Prologue
Riley Warren stared, transfixed by the aftermath of the horrific crash she’d just witnessed. The brand-new Mercedes she’d been admiring from directly behind it was broadsided as it pulled away from the stop sign. The pickup that hit it hadn’t had its headlights on, and it never even slowed down for its stop sign. The Mercedes was off the road after being pushed quite a few feet, and the driver of the pickup had been thrown through his windshield, obviously having not been wearing his seat belt. He wasn’t moving from where he landed about twenty feet from the Mercedes, and Riley guessed he was probably dead.
She could hear absolutely nothing but the pounding of her own heart, but she realized she wasn’t breathing and forced herself to start. She fumbled for the phone in her pocket but never took her eyes off the scene. It was dark and there were no other cars on the road. Not surprising since Riley was on her way home from work and it was almost one o’clock in the morning. She quickly gave the information to the 911 operator but dropped her phone when she saw what looked like the beginning of a fire inside the Mercedes.
Without giving much thought to what she was doing, she jumped out of her car and ran toward the accident. There was no way an ambulance was going to make it here in time to rescue the driver if those were indeed flames she was seeing. She was pretty sure cars didn’t really explode after an accident like they did in the movies, but just in case, she knew she needed to get the driver out.
The window was shattered, but there was no way she was going to get the door open since that was where the pickup had hit it, so she pulled out the pocketknife she always carried with her and quickly sliced through the seat belt.
“Can you hear me?” she asked, ignoring the heat coming from the flames which hadn’t yet overtaken everything. Maybe she could get this person out before it got too bad if she was lucky. It was a woman and she was groaning, but she didn’t seem to be fully aware of her surroundings. Riley took a deep breath and maneuvered herself so she could get her arms under the woman’s and tried to pull her out. She wasn’t budging. “Ma’am, you have to wake up. You need to get out of the car now!”
“What?” the woman said, looking around in a daze before apparently realizing she was in grave danger. She looked up at Riley, but Riley couldn’t see her face very well because it was covered in blood from a cut somewhere on her head.
“Can you move?” Riley asked, wondering how in the world she was able to remain so calm in the midst of the chaos surrounding her. She took a moment to wipe the blood from the woman’s eyes. They looked familiar somehow, but she didn’t know of anyone in town who had enough money to afford a Mercedes, new or not. Well, except for the Thayers, but she didn’t want to think about that as a possibility. She shook her head. None of it mattered. She needed to get this woman out now.
“Yes,” she said and nodded her head. Her eyes were wild and full of fear, and before Riley could even try to pull her once more, she started screaming and kicking her legs. The fire had finally reached her.
Riley tugged again, and probably because the woman was now kicking her legs, was able to pull her out. She used her jacket to put out the flames on her legs before dragging her about twenty feet away in case the whole thing did actually go up. She finally let her go and fell back onto her ass, completely out of breath.
The woman was passed out now, but whether it was from pain or exhaustion Riley couldn’t say. She maneuvered herself so she sat with the woman’s head in her lap, not wanting to leave her in case she woke up again. Riley knew she wouldn’t want to be alone had their roles been reversed. She spared a glance at the man who had been driving the pickup, but she was now sure he was dead. No doubt drunk, too. He hadn’t moved, and his body was at an unnatural angle. She looked down at the woman again and wiped away more of the blood from her face.
Riley’s heart lurched, and her breath caught as she finally recognized the face. It was one of the Thayers. But was it Victoria or Vanessa? They were identical twins, and Riley hadn’t seen either of them in nearly twenty years. Not since their high school graduation. If it was Vanessa, and had she known beforehand, she might have thought twice about reaching into a burning car to save her. She looked at her own arm and saw it was pretty badly burned. Probably from when she was putting the fire out on the woman since the flames hadn’t reached where her arms were before she got her out of the car.
She glanced over her shoulder when she heard sirens approaching but still didn’t move until one of the paramedics, Megan Wilson, her best friend, came running over to where she was sitting in the middle of the road.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell happened here?” she asked, dropping to her knees and seeing the condition of whichever Thayer sister was in Riley’s arms. She met Riley’s eyes. “You’re burned too. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Riley answered, waving her off. She knew when her adrenaline high wore off she’d be in a world of hurt, but until then she was okay playing the hero. “She needs a lot of help though.”
“Don’t move,” Megan said with a quick nod before she ran over to check on the other driver. Riley saw her shake her head, then Megan ran back to her rig to get what she needed to help, stopping briefly to give directions to her partner. Riley had never been more grateful her best friend and roommate was an EMT. Unless this was Vanessa. Riley chuckled and shook her head because she knew it wouldn’t have mattered. It wasn’t in her nature to not help someone in need.
But damn, it was just nice to fantasize for a moment.
Chapter One
One Year Later
Victoria Thayer looked at the time on the laptop she was using to answer her email. She was not looking forward to going back to the house she’d grown up in, a place she hadn’t visited since graduating college sixteen years ago. Her mother, Vera, had made it perfectly clear she wasn’t welcome there after coming out to her and her father. And now, at Vanessa’s request, she was going there for a three-week stay leading up to Vanessa’s wedding.
Vanessa had been her best friend as well as her identical twin sister while they were growing up, and she’d never been able to deny her anything. Even if it meant dealing with Vera again for an entire three weeks it seemed. She’d taken to calling her mother Vera when she’d made it clear she no longer saw Vic as her daughter.
Her father, on the other hand, had been nothing but supportive of Vic, always. She loved him, and she’d loved his parents as well. Her grandfather had started the Thayer Group when he’d been twenty-two years old, and he’d grown it into a multi-billion-dollar company by the time he’d passed away. They’d started with luxury hotels, but spread out to restaurants and, more recently, day spas. As a result, they now had more money than they knew what to do with.
Vic had always loved when they’d visited her grandparents. Their house was always so full of positive feelings, unlike the house she’d grown up in. She closed her laptop and stood to look out at the view of New York City through the floor to ceiling windows in her office. She sighed heavily and rested her forehead against the glass. She was so tired of this life. She knew a lot of people would give anything to have her position and wealth, but she’d never truly been happy working as the head of marketing for the Thayer Group. Her passion was in her painting, even if she never sold another piece. She often thought she’d be perfectly happy living somewhere secluded spending her days doing nothing but painting.