Tall, Dark and Damaged (Damaged Heroes #1)

by Sarah Andre

  “There’s nothing to figure out, Dev. We’re disinherited.” Frannie teared up again. “But you sure made it look easier than this.”

  “Stop letting him win, Frannie. You don’t have to stay.” He winced at his outburst, but her waterworks meant surrender, which was abhorrent.

  “Defying him means robbing my son of his trust fund.”

  “You know he wouldn’t disinherit Todd. Call his bluff.”

  “I can’t risk it.” She sobbed, and although he gave her his shoulder, he stood too stiffly, patted her back too mechanically. Everything in his life was neat and clean and lacked messy emotions. There was something to be said for compartmentalizing. Crying wasn’t problem-solving. It was a wasted reaction, something he couldn’t deal with and hadn’t since…jeez. Since Hannah. Funny how everything kept coming back to her tonight.

  “What about me?” Rick interrupted. He spread his arm to encompass the living room. “At least she has a roof over her head. I have nothing.”

  Devon hesitated. “Isn’t your mother still alive?”

  “I’m not living in Phoenix!”

  Devon frowned down at his sister. “It’s not the weather,” she whispered, sniffing. “Susanna is a surgical nurse.”

  So no middle-class living for Rick. New York would shake the entitled attitude right out of him. “You went to Northwestern, right?”

  Rick nodded.

  “What was your major?”

  “Econ.”

  Devon shrugged. “Come out to Manhattan. I have a lot of connections, and you can stay with me until you get on your feet.” He checked himself. Even though he and Nicole didn’t live together, she’d have a problem with a slacker brother underfoot indefinitely. “I mean, at least through the winter while you get your bearings.”

  Rick’s lips twisted. “Maybe.” His gaze went to the bottle, although he didn’t reach for it.

  Yeah, Nicole would have his hide for this impulsive invitation. She had little tolerance for anyone who wasn’t grimly ambitious and rock steady in climbing to the top of the social scene. It was what they loved about each other. They knew what they wanted in life and had found the best partner to get there. Rick would be a serious speed bump along that road, but Devon wasn’t going to take it back if his brother needed him. Eric had once offered him a leg up from homelessness, and Devon would pay it forward too.

  “You’re limiting your choices, Rick, and you’re in no position to do so. Cut the pity party, man up, and both of you fight for what you want.”

  “I want to stay here.” His brother crossed his arms.

  “That’s no longer an option. Rearrange the world until it’s something else you want.”

  “Easy for you to say—getting a massive trust fund.”

  Devon opened his mouth to snarl an obscenity, but Frannie waved him off. “We only have each other. Let’s not say anything we’ll regret in the morning.”

  He scrubbed a palm over his jaw. They were going around in a circle, and he had his own problems to deal with. Besides, Frannie was right; they needed to band together. “How long has Harrison been dating Honey?”

  “Six weeks, give or take,” she said softly.

  Stupefying. “How did they meet?”

  “I think some charity auction. She moved into his adjoining suite within three weeks.”

  “I still can’t believe this,” Rick spat, his face flushed crimson. “Blonde hair, big boobs, and she gets all my money. I’m so mad I could fucking smash something.”

  Or set the house on fire? Devon frowned. “Either of you know anything about the fire?”

  Rick shrugged and looked away.

  “We all evacuated the house Tuesday just before midnight,” Frannie said. “Firefighters put it out easily enough, but something makes them think it’s arson.”

  Devon was quiet a moment. “Harrison didn’t seem too concerned that someone had tried to torch his house.”

  “He’s adamant it’s something electrical.”

  Honey, the fire… When did his father get so old he was blind to the glaringly obvious? “Who discovered the fire?”

  “Joseph.”

  Joseph? What was the old butler doing up that late and in that section of the mansion? And why withhold the detail tonight in the foyer? A sense of foreboding stiffened Devon’s spine. “Anything else going on I should know about?”

  His siblings looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “I have a crucial meeting in the morning, and then need to reschedule George, but I’ll bump my flight back a little and help you guys figure out what to do.”

