PROLOGUE

There were times in a man’s life that remained indelibly imprinted on his brain for one reason or another. Events that threw open the window to a dark, shadowed corner of his soul and revealed truths he’d search for within himself all his life.

That day had come for John Calvin Walker Jr.

He’d awakened that morning with the knowledge that life no longer held challenge. He had a job that he was too successful at in his father’s law firm. His fiancée was the perfect socialite, an exquisite hostess, and also considered one of Boston’s most beautiful and successful female lawyers. She was about as emotional, compassionate, and passionate as a lump of clay, though.

According to his fiancée, he needed to find a hobby to replace his overly sexed inclinations. This coming from the woman who had spent the better part of the first month they were together exhausting him in his bed.

The passion had waned, slowly at first, until now, six months later, she thought he needed a hobby instead.

His life had gone to hell. Or perhaps, he was only now realizing that his life could be so much more. What, he hadn’t decided yet. How to deal with the complications, he hadn’t decided yet. One thing was certain, the restlessness inside him was growing to the point that it was becoming an ache.

As he sat across from her at her favorite Italian restaurant and pretended to listen to her quiet rant where one of his charity projects was concerned, he realized something was changing within him.

Accepting it was another matter. Dealing with it would be harder. As she talked, he flicked his waiter a look. He was a good man, John thought, he’d waited on John enough to know what that look meant. Within minutes there was a glass of whisky sitting unobtrusively at his elbow despite Marlena’s disapproving look.

She didn’t like the whisky he drank. She didn’t like the friends he associated with, and he was beginning to wonder if she liked anything about him other than the Walker name and the fortune his father had built over three decades. That fortune, added to the centuries old Evanworth inheritance from his mother, Brianna’s, side of the family, made John an impressive catch, and he knew it.

It had nothing to do with him, personally, and John was beginning to suspect that where Marlena was concerned, it was the fortune rather than the man that appealed to her.

“I believe we should be going now,” Marlena announced as he finished a second whisky.

She glanced around the restaurant, directing her attention to a table of giggling young women celebrating a recent engagement of one of their friends.

Marlena looked at them as though something didn’t quite smell right. “We’re going to have to find another restaurant, darling. This one is beginning to accept a less than desirable crowd.”

John looked around. “It looks like the normal one to me.” He shrugged.

The young women at the nearby table were regulars, just not together in a group often.

He swore he saw the same faces every night they ate there.

“As though you pay any attention.” Her delicate nose lifted disdainfully. The narrow lines of it were sharp, too sharp, almost giving her the appearance of a rodent.

John narrowed his eyes. He’d been out of town for a few weeks; had she had a nose job in that time? He couldn’t remember it being that narrow before.

Nodding to the waiter, he indicated that they were finished, knowing his card on file would be charged an exorbitant amount within minutes.

As they moved through the luxurious lobby, his hand settled at his fiancée’s back. A second later his jaw clenched and his hand fell away as he felt her stiffen.

As passionate as ice. Hell. And maybe that second whisky hadn’t been a good idea, because his temper was beginning to brew.

“Oh dear, don’t look, darling, but that hussy Sierra is here.” There was an edge of anger in her tone. “And isn’t that your friend Gerard?”

John felt his jaw tighten at the sight of Sierra Lucas, slender, almost fey in appearance, with her long, thick curls cascading down her back.

The white silk dress she wore showed her curvy figure to advantage. Her full, pert breasts were obviously unbound and as tempting as hell. As he watched, tiny nipples hardened noticeably at the same rate his cock thickened. Damn, he’d known her all her life. This reaction to her was becoming irritating.

He really should have foregone that second whisky.

“John.” Gerard’s smile was as cool as always as his gaze flicked to Marlena. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Is this your lovely fiancée I hear so much about?”

John stepped forward. In the three months he and Marlena had been engaged, he had yet to introduce her to the friend that would serve as his best man.

And then Sierra opened her mouth. “You should know, Gerard, since she’s the same woman I saw leaving your brownstone every morning for the past two weeks.”

It was then John saw the raging hurt and anger in Sierra’s slate gray eyes as she glared at Marlena and Gerard while stepping back slowly.

John’s eyes narrowed, his gut tightening in suspicion. “What did you just say, Sierra?”

The one thing that hit him faster than even the words was the fact that neither Marlena nor Gerard was denying it. Guilt flickered in both their eyes instead.

“My God, that little tramp has nerve,” Marlena finally muttered. “Where is her keeper?”

Gerard was watching John, though. It was a damned good thing, John thought, because he wasn’t certain himself of his reaction. Was that an edge of relief mixed with the sudden anger that his best friend and his fiancée had been lying to him? Lying. Cheating him as though he were too damned stupid to eventually catch on to it?

“Why were you at Gerard’s house?” he asked. “You told me you didn’t know him.”

“Really, John, these things aren’t discussed in public.” Her cold blue eyes narrowed on him. “Your roots are showing, dearest. A marriage such as ours doesn’t necessitate such answers.”

