First Comes Love - Ashlee Price Page 0,85
it yet.
I quickly pull my handkerchief out of my pocket and wrap it around her finger. Only then does she notice the wound.
“Ow,” she complains as she winces.
“You’ll be fine,” I tell her. “We…”
Just then, the door opens. Joel comes in.
“There you are. I was starting to think—”
He stops as he sees my bloodstained handkerchief. Then he comes running.
“What the hell?”
“It’s fine, Joel,” I tell him before he starts to panic. “It’s just a cut.”
“I’m fine,” Claire reiterates.
Still, he insists on seeing her hand. “Let me see. Oh, shit.”
I move away to let him take over applying pressure to the wound. Joel is Claire’s brother. He’s the one who’s supposed to be taking care of her. I’m not needed here.
“I’ll go get the first aid kit,” I say before leaving the room.
Out in the hall, I pause just for a moment to take a breath. It seems like so much happened in the past minute. One moment Claire and I were happily reminiscing and the next there’s this cloud hanging over us. And then the goblet fell and Claire cut her finger. Then Joel came.
I glance back towards the room. I can’t see Claire from this angle but I can see Joel clearly. I can see the concern on his pale face.
He loves Claire. He really does. He always has and always will. Which is why he isn’t going to let just any man have her, not even me, his best friend. Maybe least of all, me. After all, he did warn me once that I shouldn’t get any ideas about his little sister.
And still, I did. I betrayed him. But no more. I did have an idea, but I’m getting rid of that now and I’m never thinking of it again. Because Joel is my best friend and Claire is his little sister.
Grown-up or not, Claire will always be my best friend’s little sister, which means I can never lay a finger on her.
Not in a million years.
Chapter One
Claire
Seven years later…
I recognize Ryker as soon as I enter the bar.
He looks just like he did in the last photo of him I saw online. Not that I’m stalking him. The article about Hawthorne Holdings acquiring some bigshot Swiss company just popped up in my news feed.
He’s thirty now and he should look that old, but he still only looks twenty-five at most. Maybe it’s because of his thick, dark hair and his light-colored shirt. He always did like the paler hues—Arctic blue, lemon yellow, pink even. Tonight, he’s wearing a mint green shirt even though most of the people in the room are in emerald or ruby red. No tie. Just a Paul Smith scarf draped loosely around his neck. It’s fashionable, but I would have preferred him without it so I could have seen more of the sculpted muscle beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. I’m pretty sure he has a chiseled chest to go with that six-pack. Between him and my brother, he was always the fitter one, but not because he was conscious of how he looked. He was just more disciplined. Too disciplined, sometimes. Too stiff.
Not right now. Right now, he looks perfectly relaxed. He even has a smile on his face as he listens to the pregnant woman in front of him.
I frown as jealousy pricks my chest.
Yup. Jealousy. Because ever since that Christmas party at Hawthorne Mansion, I’ve had a crush on Ryker Hawthorne. And not a silly schoolgirl crush. A serious one, the kind where I’ve dreamed of kissing him, where I’ve imagined him naked and us having sex as I lie in my bed.
It got so bad that I secretly went through Joel’s phone just to get his number. I summoned the courage to send him a few messages, but he never replied. Once, I used a different phone to call him, but as soon as I heard his voice, I froze. Oh, and when I was back in Chicago to finalize the sale of the house Joel and I grew up in, I stood for a few minutes in front of the Hawthorne Tower just wanting to see him. But I didn’t. And eventually, the crush waned. But it never completely disappeared.
It was just like the moon. Sometimes, it’s like it’s not there. I’d stop thinking of Ryker. Some days, I’d forget he even existed. I’d go out with some other guy and have fun. And then Joel would mention Ryker or I’d see a picture of him online