“We’re done,” he ground out, rising to his feet, flattening his palms on the desk.
Hell, no. Pain, like crushed glass, scraped his throat and chest raw.
He hadn’t been called an artist in fifteen long years. And hadn’t picked up a camera or paintbrush in just as long. Once, his trademark had been oversize, mixed-media collages that provided cultural commentary on war and human rights. He’d poured his being into those pieces, falling into endless pockets of time where nothing had mattered but losing himself in photographs, oils and whatever elements captured what swirled inside him—metal, newspapers, books, even bits of clothing. But when his father had vanished, Joshua had put aside childish things. At least that was what Vernon had called Joshua’s passion—a childish hobby.
It’d been like performing a lobotomy on his soul. But now, instead of channeling his anger, grief and pain into art, he suppressed it. And when that didn’t work, he funneled it into making Black Crescent solvent and powerful again. Or took it out on a punching bag at the gym.
The whole shitfest with the hedge fund had left him with precious little—the death of his art career, the eradication of his relationships with his brothers, a ghost of a mother, an overabundance of shame and a ruined family company. But they’d been his choices.
All that had remained in the ashes after the firestorm were the ragged tatters of his pride because he’d had the strength, the character, to make those choices.
And now Sophie Armstrong sought to steal that dignity away from him, too.
No. She couldn’t have it.
“Mr. Lowell,” she began again with a short shake of her head.
But again, he cut her off. “I have a busy day, and you’ve had more than the thirty seconds I allotted. We’re through talking. You need to go,” he ordered, knowing his mother would cringe at the lack of the manners she’d drilled into him since birth. Not that he gave a damn. Not when this woman stood here prying into an area of his life that wasn’t open for public consumption.
“Fine, I’ll leave,” she said, but nothing in the firm, almost combative tone said she’d conceded. She drew her shoulders back, hiking her chin in the air. Though she stood at least a foot shorter than him, she still managed to peer down at him with a glint of battle in her silver eyes. “You can try to erase the past, but certain things don’t go away no matter how hard you try to bury them. The truth always finds a way of resurrecting itself.”
“Especially if there are reporters always armed with a shovel, ready to dig up anything that will sell papers,” he drawled.
The curves of her full mouth flattened, and her eyes went molten. He waited, his body stilling except for the heavy thud of his heart against his rib cage. And the rush of hot anticipation in his veins.
It’d been years since anyone had challenged him. Not since he’d proved he was his father’s son in business and, at times, in ruthlessness. But Sophie Armstrong... She must not have received the memo, because she glared at him, slashes of red painting her high cheekbones, as if even now, she longed to go for his throat. Was it perverse that part of him hoped she did? That he wanted that tight, petite, almost fragile body pressed to his larger frame with those delicate but capable-looking hands wrapped around his neck...exerting pressure even as he took her mouth as she attempted to take his breath?
Yeah, that might make him a little sick. And a hell of a lot dirty.
Still... He could picture it easily. Could feel the phantom tightening of her grip now. And he wanted it. Craved it.
But not enough to rip open old, barely scarred-over wounds so she could have a byline.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Lowell,” she finally said, and disappointment at her retreat surged through him.
God, what was wrong with him? He wanted—no, needed—her to drop this “artist submerged” bullshit and get the hell out of his office.
She whirled around on her boring nude heels and stalked across the room to his office door. Without a backward glance, she exited. He half expected her to slam it shut, but somehow the quiet, definite snick of the lock engaging seemed much more ominous.
Like a booming warning shot across his bow.
Two
“The Black Crescent Scandal: Fifteen Years Later.”
Joshua gripped the Monday issue of the Falling Brook Chronicle so tightly, it should’ve been torn down the middle. She’d done it. Sophie Armstrong had run with the story, placing his family’s sordid and ugly history on the front page as fodder for an always scandal-hungry public.
He lifted his gaze to stare out the windshield of his Mercedes-Benz at the Black Crescent building. He knew every railing, every angle, every stone inch of the modern midcentury building built into a cliff. His father’s aim had been for the headquarters of his hedge fund to stand out in the more traditional architecture of Falling Brook. And he’d succeeded. The building was as famous—or infamous—as its owner.
And his infamy had made page one of the local paper. Again.
Studying the imposing structure offered the briefest of respites. Almost against his will, he returned his attention to the newspaper crinkling under his fists. He’d already read the article twice, but he scanned it again. It recounted his father’s rise in the financial industry, his seemingly perfect life—marriage to Eve Evans-Janson, the pedigreed society daughter and darling whose connections further installed Vernon as a reigning king of Falling Brook; his three sons, who’d shown great promise with their Ivy League educations and fast-track career goals; the
