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  “Tell me you’re not kidding me!” She launched herself into his arms, kissing him and laughing. “Because I would basically follow you anywhere, but back to Boston is really where I want to go. And the thing is, if I never have to see you get punched again, that would be fantastic.”

  “Great, so maybe you won’t want to go with me to blow off a ton of money and perks at Archer Lambert’s suite. I can’t guarantee the guy won’t punch me.”

  “I think he’ll outsource it. Have a guard or a bellboy punch you for him. Or, being a businessman, just dismiss you and move on to the next deal.”

  “There’s always the hope that there won’t be any pushback. I’m sure he’s got guys lining up to be his golden boy. I think he’s just a thrill seeker who wants to be involved in something masculine.”

  “He could invest in Viagra,” she suggested. He rolled his eyes.

  “So will you come with me? I need you to help me do this.”

  “You want me there? For real?” She asked, sitting up and looking at him in disbelief.

  “I have to have you there. Kyle and I have to go back out of the contract and I don’t think it’ll be pretty.”

  “I can’t believe this, Aaron. I can’t believe you’re going to do this. I am so fucking proud of you I could scream. And the best part is you’re letting me come along. You’re not pushing me away or leaving me behind or anything. You amaze me,” She said, taking his face in her hands with awe and kissing him.

  “I can’t believe it either yet. I thought telling Kyle would make it real, but I guess it was just the first step. So come with me?”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Aaron,” She said, kissing him again and hugging him fiercely.

  Zoe threw her clothes on as fast as she could and grabbed his hand possessively, unwilling to let him go. This guy, the one she’d sworn she loved despite the fact he was the exact wrong man for her, was finally doing something right. Something that made it seem like he had hope and a future and that he was someone she could trust. It was all she could do to keep from turning cartwheels down the length of the hallway.

  ***

  Outside Lambert’s suite, Kyle rattled the change in his pocket while Aaron paced a path in the carpet. Zoe played with her phone. Simon came to usher them inside and they stood in the august presence of the billionaire.

  “Good morning, boys. Good show last night.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kyle said.

  “Have you had adequate time to consider my offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll leave for Hong Kong at ten this evening.”

  “I’m afraid we won’t be joining you,” Aaron said faintly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “My brother and me, we’ve talked it over, and it’s not for us. We appreciate the opportunity,” he said, his voice stronger now.

  Zoe squeezed his hand.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Zoe Daniels, the videographer for Swagger. And you, I presume, are the Asher Lambert?”

  “It’s Archer Lambert, and I’m in the midst of a negotiation. This is hardly the time to stand on ceremony.”

  She gave a warm smile of satisfaction and waited for them to continue.

  “You’re mistaken. This isn’t a negotiation. We’re not fighting for your tour. If you won’t fight for me, you won’t fight at all,” Lambert said stonily. “It’s absurd that you’re turning down the biggest chance you’ll ever see, just to stay in the small time in the bad part of Boston. But if you insist, I’ll make certain you’re unable to find anyone to book you or sponsor you.”

  “What?” Kyle said, panic rising in his voice as he cut his eyes at Aaron.

  “The victory last night can be overturned. That check won’t be worth a dime. I’ll discover that the results of the drug test had been tampered with and a doping charge will blacklist you in bare knuckle fighting. It’s a small world out there, boys, and everyone knows your sins. If doping is one of yours, no one will touch either of you.”

  In an instant, Aaron felt years of rage sing in his blood, the threat to his brother, to himself, what it would mean to his mother—all of it flooded his body with every drop of adrenaline he could produce. He wanted to crack the man’s skull, wanted to knock out his teeth. That bitter, poisonous taste of anger was on his tongue and it choked him. He was at the edge, balancing on a knife point of restraint. He forced his eyes open, dragged a breath into his lungs on an eight-count and unclenched his fists. It all happened in seconds, the tightening of his jaw as he mastered his anger, leaving him shaken. In the blink of an eye, Kyle started toward Lambert. It was an instinctive move, and Aaron registered the threat in his brother’s stance almost before it happened. Laying a restraining hand on his shoulder, he shook his head.

  “I’ll need a moment to speak with my brother,” Aaron said stonily.

  “Of course,” Lambert said with a smile.

  “He’s going to ruin us, ruin me, stop payment on the check that was going to get Ma treatment—”

  “If you take a swing at this guy, his guards will be all over us and we’ll be in prison orange for assault before you can say ‘public defender’. And we’re boxers. Of course the cops will believe that we freaked out and tried to kill him over some business deal gone bad. Listen to me, Kyle. Fighting won’t get us out of this.”

  “Mr. Lambert?”

  “Yes, Zoe?” he said testily.

  “It was lovely to meet you, but we’ll be going now.” She caught Aaron’s sleeve and pulled him toward the door.

  Once the three of them were in the corridor, she pulled out her phone. “I couldn’t do video without drawing attention, but I had my phone on audio record in there.”

