CHAPTER 1
Brienne
In all my years of advocation in boardrooms, or getting pleasured in bed, I’ve never implored anyone for anything. I might have said please when it was warranted for politeness or because it turned on my lover, but I’ve never needed something so bad and so far out of reach that I had to beg for it.
I know how to distinguish between wants and needs, and I ignore wants because I’m strong.
If it’s a need, I know how to bargain my way to success because I’m smart.
But right now, I’m desperate, and negotiations aren’t working.
Setting aside the acquisition proposal because I can’t concentrate, I glance up for an appreciative look at the verdant grasses and summer trees punctuated by the corn and soybean crops of southeastern Minnesota.
It took us roughly an hour to get here from the Minneapolis airport, but I barely noticed, as I had work to do.
“About five more minutes,” the driver says as we get closer to the small town of Red Wing.
“Thank you,” I reply, letting my gaze wander over the scenery.
The Town Car my assistant scheduled isn’t a luxury but a necessity. It’s true, I don’t have a driver’s license, but I use a driver purely because there’s never enough time in the day to do all I have to do, and thus I work whenever I can. There’s not a time when I don’t have something major pressing on me. Outside of the four to five hours of sleep I get a night, I’m pretty much nose to the grindstone. I never had enough hours in the day to meet all my obligations before the Titans’ plane crashed, and now the added responsibility of team ownership has stretched me thinner than ever. Thank God for our general manager, Callum Derringer, who’s patiently guided me through the pains of learning how to be a good owner for this hockey team.
I really should use these remaining five minutes to get through the rest of the contract to purchase a small-town bank chain based out of Altoona. As the CEO of Norcross Holdings, the board will look to me for guidance on this matter. Is this is a good deal or should we leave it alone? It’s only one of dozens of major decisions I have to facilitate for my family’s empire.
Although family isn’t quite the right word.
It’s been my empire since my father died two years ago and my brother died in the crash a little over five months ago. I’m the designated Norcross heir left to lead our dynasty. It’s a multibillion-dollar legacy stemming from investments dating back to the early 1800s in coal, steel, oil, and real estate. Modern times led my family to establish Norcross Bank, which is now a national institution, and of course, we own the Pittsburgh Titans.
There are aunts and uncles and cousins galore, but none are qualified to sit in the CEO chair. My father groomed me to run Norcross Holdings, as my brother Adam really only cared about cultivating the Titans’ hockey team. Family members sit on the board and hold positions throughout the multitude of companies that fall under the main umbrella, but I’m the one who manages it all.
A pang of longing hits for Adam, followed by the cold hollowing-out in my chest that I’ve truthfully recognized as loneliness. While I am never alone—surrounded by business peers, acquaintances, some I’d call casual friends—I’m lonelier than anyone could imagine.
Adam and I were close and losing him sliced deep. He was the rock-solid, steady shoulder I could always rest a weary head on. He was kind, loving, generous to a fault, and the kind of man who was going to make some woman incredibly happy one day. He wanted nothing more than to find the future Mrs. Adam Norcross and have lots of kids.
It makes me sad he never found that before he died.
While Adam was a hard worker and put his heart and soul into the Titans, he was always able to disconnect at day’s end. It’s why I know he would have made an amazing father and devoted husband, because kids and a wife would have been his priority.
Not me.
It’s virtually impossible for me to settle, and I have way too many responsibilities to take on anything else. I’m away from home by five a.m. every morning to hit the gym, and I’m in the office by seven. From there, it’s nonstop work, which often blows right through lunch and ends up in a business dinner of some sort. When I get home, it’s more work while I lie in bed with my laptop propped on a pillow, and if I’m lucky, I can squeak in fifteen minutes of pleasure reading. Usually, I fall asleep with my glasses perched on my nose and my digital reader sliding to the floor.
I repeat this seven days a week, and I haven’t had a vacation in years. While I’ll indulge in the occasional massage to alleviate knots in my shoulders and neck from stress and long workdays, the only other respite I have is Clay Bessel. He’s a brilliant neurosurgeon who is as busy and driven as I am. We are friends with benefits. Sometimes that means he’ll be my date to a charity gala, and sometimes it means he’ll fuck my brains out if our schedules align.
I’d like to say we’re good together, but we’re not really together. Just two people who serve a particular purpose and happen to like each other’s company when we can fit it in.
My phone dings, nabbing my attention from a large dairy farm we pass. It’s Callum. Just got off the phone with Coen Highsmith. He’s coming back. He’d like to talk to you, though.
I exhale harshly, relief slumping my shoulders. Coen is an original member of the Titans and wasn’t on the plane when it went down—he was sidelined with the flu and therefore didn’t travel with the team.
One of the Lucky Three.
While I was successful in putting together a team to get right back on the ice, Coen wasn’t part of that success. He was mired in darkness—my guess is survivor’s guilt—and repetitively sabotaged his career with horrible mistakes.
It cost him the season after he was suspended for attacking a ref, and when I last saw him in April, he’d told me he was quitting hockey. It’s been heavy on my mind how we could get him turned around. Whatever did it, I’m eternally grateful.
I shoot Callum a quick reply. Best news I’ve heard in a while. Fingers crossed I’ll have more by day’s end. I’ll call him later.
Callum gives me a thumbs-up emoji, and I drop my phone on the leather seat.
The car slows and the driver hangs a left into the entrance of a neighborhood called Shadow Creek Estates.
Estate might be a bit of a stretch for the homes in here—they can’t be more than two to three thousand square feet and don’t appear to be more than a few years old, if the young trees dotting the yards and bordering the sidewalks are any indication. It’s a beautiful community, though. The landscaping is neatly manicured with pretty flower beds and ornate light posts on every corner.
I wonder if coming here was a mistake. This could end up being a colossal waste of my time, but I’m not one who easily gives up.
This is an absolute last-ditch effort.
The driver hangs another left and proceeds down a street with a dead-end sign. He follows it until the roadway stops and a cornfield starts. On the right is a lovely craftsman home in dark gray with white trim and rough-cut wooden beams along the veranda porch. Both doors on the double-car garage are closed, but a large motorcycle sits in the driveway.
“No need to get out,” I tell the driver. “If you can just wait here for me.”