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He glanced at his sister then, and in her eyes saw prudence and wisdom. When had that happened? Since Ben, a little voice told him. Open-hearted she might be, but she was also twenty-four. He’d started his own company at twenty-four. “I own every decision I’ve ever made, Sam. Every one of them was ultimately all about me. About what I want my life to be.”
She tilted her head towards him, the street lights flickering over her face. “Okay, then. And while we’re on that subject...”
Ryder held his breath, sure Sam was about to hit him about Nadia again, and worried that in his wound-up state he wouldn’t be able to convince her it didn’t mean anything. Because that kiss had been...indescribable. Seconds, minutes? He had absolutely no idea how long it lasted, only that the micro-second he decided to go there his world went up in flames.
He felt himself unfold all over when she said, “Let’s talk about me. I know that you’ve only ever wanted to protect me. To make sure I feel happy, and safe. And for that I love you more than you will ever know.”
Ryder spared her a glance. “Right back at ya, kid.”
“But I have Ben for that now. He’s my knight–in-shining-armour, my prince, leaving you to finally just be my brother. Not my keeper, my minder, my shield.” Sam put her hand on Ryder’s on the steering wheel. “So in case you actually need to hear me say it, my big stubborn mountain of a brother, I hereby set you free.”
The fact that she’d come to him for a ride an hour earlier seemed to contradict that, but when he looked at her he found she was serious.
“Free to date, to have lady friends—”
“Okay. Fine. I get it. I have your blessing to...”
“Shtup.”
“For the love of...” he muttered as the gate to Sam’s apartment complex opened noisily at the press of a remote, before he rolled down the drive to the underground garage. “How about this—you and Ben can go right ahead and repopulate the planet all on your lonesome, so long as I don’t have to hear about it.”
She cocked her head, a frown marring her smooth forehead. “Ryder—”
“Didn’t you just set me free?”
Her mouth twisted, then with a sigh and a nod she unhooked her seat belt, kissed his cheek, then leapt out of the door, and jogged to the lift. Ryder waited till she swiped the security card and was inside the lift up to her secure apartment before he turned the car around and headed for home.
By the time he threw his keys into a cut-glass bowl on the heavy table by the front door of his own split-level, waterfront residence it was well after midnight with more than half the working week ahead of him.
When restlessness began to flicker through him, he shook it off. He loved his job. It was extremely rewarding. Only at times, of late, he’d found himself wanting...more.
He glanced at the vintage drafting board in the corner. It had been his mother’s. He’d been about three or four when she’d found it somewhere or other, cleaned it up, and placed it in a brightly lit corner of the family home. Over the years she would gravitate there to sketch out ideas. Ryder had drawn his first pictures of houses on that table, boxes with triangles for roofs. Multiple chimneys. Wings. Not tall buildings. Not back then.
He’d crammed the board into his bedroom after she’d died, and brought it with him to every place he’d lived since. He’d created the perfect corner for it when he’d built his own home—gorgeous down-lighting, a fantastic modern ergonomic chair, a wall of ten-foot-high shelves in which to keep old plans. And yet he’d never actually used the thing since she’d died.
Not about to change that, he ran his hands over his face and headed to his bar, where he poured himself a Scotch. Straight. He drank enough for it to burn its way down his throat, then sucked in a stream of cold air as a chaser.
His eyes glazed over the moonlit view of Brighton Beach and he thought of Sam’s earnest face as she’d set him free, again struggling to picture what his life would look like without her as his responsibility any more.
But he had to ease off. To begin to let her go. She was ready. Or trying to be at least. All grown up, Nadia had said.
He emptied the glass, the burn not near strong enough second time around. At least, not enough to burn out thoughts of Nadia Kent. A woman who drew him in only to twirl out of his grasp. Infuriating. Intriguing. As for their attraction—it was wild, hot, barely in either of their control. It was like no other connection he’d ever felt.
But it didn’t matter.
Sam was the reason he could look at himself in the mirror every morning and not cringe when he saw his father’s jawline looking back at him. But even if the day came when she was no longer his number one focus, even with time on his hands and a hole in his life, he was not looking to fill it with a woman. Even one as enthralling as Nadia Kent.
