Chapter 1
Honor thy mother and father.
Grayson Chandler smothered a sigh. With all due re- spect to Moses, but if he’d been stuck listening to Gray- son’s mother nag on and on and about his lack of duty, loyalty and wife, the prophet might’ve asked God to nail down the specifics on that commandment.
Swearing. Out. Muzzling. Out.
Faking a coronary episode to avoid her complain- ing. Gray area.
For a moment, a flicker of guilt wavered in Gray- son’s chest. But at the moment, he was caught in his mother’s crosshairs. Pit bulls with lockjaw had nothing on Cherise Chandler. She didn’t let go of something—
whether it was a project, a subject or a grudge—until she was done with it.
Which didn’t bode well for him.
He was thirty years old and president of KayCee Corp, one of the most successful global tech start-up companies in the country and he hadn’t been a child to be controlled long before he left his parents’ house. For years, he’d answered only to himself, owed no one else explanations or justifications.
Yet none of that mattered when it came to the crys- tal blue gaze that could make him feel like the little boy who’d been busted hiding a stray dog under his bed for a week.
Hell.
Parental guilt trips were a bitch.
“Grayson, your stubbornness is becoming ridicu- lous,” his mother said, a note of irritation in her voice. She shifted closer and a small frown marred her brow. “You’ve proven your point with this little business ven- ture of yours and Gideon Knight’s. But your father needs you now, your family needs you. It’s time to stop playing at CEO, step up and take your place at Chan- dler International. It’s your responsibility. Your duty.” He clenched his jaw, trapping the vitriolic stream of words that scalded his throat. This little business ven- ture. Time to stop playing. As if striking out on his own without the emotional or financial support of his Chi- cago old-money, well-connected family was the equiv- alent of a rousing game of Monopoly. With those few words, she’d dismissed years of his and Gideon’s hard work, relentless determination and resulting success.
He should’ve been used to this casual disregard. Of his accomplishments. Of him. As the second son, the “oops baby” of Daryl and Cherise Chandler, he’d been an afterthought from birth. But somehow, his skin had never grown that thick.
Another black mark in the “Why Grayson Isn’t Jason Chandler” Column. Right under rebellious. Self- ish. And disloyal.
Didn’t matter that he’d had a hand in founding a tech platform that served major businesses and assisted them in tracking their shares with its unrivaled soft- ware. Didn’t matter that his business was one of the most successful start-ups to hit the financial scene in the last five years.
None of it mattered because it wasn’t Chandler In- ternational.
Dammit.
Grayson shoved his hands in his tuxedo pockets and glanced away from his mother’s scrutiny. Guilt and shame knotted his gut.
He was throwing a pity party, but at least he was
alive.
Jason couldn’t say the same.
And because his mother had lost her son—her fa- vorite son—Grayson imprisoned the sharp retort that weighed down his tongue.
“I take my position at and ownership of KayCee Corp as seriously as Dad does with Chandler. I also understand my obligation to our family. But as I’ve told both of you, my company is my legacy just as Chan- dler is Dad’s.”
“Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Grayson. It’s not the same—”
“Mother,” he interrupted, voice cold. “Now isn’t the place or time for this conversation.”
She parted her lips, but after a second snapped them closed. Oh yes. Only proper decorum and being poten- tial fodder for gossip trumped getting in the last word. “Cherise, it’s so wonderful to see you again,” a fem-
inine voice intruded.
The pleasant, soft tone shouldn’t have scraped him raw, leaving an oily slide of disgust. He didn’t need to glance behind him to identify the woman. He’d be able to identify that dulcet tone, that light floral scent anywhere.
Identify it, then crucify it.
“Adalyn,” his mother crooned, a smile erasing her frown as she moved toward Adalyn Hayes with out- stretched arms. “Don’t you look beautiful?”
Grayson shifted to the side, studying his mother as she warmly embraced his ex-girlfriend. The woman who’d almost become Mrs. Grayson Chandler.
The woman who’d stabbed him so deeply in the back he still had phantom pains from the scar a year and a half later.