A marriage such as theirs? Where the hell had that come from and what made her think their marriage would be any different than any other couple’s?

“The hell it doesn’t.” He was aware of the looks nearby diners were giving them. The subtle hunger as they smelled the juicy gossip getting ready to roll. “If you’re fucking my best friend, then it’s as good a time as any to discuss it.”

Marlena’s eyes widened.

“Hell, John,” Gerard muttered, looking around in embarrassment. “Business arrangements don’t include jealousy.”

“Business arrangements?” Fury was beginning to envelop him.

“Well, surely you didn’t think it was a love match,” Marlena drawled. “Your money, my family. That does not a passionate affair make.”

Her family? Her father didn’t have shit compared to his in financial success. Did she honestly believe the Genoa name held an advantage to him?

“John.” And there was Sierra, sliding in close, her tiny hand settling on his arm. “This is the wrong place to fight. You don’t want witnesses when you kill them, right?”

He almost laughed. Hell, he was almost amused as he stared down at her somber little face. “I have a good lawyer,” he promised her in a loud whisper. “And diminished capacity goes a long way.”

Lifting his gaze, he watched as Marlena and Gerard both stepped back. “What’s wrong, Gerry, buddy? You don’t have as much money as I do?”

Gerard winced; they both knew he didn’t.

“Fuck both of you,” he growled. “You can mail the ring back, keep it, or flush it, who the fuck cares. Now I know why I hesitated to give you the heirloom Mother has. You don’t fucking deserve it.”

Marlena gasped in outrage, and her lips parted to deliver what he was certain would be a scathing retort when he turned his back on her and walked away.

“Go home, Sierra. You did your good deed for the day,” he snarled down at her as he hailed a cab then jerked the door open as one pulled in beside him.

“John.” Her hand was on his arm again. Her nipples were pressing tight and hard against her dress. Hell, there were days he wished she wasn’t his father’s goddaughter. It made it damned hard to give her the fucking he’d wanted to give her since he’d learned just how easily she could be had.

“I’ll deal with you later, you little troublemaker,” he snapped as she jerked her hand back. “Until then, stay the hell out of my way.”

“You had a right to know, and she had no right to an opportunity to lie to you.” She bit her lip, anger and conviction shining in her eyes, along with her tears.

“I’m not so easy to lie to,” he informed her sharply. “Fuck it, Sierra. Go play with your little artist boyfriends and leave me the hell alone.”

Sliding into the cab, he slammed the door, the sight of her pale, serious little face in his periphery as the cab pulled away. Giving the driver the address to his penthouse, John sat back in the seat and closed his eyes briefly.

Hell. He should have known she was cheating on him. He should have known the entire relationship was nothing more than a sham. In the year and a half they’d been together, not once had he felt what he knew he should have felt from Marlena. There had been no depth, no passion. He’d convinced himself that would change once they married. He should have known when his mother gave the news of his engagement such a cool reception that something was wrong.

When he walked into his penthouse half an hour later, he went directly to the bar. He’d been doing that more and more lately, he thought. Heading straight to the bar the minute he walked in the door.

He’d been doing it for the past three months.

What had ever convinced him that marrying Marlena was a good idea?

Oh yeah. She was cool. Calm. She demanded very little from him and gave even less.

He went for the whisky.

Sometimes, a man just needed a little false courage to make the decisions he had known for years were coming.

That was why he had asked Marlena to marry him. One last-ditch effort to conform to the life he had been born into, the society that was part of his birthright.

His mother’s family had been an integral part of Boston society for more than two hundred years. His last name might be Walker, but it was his mother’s Boston Brahmin side that had assured him carte blanche in the world he lived in.

It was a world he was leaving.

He accepted what he had sensed for a while now. He may have been born into this world, but it was one he found himself unable to accept now.

It was time to go.

Whisky burned its way to his stomach as he inhaled through the slow, blooming heat.

Hell, he had no right to come down on Sierra as he had. She was damned protective, and it wasn’t as though he hadn’t watched out for her in similar ways when he caught her lovers cheating on her in the past.

He’d always watched out for her, especially when she was involved with people he didn’t particularly approve of.

He downed another shot of the expensive liquor.

It was his own damned fault.

He’d had enough reservations about asking Marlena to marry him that he hadn’t asked his mother for the heirloom engagement ring to give her. He should have known when he hadn’t given her that damned ring that something was wrong.

A marriage of convenience. His money for her name. As though his family needed her fucking name. His mother’s patrician line opened doors for him that the so-called revered Genoa name would never open.

As he tossed back another shot, a key scraped in the door and it opened slowly.

Son of a bitch, she just didn’t give up, did she?

Marlena stepped into the foyer, her nose lifted with haughty arrogance.

She had definitely had a nose job and he hadn’t even cared enough to notice before.

“We need to discuss this.” Hip cocked, that nose tilted, model thin and superior.