  “Have breakfast with Todd and me,” Frannie said. “I want you to meet my son.” They agreed on a time, and he hugged her once more. As he walked to the door, he purposely ignored her telltale sniff. He could solve problems until the sun came up, but was clueless when it came to emoting empathy or comforting tears—a negligible flaw once he’d surrounded himself with people who were the exact same way.

  He unknotted his tie as he roamed toward the other end of the house. Industrial fans grew louder with every step. This wasn’t anywhere close to his mother’s old room, where he’d sleep, but he needed to know something he couldn’t bring himself to ask his siblings. After crossing through the first editions library, which linked the east and west wings, he turned the corner and stopped. A haze lingered down the long hallway, even though the fans in the theater now sounded like turbo engines. Inside the gallery, a few sooty paintings still hung on the walls. He grinned and turned away. Question answered: Hannah would be back tomorrow.

  Chapter 3

  Hannah Moore gratefully took the mug of coffee Gretchen Allen handed her, and sat in one of the plastic orange chairs in Moore and Morrow Restoration’s break room. Thankfully, no one else had arrived for work yet. She had no energy for the cheerful-boss mask, and with Gretch, she didn’t have to. Once her personal trainer, Gretchen’s energetic, positive outlook had catapulted her from a weekend Starbucks buddy, to best friend, and now Moore and Morrow’s office manager.

  “Let’s see it,” Gretch ordered, looking darling in a black spandex onesie with anatomically correct skeletal bones glued on. Halloween was her high holiday. No one else in the office would bother dressing up today. After all, Halloween wasn’t until Tuesday.

  Hannah reached into her purse and slid the red eviction notice across the Formica table. “Thirty days,” she said, even though their hours-long phone call last night had covered that in the first sentence.

  Her friend scanned the information and shook her head. Not a strand in her spiky blonde hair moved, although her skeleton earrings jingled as they danced. “How can they tear down an entire block? We need to call the local news. Get some neighborhood protests started.”

  Hannah fingered her mug handle. She had no time to march with a sign when the project of a lifetime had just fallen in her lap. She didn’t even have time to find another apartment. “I looked up some realty links after we talked. The majority of places I can afford are either in unsafe neighborhoods or too much of a commute.”

  “How’d your aunt take it?”

  “She was up half the night. So agitated that even with the oxygen tank, she had one of her episodes. I don’t think her health can take the stress of a move. I mean, she’s eighty-seven. She’s lived there since before I was born.”

  “It says here they’re holding a meeting tonight.” Gretch underlined the sentence with her finger as she read aloud. “‘To assist with alternate housing possibilities and answer any tenant questions, as your welfare and transition to new living arrangements is our utmost concern.’ What a bunch of bull.” She glanced up, slitting her espresso-brown eyes. “We’re going, and we’re fighting this.”

  “I don’t have time to make a fuss.”

  “No, you don’t want to make a fuss. Embrace conflict! Take a stand.” She jabbed the notice in Hannah’s direction like a saber, the bones attached to her forearm making it look like two emphatic people. “Me
et me at Bakers Square at five; we’ll have dinner, and I’ll go with you.”

  The potential in-your-face conflict made Hannah’s stomach churn. “Why waste the energy? There won’t be anything we can do; the sale and teardown are legal.” She nodded to her open briefcase, where apartment leads were neatly paper-clipped together. “I have thirty days to find a place, pack for both of us, move, and still coordinate an expedited restoration of the Wickham art.” She petered out and sipped some caffeine, fighting the cloud of doom.

  “Breathe from your gut.” Gretch morphed into her commanding personal-trainer mode. “You’ll get through this. Give me some of those leads, and I’ll call in between doing payroll and receivables.”

