The right thing to do would be to tell Cillian, his oldest friend, the person he trusted the most on the planet, that six months ago his parents sat him down and told him that they lied to him. Again. His adoption wasn’t closed like they told him when he was thirteen, and he found out they werenothis biological parents. His actual mother was a woman who worked for them, hid her pregnancy, gave birth to him, then died five days later from complications. She’d given Deacon to his parents because his biological father was a married man who had a family of his own.
When they dropped that bomb on him six months ago, he hadn’t done anything with the information. But after the car accident a week ago, Deacon decided to find out who his biological dad was. He was a man named Michael Davies. And an hour before the funeral, Deacon got the news he hadfivehalf siblings who were alive and well andliving in Northern California. Two in the same town, Hope Falls.
He wasn’t sure how to process that. Or how to process the fact that his own mother had died as a result of childbirth and the mother of his child had also died in childbirth. His adopted parents were gone, and now the only family he had was Tabitha and five half-siblings he knew nothing about.
So yeah,somethingwas going on, he just didn’t know how to talk about what things were when they were in progress. Maybe it was because he was an only child. Maybe it was because he was raised by nannies more than by his parents that he’d always felt isolated, even in his own home. Despite the fact that he lived in the St. Claire mansion, he was lonely all the time. He’d learned how to be in solitude for survival. He learned how to deal with his issues, problems, and emotions by himself, so that was the only way he knew how.
Or maybe it was because as Abraham St. Claire’s son, it was drilled into him from Tabby’s age, “Don’t come to me with problems, come with solutions.”
“No one likes a whiner.”
“Whiners are losers who can’t figure out how to win.”
“Talking about your problems never solved them.”
Which actually wasn’t true, now that Deacon was an adult, he knew that, but it was hammered into him as a kid.
“D?” Cillian prompted, his brow furrowed and serious, an expression rarely on his friend’s face.
“Sorry, I’m just tired. Haven’t been sleeping.” That was true. It also wasn’t new. He rarely slept. In fact, getting more than three hours of sleep was a luxury for him the past few years—well, three and a half, since losing Kristen and being a single parent.
Cillian pulled Deacon into an aggressive hug. Deaconpatted him back, not quite giving him the same enthusiasm he was receiving before headed out through the back of the bar, mentally mapping out the hours he would spend on each St. Claire company. With his parents gone, he was now the majority shareholder of St. Claire Vineyards and Distillery, St. Claire Hotels, and St. Claire Airways.
Deacon had never been a part of his family’s businesses. After finding out he was adopted at thirteen, he made the decision he would never touch a dime of his “family’s” money. He didn’t care how much it was. Not. A. Dime. And he stayed true to his word. He started a tutoring app at fourteen, which he sold to EdTech at sixteen for 3.5 million. He paid his own way through M.I.T. and graduated with double majors at twenty. Since graduating he’d founded and sold six tech companies. By twenty-five he was a self-made billionaire. He knew the tech world, but familiarizing himself with his father’s companies was proving as challenging as he’d expected. It was a world he never wanted to be a part of, and he still didn’t.
His plan was to find the most qualified people to run each individual corporation and trust them to do their jobs with quarterly check-ins combined with daily digital oversight through software he was currently developing. It was a lot of work, but once he was through the weeds, it should be fairly hands-off, and it would keep the companies in the family if Tabby decided one day she wanted to be a part of them. If it weren’t for her, his shares would have been sold before close of business today. He didn’t need the headache. But St. Claire Global was her legacy, too.
Deacon stepped out of the back door and was met with loud voices. It was the kind of argument people had when they thought no one else was listening, too loud forprivacy and too quiet for performance. The woman was sharp and tense, followed by a male trying to sound reasonable, which never boded well.
He walked along the side of the brick building, and the closer he got, he recognized one of the voices. It was the blonde beauty. The other, by the sound of it, was male and desperate. Not the desperation of fear, but the pitiful, blustering kind that came when a man’s control had been threatened and the only thing left to him was noise. Her ex had clearly tracked her down. That must have been what her quick exit was about.
He’d grown up in a world that forged boys into men who believed sound could substitute for substance, that volume was a currency, and passed down that belief for generations. Even from a distance, Deacon could smell the obnoxious confidence of Ivy League privilege. As he moved closer, he caught the tail end of a whine.
“Just listen, okay, it’s not what you think. I can explain.”
“James, don’t insult me. It’sabsolutelywhat I think. You’ve been fucking my best friend, someone who is more like asisterto me for four years, you used the sex swing I bought with her an?—”
“Theswing, seriously?! Is that what this is about? Becauseyouarenot that kind of girl.” The man’s tone was condescending as fuck, like he was speaking to a child who wanted an ice cream for breakfast. “You’re a good girl, Jen.”
Jen. Her name was Jen. Thirty-four. Mom. Friends with ex-husband who is cop. Tough exterior, soft interior. Hard childhood. Deacon was filing away all the information.
“No, it’s not about the—” she explained, paused, and then her voice rose. “What are you talking about?!Ibought the fucking swing?! You can’t tell me what kind of girlIam.”
“Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh!”
“Donotfucking shush me!”
There were sounds of shuffling clothes, followed by footsteps and then voices grew distant.
Deacon turned the corner around the side of the building. The couple stood about ten yards away at the edge of the parking lot. The slimy, hopefully soon-to-beex-husband was blocking Jen from continuing down the walkway, and he looked exactly how Deacon imagined him to be.
Even from this distance, Deacon could read him. Finance prick, most likely a third or fourth, carrying on his family’s name. The family had money but not wealth. There was a distinct difference. James had been handed every advantage possible, and if Deacon had to guess, he felt he was owed each one.
Deacon was raised around those douchebags and could sniff out their stench from a mile away, much less ten yards.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” James held up his hand in a sad attempt at placation.
She stared up at him and shook her head, Deacon could see the hurt in her eyes. “And all those dirty text messages, younevertalked like that to me, you never said those things to me…whenever I tried to do anything, role play, dirty talk, you always acted like I was doing something wrong.”
