him satisfaction to see her wearing the things he’d bought for her tonight. For him, it was one more step in the inevitable direction of her being his.
She didn’t know it yet, but he’d waited long enough. He’d endured enough time feeling like the worst sort of criminal for lusting after his best friend’s baby sister. When she’d turned twenty, it had marked a huge difference in the way he viewed her, but he’d been thirty-four and he knew she was still far too young for what he expected from her. And so he’d waited.
She was an obsession, and it made him uncomfortable to admit, but she was a drug in his veins he had no desire to cure himself of. Now that she was twenty-four, the age difference didn’t seem so insurmountable. Or so he told himself. Jace would still go ballistic—after all, Mia would always be his baby sister—but Gabe was willing to take the risk to finally taste forbidden fruit.
Oh yes, he had plans for Mia. He had but to put them into action.
• • •
Mia took a cautious sip of her wine—a glass she’d only taken so she didn’t feel quite so out of place in a sea of beautiful, rich people—and she looked anxiously around for Jace. He said he’d be here, and she’d decided to surprise him by popping in for the grand opening of HCM’s newest hotel.
Located in Union Square, it was modern and lush, obviously catering to an upscale clientele. But then Jace—and his two best friends—lived and breathed in that world. They’d worked damn hard to get there, but they’d achieved success beyond most people’s imagination, and they’d done it by the time they reached their thirties.
At thirty-eight, they were touted as some of the most successful hoteliers in the world. But they were still just her brother and his best friends. Well, except Gabe, but perhaps it was time to get over her embarrassing teenage fantasies where he was concerned. At sixteen, it was understandable. At twenty-four, it just made her desperate and deluded.
Ash and Gabe had been born into wealth. She and Jace had not, and she still wasn’t entirely comfortable in the circles her brother moved in. But she was inordinately proud of Jace for making such a success of himself, especially since he’d been saddled with a younger sibling after the unexpected deaths of their parents.
Gabe was close to his parents, or at least he had been when they’d been married. In a shocking move, his father had divorced Gabe’s mother right after their thirty-ninth anniversary. Ash…his was an interesting situation at best. That was the most diplomatic word for it. He didn’t get along with his family—any of them. He’d gone his own way young, spurning the family business—and money—and perhaps his success was all the more infuriating to his family because he’d done it without them.
Mia knew that Ash never spent any time with them. He spent most of his time with Jace and Gabe, but in particular Jace. Jace had made it clear to Mia that Ash’s family were, in his words, assholes, and she’d left it at that, not that she’d ever have occasion to meet them. They pretended that HCM didn’t exist.
She wanted to turn and flee when two men approached her, smiling like they were about to score for the night. But she hadn’t found Jace yet, and she wasn’t going to leave so quickly when she’d spent a ridiculous amount of time getting ready. Just in case she happened to see Gabe, which was pathetic enough, but there it was.
She smiled and braced herself, determined not to embarrass her brother by acting like a twit on his big night.
And then, to her complete surprise, Gabe appeared, wading through the crowd, a scowl marring his face. He stepped in front of the two approaching men and took her arm, effectively herding her away before the men got to her.
“Hello to you too, Gabe,” she said shakily.
There was something about the man that just made her stupid. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. He probably thought it a miracle that she actually completed her degree and graduated with honors. Even if he and Jace thought it was a perfectly useless degree. Jace had wanted her to pursue a business degree. He wanted to bring her into the “family” business. But she wasn’t sure yet what she wanted to do. Which was another source of exasperation to Jace.
That