Burnout simply isn’t an option.
‘Maybe you’ll find some hot stranger to bang.’ Livvie’s bright eyes flare. She knows what it’s like. If I so much ashave dinner with a man, my brothers insist on running a background check on him.
I glance over my shoulder at my ever present driver/bodyguard, Tate. At six foot five, with startling red hair, he’s not exactly inconspicuous, but he’s the best bodyguard I’ve ever had. Like all of Killian’s men, he’s lethally trained, but his best skill by far is discretion.
We’ve developed a mutual understanding over the years. Unlike my previous bodyguards, he treats me with the respect a grown woman deserves.
‘With any luck.’ I wink at my friend. ‘Sun, sea, Sangria… what could possibly go wrong?’
Chapter Two
COLE
I haven’t taken a vacation in five years. Not because I can’t, but because work is my preferred escape from the shitshow that I call “my family”. Case in point: my mother is currently preparing to walk down the aisle for the third time in as many years, and I’ve had more than enough front-row seats to her matrimonial chaos for one lifetime.
Instead of allowing herself to work through the grief of my father’s untimely passing, my mother has done her best to fill the void his death left in her life.
But her best is a fucking abomination.
When the ‘save the date’ landed last month—complete with a glitter border and a photo of her latest fiancé, Doug, photoshopped to look twenty pounds lighter—I got Belle, my PA, to book the jet out of the country before she could even contemplate asking me to give her away—again. No, I’ll leave that honour to Luke, my little brother. He might squeeze in the wedding in-between filling his face with cocaine and squandering his inheritance on fast cars and loose women. So far, his bachelor’s in business has pretty much gone to waste. If he pulled his head out of his ass, he could help run ourfamily’s hotels, instead of hindering the business by being publicly hauled to rehab. It wouldn’t be so bad if he stayed in the damn place and actually got clean. But no—he always signs himself out the first chance he gets and immediately starts snorting again.
I glance around the luxurious resort in the Dominican Republic. It doesn’t have a patch on Hartmann Hotels—nothing does—but it has a certain level of lavishness, and it’s well maintained. Sunlight glints off the infinity pool like scattered diamonds. The water is so blue it almost appears filtered. Palm leaves rustle overhead in a lazy breeze. The scent of salt, sunscreen and tropical fruit seeps through the air.
The balmy heat soaks into my shoulders and chest, painting a sheen of sweat along my torso as I spread out on one of the plush daybeds beside the infinity pool.
Did Belle think I wanted a honeymoon destination? Admittedly, I instructed her to book a place I wouldn’t be recognised, but this—this is romantic, intimate even. Half the damn guests are walking around with fucking hearts in their eyes. Loved up couples lie entwined on the sun loungers beside me, exchanging heated kisses that promise primal activities to come.
Primal activities that I haven’t had time to even contemplate for the past year, let alone pursue. For fuck’s sake.
I stand and drop into the pool by the swim-up bar. The water is shockingly cool against my sun-scorched skin. I order a Macallan from the barman, and rest an elbow on the stone bar briefly before jerking it away. Mother fucker! I could fry a steak on that fucking thing.
‘Ice?’ The barman holds up my whiskey. I’d never normally ruin a good whiskey by diluting it, but in this heat, I’ll dehydrate if I don’t.
‘Sure.’ I nod, pushing my sunglasses up higher on my nose.
He drops in one giant cube and hands over the glass. I sign it to my suite—The Celeste Suite, the resort’s most opulent suite and the only one with a rooftop hot tub. What are the chances of finding a woman to share it with me?
In the States, when women hear my name, they throw themselves at me, which is why Belle booked this reservation under an alias. I’m not naïve enough to think it’s me they’re after—not really. It’s the Hartmann legacy. The prestige. The empire.
The sad thing is, because of that, I’ll never know if a woman truly wants me or simply wants one of the Forbes top-one-hundred billionaires.
I’ve made my peace with that.
Unlike my mother, I’m not looking for matrimonial bliss.
But some decent company wouldn’t go amiss.
Someone real.
Someone interesting.
Someone with a spark about them.
I turn my back to the bar, training my eyes on the vast Caribbean Sea on the horizon, soaking in that iconic turquoise water, then raise my glass in a silent toast to the only man in my family who had any sense—my father.
I wish he could see the Dublin hotel. The casino. The bar. See that I’m continuing his legacy. Know that I will do whatever it takes to have his name—our name—lit up in bright neon lights in the city he called home.
I take a large sip, feeling the burn settle low in my chest.