She hadn’t changed at all. Still stunningly beau- tiful with oval-shaped green eyes, delicate features, pretty mouth and long sleek hair as dark as a raven’s wing—or as dark as her heart. A midnight blue gown that glittered as if stars had been sewn into it clung to her small breasts and willowy frame before flowing over slender hips to pool around her feet.
No, she hadn’t changed a bit. But he had.
That beauty no longer stirred desire inside him. Those embers had long turned to dust, incapable of being lit ever again.
“Grayson,” Adalyn purred, turning to him and link- ing her arm through his mother’s. “I didn’t know you would be attending the gala this year. It’s wonderful seeing you.”
“Hello, Adalyn.”
Damn if he’d lie just for the sake of pleasantries. “I’ve missed you,” she murmured as if his mother
had disappeared and just the two of them existed in the crowded ballroom of the North Shore mansion. “We need to get together for dinner and catch up with one another.”
“I love that idea,” his mother chimed in, patting Adalyn’s hand. “We’ve missed you, too. I was plan- ning a dinner party for next week. You and your par- ents are invited. I’ll call your mother to officially issue the invitation.”
The conversation sounded benign, but something seemed…off. Too jovial. Too neat.
Too false.
“Matchmaking, Mother?” he asked, infusing a bore- dom into his tone that didn’t reflect the cacophony of distaste and rage roiling inside him like a noxious cloud. “You don’t think this is a little beneath you?”
“Not when you insist on flitting from woman to woman, behaving like a male whore,” she snapped, and no, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard those words. Manwhore. Playboy. Embarrassment. But again, that damn not-so-thick skin. The barbed insult pricked him like the cockleburs that would sting his fingers when he visited his grandmother’s horse farm as a child. Back then, he’d plucked them off and rubbed away the nip of pain. Now, with his ex a witness to his mother’s dis- dain, those nips drew blood.
Deliberately curling his lips into a mocking smirk, he bowed slightly at the waist. “Thank you, Mother. Now tell me what you really think because I sense you’re holding back.”
She scoffed, returning her attention to Adalyn who watched him with a gleam in her eyes. A gleam that heralded trouble. For him.
“You’re thirty years old and it’s time to put away such childish behavior. The future CEO of Chandler International needs a good woman by his side sup- porting him. The board will not endorse or accept a man whose name and picture ends up on those dirty little gossip websites as often as the business section.”
He stiffened. The smile he gave his mother was brittle, felt close to cracking right down the middle.
“Well then I guess it’s a good thing I don’t intend to be the future CEO of Chandler International. Which makes the board and my love life nonissues. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see several people I need to speak with.” Bending his head, he brushed a kiss over his mother’s cheek. “Mother. Adalyn.”
Without waiting for the diatribe about his rudeness, he pivoted and strode away from the two women, the noose that had slowly been tightening around his neck loosening with each step.
He should’ve seen this coming. His mother had been less than subtle about her wishes for him to settle down and marry. Especially in the last six months.
Since Jason had died.
The thought of his brother lanced him through the chest, a hot poker that hadn’t cooled in the time since his death. With a thirteen-year age difference and the knowledge that Jason was the favorite between them, they hadn’t been close. But Grayson had loved his older brother, respected him. And the tragic randomness of a brain aneurysm had only made Jason’s death harder to accept.
But Grayson hadn’t had time to grieve before his parents had started pressuring him to leave the busi- ness he’d created and return to the family company. The Chandlers were American royalty, and with the heir now gone, the spare had to step up and perform his duty. Which meant helming Chandler International and, according to his mother, committing himself to a woman from a respectable background.
The knot that had started to relax around his throat tightened again, and he jerked at his bow tie. God, the thought of being back under his father’s thumb, having to answer to Daryl Chandler and the board full of men just like him… Of having his independence stripped from him… Of having to live by the constricting rules that governed being a Chandler, one of Chicago’s old- est and wealthiest families…
He was already suffocating. Fuck, he needed air.
Charging across the ballroom, he didn’t stop untilh e exited the cavernous space filled with the glitterati of Chicago. They were supposed to be his friends, his business contacts, his people.
And all he wanted was to escape. Escape them all.