  “Thanks. I’ll really owe you.” Hannah handed over a third of the stack, but her relief was short-lived. Shoving any of her work onto someone else, even her best friend, was proof she was drowning. She’d been brought up to finish her chores, fix her own problems, and never complain. Period. “Any place that’s wheelchair accessible and takes Boots.” She should be ashamed that at the ripe old age of thirty, she was bunking with her maternal great-aunt and Aunt Milly’s ancient tabby, but Moore and Morrow Restoration was still in its infancy. Every penny that didn’t go toward Milly’s meds and in-home care went straight back into the company. The Wickham project took precedence over protests and media interviews.

  As if reading her mind, Gretch tossed the red notice back. “How did it go over at the Wickhams’ yesterday?”

  “I told you. We won’t know the full extent of damages until we clean the soot off.”

  Gretch folded her impressively toned arms, quite a feat with the clunky bones. “I’ll rephrase. How did it go?”

  Damn the curse that made redheads blush this easily. It all came down to Devon and those ten months of soul-encompassing love soooo long ago. Why did that moment and that man still haunt her? “It was weird,” she admitted. Simply walking into his house had brought back a tsunami of memories she’d buried long ago, and they’d kept her on edge all day. Even after eight hours of hauling art from the smoke-filled gallery down to a sitting room they’d used to pack and crate, the jumbled emotions had kept her tossing and turning last night as much as the eviction notice.

  “Was there any sign of your guy?”

  “Devon. And he’s not my guy.” For Pete’s sake, it was eons ago and she was well, well over him. But her heart stuttered over the phrase my guy and she tapped her foot rapidly. “There’s no trace of his existence in that mansion, which is no surprise.” And was actually a relief. If she’d come upon a photograph or gone into the family gallery to see whether his portrait still hung there, she’d have been unable to function. And dealing with Harrison Wickham had required every professional brain cell.

  “Did you run into anyone besides the father? Someone knows how Devon is and what he’s doing.”

  “I honestly don’t care, Gretch.” Immediately her palms prickled, and Hannah pretended to fix her ponytail to rub them against her wide plastic barrette. No way was she going to admit she Google-stalked Devon regularly and knew he was a hotshot private equity CEO about to marry the heiress of Tucker’s Fine Chocolates in seven months. And two days. And approximately nine hours, given the time difference.

  Gretch stirred her coffee thoughtfully. “Do you think he came back for that party the servants were setting up?”

  Hannah smiled at the thought. “He won’t ever come back to Chicago. Not even if the house had burned down. Or if Harrison had died in the fire that burned the house down.” She’d seen the last of Devon on that stormy night when he’d stood on her mom’s porch steps, soaking wet and spewing hateful words about his father and the final argument that had gotten him kicked out.

  Then he’d tugged her hand and insisted she go with him on a Greyhound to New York. Knowing her mom had end-stage ovarian cancer. He’d refused to consider staying in Chicago, getting a job—even for a week or a month. Who gave that kind of ultimatum? “Let’s talk about something else,” she said sharply, desperate to dissolve the image of his stricken face when she’d chosen her mother. Of his sudden realization that he literally had no home, no family, no money, and no love of his life. “How did it go here yesterday?”

  “Walter’s on a tear about Bernice again. Told me to tell you she started the Matisse project using beeswax and resin as the backing.”

  Hannah swallowed her dread. “I’ll handle it on my way out.”

  The skeleton earrings jingled again. “He’s furious. He wants you to fire her.”

  Hannah stood and rinsed her mug without answering. There was no way she was going to fire Bernice, and Gretch knew it. Even if Bernice had screwed up and used some 1970s restoration technique that was proven to tighten over a decade and cause the paint to crackle.

  “I’ll handle Walter,” she murmured, returning to the table and her briefcase. “I have to get to the Wickham estate before the team arrives. Oh, and make sure Walter gets these.” She slid yesterday’s restoration summaries, art measurements, and crating supply needs across to Gretchen. “And I’ll need releases faxed to Mr. Wickham before I can begin transporting his paintings.”

  “Got it.”

  She pointed to the tiny red heart Gretch had glued under her left breast. “Adorable, by the way.”

  “I’m going to use it again when I’m Grinch at the Christmas party.”

