That’s right.Me.It was what a good heir to a family fortune did.
But I didn’t just do it for the money. No, I did it because Commodore had hammered the family motto into me since I was four years old—Preserve and protect the legacy.That’s what Riscoffs did. We filled the family coffers with even more money than was there when we took the reins, and then passed it on to the next generation.
My father was doing a shitty job of living up to Commodore’s rigorous standards, based on the reports I’d been getting in New York. Apparently, he spent more time with his mistresses than he did in the office. This last message made it clear that Commodore had had enough. According to him, it was time for me to come back to Gable and pick up the slack.
I came, but I didn’t have to like it. Just because I was an obedient heir didn’t mean I wasn’t a pissed-off one. Which explained why I was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall bar outside of town, glaring at the tequila in front of me.
I could handle whatever responsibilities Commodore threw at me, but I wasn’t ready to come back to Gable. Not by a long shot. New York was in my blood, and I was climbing the ladder in a company where no one with my name sat in a corner office. I was proving myself and my worth.
Gable might be my home, but it had never been comfortable to live here. It was an enclave tucked into some of the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen, but it was a town divided.
My family had seen to it over the years.
The Riscoff-Gable feud was the stuff of legends, and it wasn’t dying anytime soon. Everyone had chosen sides, especially with the latest incident last month when Commodore bought the Gables’ family farm at auction when they lost it for getting behind on taxes. Commodore didn’t need or want it. He just enjoyed taking something from the Gables.
A day after the sale, the house and big barn burned to the ground. The cops didn’t know if Commodore did it out of spite or if the Gables torched it because they couldn’t handle the Riscoffs owning it.
I didn’t fucking know the truth, and I didn’t want to know. The only thing that mattered was that I couldn’t go anywhere in this town without people looking at me and knowing exactly who I was, and half of them hated me. The anonymity I’d enjoyed in New York was stripped away the minute I stepped off the company jet.
I reached for the bottle of Patrón in front of me and poured a shot as the dull roar of the bar kicked up another notch.
It took me all of three days to find someplace I could sit and be pissed off without anyone looking twice at me. In my battered Mets cap, plain white T-shirt, and ripped jeans, no one gave a single shit who I was at Mo’s. It was basically a shack favored by bikers heading up into the mountains. It was on the opposite fork of the road that headed to the family estate, a place I couldn’t wait to escape the second I crossed the threshold. The estate was nothing but a reminder of family responsibility dictating the course of the rest of my life.
I was my own man, but with my grandfather calling the shots now, I was frustrated as hell.
Mo’s was the perfect hideaway, and tonight I wanted to drink in peace while I tried to settle into the idea of accepting my fate. That would take a hell of a lot more tequila.
I was thinking about tossing back the liquor in front of me when the door opened and a gust of wind dragged everyone’s attention toward the door, including mine.
Ho. Ly. Fuck.
Hair as black as the night. Lips as red as sin. A body built for a man’s hands.
Jesus. Fuck.
I wasn’t drunk, but the whole world seemed to slow down as her hair blew around her shoulders as she strode inside. It was like a goddamned photo-shoot pose—but she was completely oblivious to the accidental effect.
The dull roar of the bar quieted as every man inside seemed to drop his jaw at her arrival. It was like we were all waiting in anticipation for her to lift her head. She shoved something in her purse and looked up.
Are you fucking serious?
Her vivid blue eyes kicked me in the gut, followed by a sucker punch from the way she pursed her lips as she surveyed the bar like it was her kingdom. She personified the sayingwalk in like you own the place.With her shoulders back, tits out, and chin pointed up, she walked toward the bar with her disinterested stare firmly in place as she ignored every single man in the room.
A woman on a mission.Fuck, that’s hot.
Confidence rolled off her as she took the seat two stools down from me and slapped a twenty on the bar. “Tequila. Straight up. ASAP.”
I was right about the woman-on-a-mission part. Some poor fuck must have pissed her off, and the fire barely banked beneath all that smooth skin was the most tempting thing I’d experienced in ages. The punch of lust that hit me made my dick shift in my jeans, and I sat forward. I’d never been the kind of man who would let an opportunity like her pass me by.
I slid the bottle of Patrón down the bar toward her. “Here you go.”
Those blue eyes grabbed me by the balls when she shifted her gaze toward me. “I’m not sleeping with you for buying me a drink.”
I like her style.A smile crossed my face for the first time since I got the call from my grandfather that it was time to trot along home.
“That won’t be why.” I turned on my stool and held out a hand, driven by pure habit. “I’m—”
“Save it, city boy. I don’t need to know your name to drink your tequila. I’m never going to see you again, anyway.”