“Thanks for the drink.”

He grabs my elbow.  I pause and stare pointedly at his hand and then at his face.

He lets go.

He’s an ass**le, but he’s not stupid.

“Leave my daughter alone,” he says bluntly.  “I know you’re having fun playing house, but you’re not what she needs. Just bow out gracefully.”

I turn back, his words stiffening my spine.

“I’m not what she needs?”

Maxwell shakes his head.  To my left, I see Nate and William from my periphery.  They’re trying to pretend they aren’t listening, but I know they are.

“You don’t have the first clue what she needs,” her father tells me icily.  “You can’t possibly.  You’re from another world, Killien.”

I almost laugh.  “I was exactly what she needed last week when I pulled her from the wreckage of that café.  You know, when you were standing outside not doing a thing to help.”

His jaw clenches and I see a vein tick in his forehead.

“She’s twenty-three years old.  She doesn’t know what she needs.  You’re clouding her vision.  If you really cared for her, at all, then you’d leave her alone and let her focus on what’s important.”

Again, I almost laugh.

“She’s twenty-three years old.  She’s old enough to know what she needs.  Perhaps you’re the one who should leave her alone and let her figure it out.”

I start to walk to my chair again, but his next words stop me cold.

“I own her, Killien.  And I’ll never let you be with her.  Know that right now.”

His words are ice and I whirl back around, but Nate jumps from his chair and rushes to defuse the situation.

“I’m sorry, Brand.  My father is overwhelmed with work right now—under a lot of stress.  I’m sorry.  Please… come sit with me and tell me about the Rangers.  It must’ve been damn fascinating.”

I stare into Maxwell Greene’s face, at his emotionless eyes, at his fixed mouth.  He’s a man who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.  I instantly take back my earlier thoughts that taking care of yourself is the smart thing to do.  I never want to be Maxwell Greene.

I walk past him without another word, following Nate back to the table.  William gets up to join Maxwell at the bar, leaving Nate and I alone.

“What is going on with this family?” I ask bluntly.  “Nothing matters but business?”

Nate smiles an empty smile. “So you’ve caught onto that, huh?”

Like Nora, Nate has his mother’s blue eyes, but instead of red hair, his is blond, cut short.  He’s tall and slim, and unlike Nora, I sense an ambitious hunger in him.  With Nora, it’s like it’s something that makes her tired. She’s used to trying to please her father, but it’s not something she enjoys.

Nate seems to not only accept it, but thrive on it.

I nod.  “Yeah. It’s pretty apparent.”

Nate chuckles. “Well, it’s been drilled into our heads since we were babies.  Be a Greene.  Do what it takes, and all that.  The business has been passed down from generation to generation for several hundred years.  Our family came over with Columbus, you know.  We’ve got big shoes to fill.”

I glance over at Maxwell and William.  They’re chatting quietly, in intense conversation.  Probably discussing mergers and acquisitions and how to eat their competition for breakfast.

“What did your dad mean when he says that he owns Nora?” I ask suddenly.  It was such a strange thing to say. Nate instantly looks uncomfortable.

“He shouldn’t have said that.  He only meant… there’s a contract, we both have one.  When we finished high school, we were given a contract to work at Greene Corp in exchange for our college tuition and trust funds.  No big deal.”

No big deal?

“You had to sign a contract for your birthright?” I can’t even keep the shock out of my voice.  I was right. Maxwell is just as f**ked up as my father was, every bit as controlling.

Nate nods, nonplussed. “It was no big deal, particularly because we’ve known since we were kids that we would work for Greene Corp.  It’s what we were born to do.”

I drop the subject because clearly Nate doesn’t see how f**ked up it is.

Instead, I tackle a new one.  Nate is being forthcoming with information, so I might as well push my luck for more.

“What’s the deal with William?”     

Nate glances at me.

“What do you mean?”

I nod toward William and Maxwell.  “He seems very…attached to Nora.  And very…. I don’t know.”

Nate chuckles. “Yeah. He’s intense.  He’s always been that way.  And as far back as I remember, Nora’s been his favorite.  He never got married and had kids of his own.”

Yeah.  The way William had been looking at Nora wasn’t fatherly. But I don’t point that out.  Nate seems fairly oblivious to it, although I don’t know how.

“I thought Greene Corp was family own and run?” I ask suddenly.  “How is it that William seems to have such an important job?”

Nate stares at me in surprise, although he doesn’t get annoyed at my blunt prying.

“William is family,” he answers slowly.  “He owns half of the company because he’s my uncle.  My father’s brother.”

The world seems to stop turning as I stare back at him, shocked, repulsed.

Nora’s uncle?

I feel the sudden urge to lunge from this chair, find Nora, scoop her up and carry her out of this f**ked-up madhouse.

“Your uncle?”

My words are wooden, stilted, as I try to wrap my head around it.

Nora’s afraid of her uncle. Her uncle is sending her threatening text messages.  And the look I see in Nora’s eyes… it makes me dread knowing what he did to her.

But I know.

I know. 

Nate nods.  “Yeah.  Our uncle.”

Nora and Camille choose this minute to walk back in, and Nora instantly finds me, searching me out.  I smile at her.

Everything’s fine, don’t worry.

She nods, just barely, her shoulders sagging a bit with relief.

She’s in a house of sharks and she’s worried about me.