore every day. What was his name? It would come to him, he was sure. All Samuel knew was that he was a banker and had visitors every Wednesday night, always a different college girl dressed in some slinky number, most likely from a local escort service. He dragged his gaze away because everything about the man left him unsettled. He was really good at reading people, and knowing any more about the man was not something he wanted.

Samuel slipped his key into the lock and opened the door, then tossed his keys on the counter of the narrow kitchen, with its ticking clock and low humming of appliances.

“You’re back? I didn’t know you’d gone out.” Jill was holding a mug of coffee as she walked into the small walkthrough kitchen. She was so quiet. She’d cut her dark hair shorter, framing her round face. She was lovely, pretty, but something about her dark eyes haunted him. He wanted her so badly despite his need to punish himself because of the growing rift dividing him from his brothers—or maybe because no one in his family had shown up the day he was to marry Jill.

“Should you be drinking coffee?” he said.

There was no smile for him as she put the mug on the counter. He pulled his wet hat from his head and peeled off his hoody, then dumped both over the back of a kitchen chair. The four-piece dinette was crammed against the wall, but then, this one-bedroom apartment was only five hundred square feet. He should really think of getting something bigger. Jill had already asked twice, but he hadn’t answered. He knew she wouldn’t push. She never did, never had.

“It’s only one cup.” She was behind him because, once again, he had walked away.

He should turn around and look at her, talk to her. He reached for the mail on the table, flipped through the bills, and then dumped them back down. “I’m going to grab a shower,” he said—a hot one he could lose himself in.

“Do you want company?” she said.

This time, he had to make himself turn around, his hand gripping the door frame as he looked at Jill, at her rounded belly, at the baby she carried, and thought only that she’d been with his brother.

“Not this morning,” he said. “I need to hurry. I have to meet a client.”

She stood across the room. The tension between them was so thick he could feel it like a wall, so heavy that it kept him where he was, away from her. Why didn’t that make him sad?

“What time are you going to be home?” she said. She crossed her arms over her breasts, which were larger now. At one time, he hadn’t been able to get enough of her, touching her, making love to her, being inside her. But something had faded. He didn’t know what exactly, only that it was something between them or in him that had died.

“Late,” he said. “Don’t wait up.” He turned away, walked into the bathroom, and shut the door. He should have asked her to join him. He loved her, right? But he didn’t know whether it was himself he hated or Jill, all because he, and not Jake, had had Jill first.