  Despite herself, Hannah laughed. “We don’t dress up for Christmas parties, dummy.”

  Gretch quirked an eyebrow. “Have you checked the employee suggestion box lately?”

  Still snickering, Hannah stopped by Bernice’s lab, which was dark and empty. Humor morphed into relief. Thank God she’s not here yet. Hannah jotted a note ordering the Matisse backing to be stripped and redone using mulberry tissue. Then, not leaving anything to chance, she also recommended applying the tissue with a boar’s-head brush. An elementary choice and probably insulting to Bernice, but Walter was the Morrow in Moore and Morrow Restoration, and Bernice was on wafer-thin ice. Maybe today would be one of her good days and the project would be a snap.

  Anxiety ate at Hannah as she trudged out into the bright, chilly morning. Eventually she’d have to deal with Bernice. Using the Wickham project and her hunt for housing as authentic excuses would hopefully mollify Walter, for now.

  Once on the El, crowded with jostling commuters, she held on to an overhead pole and texted him that the Bernice situation was under control. Walter was born for sales and schmoozing clients. No doubt he’d find a way to tell Bob Schmidt—probably over golf or cocktails—that his Matisse would not be restored by the original promised date.

  Hannah pocketed her cell phone and focused on the day ahead. Not the custom crating of priceless art or dealing with Harrison Wickham. More like drumming up the courage to step back into that mansion and deal with those body jitters again.

  She’d stupidly peeked into the smoke-filled theater after the fire chief had left. Even through the haze, those ruby-velvet seats had caused her heart to squeeze painfully. The years had vanished in an instant, and she’d half expected Devon to magically appear, striding out of the smoke with that crooked, suggestive grin. They’d spent so much time in this dark hideaway, groping each other with the urgency of dumb, young lovers. Oh, the many nights they missed “seeing” the movie.

  It was a crying disgrace—a professional restorer in the midst of a project of a lifetime, frozen at the entrance of a theater like a lovesick teen. But then again, the last time she’d been in there, she had been a teen. And lovesick. The visceral memory of Devon’s delicious mouth and the slinky feel of worn velvet on bare skin was as real as if it’d happened the day before.

  But today would be different. The memories wouldn’t be so stark, she’d avoid the theater at all costs, and, like she’d told Gretch, there was no speck of evidence Devon had ever lived in that mansion. He’d probably be relieved to hear it. She exited the train, smiling at Gretch’s absurd suggestion that Devon would ev
er come home.

  Chapter 4

  Devon raised the dainty china cup to his lips as he stared absently through the solarium window at the Poseidon fountain again. The searing coffee and deceptively warm sun slanting in helped burn off some of the fog that still clung to his sleep-deprived brain. Where was his razor-sharp focus? For some reason, his talent of compartmentalizing a business emergency from the emotional fallout hadn’t automatically kicked in. He couldn’t move past the shock.

  Last night had been a train wreck. Completely avoidable, but instead he’d helped his father by tying himself to the damn tracks. Discovering Harrison was poised to take over Ashby Enterprises would have stung no matter what, but hearing about it long-distance might’ve saved some dignity, or at least taken the personal drama out of it. Devon massaged his tense jaw, his coarse whiskers rasping under his fingertips. How the hell could he save his company and the huge development project that he’d guaranteed with his trust?

  Movement in his peripheral vision interrupted his line of thought. Honey and Joseph walked in. She murmured in a sultry tone, ticking items off her slender fingers while the butler nodded after each one.

  Devon checked himself before his jaw sagged, but he had no control over the scowl that emerged. His father’s fiancée wore a pink dress that barely covered her ass, and matching kitten heels. For someone about to oversee an enormous house of wealth, servants, and status, it seemed inconceivable she was this clueless. Unless she wasn’t, and this display in front of Joseph and any servant about to pass by was deliberate.

  “May I speak with you a moment?” Devon interrupted with exaggerated politeness, as he stepped into her path.

  She was a foot smaller yet still managed to look down her nose. “I’m afraid now isn’t a good time.”