COLE
I jolt upright like someone’s taken a defibrillator to my chest. One violent, bone-deep shock tears me out of sleep. My heart is hammering. My palms are slick. Every instinct in me—the same instincts that have saved my ass in boardrooms and back alleys—screams that something just… shifted. It’s that cold, unmistakable punch of the universe kicking out of rhythm.
Panic—real, unfiltered panic—rises in my throat.
The last time I felt like this, my father had a heart attack. While he was clutching his chest, taking his last breaths, I was clutching mine—wondering what the fuck was wrong with me.
I drag a hand over my face, my breath sawing in and out in rapid bursts. I squint through the dimness, reaching for my phone beside the bed.
Five a.m.
Before I can overthink it, I hit the number I swore I wasn’t dialling until hell froze over.
My mother answers on the third ring, voice thick with sleep. ‘Cole? Honey? Are you okay?’
I exhale hard, my hand gripping the back of my neck. ‘Are you okay, more to the point?’
A surprised laugh tinkles into my ear. ‘I am now. I thought you’d never return my calls. Where in the world are you? Let me guess, Ireland?’ She babbles on while my heart battles to settle into its usual rhythm with the adrenaline spiking my blood. ‘It must be, what? Lunchtime in Dublin?’
For some reason, Irish’s face bounces into my brain. And that body. Those full lips. That fucking laugh.
‘Cole? Are you still there?’ My mother’s concerned voice drags me back to the conversation.
‘I’m not in Ireland. Not yet.’
‘Well, where are you then, Son?’
Son. The word makes me wince. That’s what my father called me.
‘I’m in Vegas.’ I scan my enormous bedroom, one of fifteen in this house, but by far the biggest. Double doors open onto an enormous terrace overlooking a sweep of professionally landscaped desert gardens,the kind only old money or obscene money could sustain in Nevada. Below that,a salt-water infinity poolstretches into the horizon.
‘It’s five in the morning, darling. What on earth are you doing up?’ There’s a rustle—silk sheets, obviously. She never sleeps in anything else.
Is he beside her?
My new stepfather?
The thought sets my fingers curling into a tight fist.
Then Irish’s words from all those weeks ago pop back into my head.‘Maybe she’s trying to outrun the silence. The empty side of the bed. The memories. The fear she’ll never feel wanted or loved again.’
Guilt stabs my stomach.
‘Are you all right, Cole? You sound… strange.’ She pauses. ‘Have you been drinking, honey?’
‘No!’ I scowl. Bad enough one Hartmann is in rehab. I have no problem paying for his treatment, but I have no intention of joining him there. ‘I just woke up feeling… I don’t know,’ I admit, the words unfamiliar in my mouth. ‘I woke up feeling like… something happened.’ My voice drops. ‘Something big.’
Silence crackles down the line, warm and knowing.
‘Cole,’ she says softly, ‘you haven’t sounded like this since your father…’ She trails off. She doesn’t need to finish.
‘I know,’ I breathe. I hate how raw my voice sounds. ‘I just needed to make sure you were okay.’
She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. ‘You thought it was me—so you called me. So, you do still care about me,’ she whispers, and there’s so much hope packed into her words it nearly guts me. ‘After you didn’t come to the wedding, and you didn’t return my calls, I thought maybe you were done with me.’
The guilt grows in my gut, pushing up higher to tighten my chest.
‘Mom, no,’ I say immediately. ‘I’m not—look, I’m sorry I didn’t call after. I just…’