  “What, so we can relive the nightmare?” Kyle snapped.

  “So we can blackmail the billionaire,” She grinned. “I made him say his name to identify him as the speaker before he threatened you with false doping charges. I have audio of him admitting to trumping up test results. He can’t stop payment on that check unless he wants to out himself as an unscrupulous—”

  “Asshole?” Kyle finished.

  Aaron scooped her up and swung her around.

  “This is just like Scooby Doo,” he laughed.

  “Nah, in Scooby Doo, we would have discovered that the swamp monster was really a greedy banker or something. And Daphne never would’ve figured this out,” Kyle put in.

  “Whatever,” Aaron said, “You’re a genius and you’ve saved our asses,”

  “You’re welcome,” She said. “Now let’s message an excerpt of Lambert’s confession to Simon. He can deliver the good news to his boss.”

  Zoe played back the recording, selected a damning excerpt, and emailed it to Simon. Moments later, her phone lit up.

  “It says, ‘cash the check and delete the audio, final offer’. I say we take it,”

  “I say we back up the recording,” Aaron said.

  “I meant the check, not the stupid offer. The audio is insurance,” She said, sending an affirmative reply.

  “Besides Ma’s treatment, I’ve been thinking about what to do with the rest of the million dollars.”

  “How much does a transplant cost?” Kyle asked.

  “Just a sec. I’m googling,” Zoe said. “Says here, about $260,000. That leaves you with some serious coin left.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Kyle asked. “We’re not buying an ice cream truck or singing in a drag show.”

  “Now I for one would pay good money to watch you two do ‘Such Devoted Sisters’,” Zoe suggested.

  “I was thinking. I used to like teaching kids how to defend themselves on the playground.”

  “You took their lunch money, Robin Hood. Be real,” Kyle said.

  “Sometimes. Other times, especially when we were little, I stood up for kids who got picked on and I helped a couple of them learn to back down bullies on their own.”

  “I hear you have to h
it them with your forehead,” Zoe put in.

  “I want to start a self-defense school. Do classes for women on how to incapacitate muggers and rapists and stuff. Teach kids how to protect themselves,” Aaron said.

  “That’s the best idea! I’m in,” said Zoe. “Especially if you’ll hire me and I can eventually buy a car.”

  “I definitely need your help. What about you, Kyle? Will you be my partner? Invest in it and be an instructor?”

  “Only if we call it The Brothers Dolan.”

  “What about me?”

  “You want to call it The Brothers Dolan and the Camera Girl?” Kyle said.

  “I want equal billing. And my name is not the Camera Girl,”

  “Fine. We’ll think of a new name,” Kyle shrugged. “I’m in. The bullies in Mattapan won’t stand a chance after we’ve taught these kids a thing or two,”

  Aaron grinned, slinging an arm around Zoe’s shoulders, his face alight with hope.

  “We could always call it Piece of Ass,” Zoe suggested.

  “Trying to teach self-defense to children. Let’s keep ‘ass’ out of the name,” Aaron said.

  “How about The Measure of a Man?” Zoe said.

  “I like that,” Aaron said. “What do you think?”

  “I think it sounds like a bunch of guys standing around measuring their dicks with a yardstick.”

  “So also not appropriate for kids. Got it,” Zoe said, “What about The Good Fight?”

  “I can go with that,” Kyle said.

  “Me, too. Let’s go home,” Aaron said, “You better close your eyes, brother, because I’m planning on kissing her in the elevator.”

  “I think I’ll let you have it all to yourself. I’ll wait for the next one,” Kyle said. The doors closed on the lovers.

  “I don’t know, we may need your help. We’re in Vegas. Know what we could do?” Aaron suggested.

  “If you say you’re going to get married by an Elvis impersonator I may puke,” Kyle said good-naturedly.

  “I was thinking we could go to a buffet. Have a ninety-nine cent lobster dinner to celebrate,” Aaron said.

  “I thought I’d go back to Craven and see if I can pick up a kitty dancer before our key cards no longer work,” Kyle said ruefully.

  “Fine, we’ll go to the buffet alone, suit yourself,” Zoe teased.

  “We’re not really going to a buffet,”

  “Well, we’re also not getting married by Elvis,” She said.

  “Come with me,”

  Aaron pulled her by the hand. She followed him out of the hotel and onto the street, the pulsing music and neon lights, the crowd seeming to swallow them up after the relative quiet of the Vines. Down the street they went until they craned their necks to peer up at the Stratosphere tower.

  “It’s the highest point in Vegas,” he told her, “Let’s go to the top,”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I haven’t been this sure about anything in a long time, Zoe,” He said, his voice warm and smoky.

  When he sounded like that, she’d have followed him anywhere. They took the elevator to the indoor observation deck. The view out the angled windows made her giddy and she lurched against him drunkenly, staring down at the buildings and streets below.

  “This is kind of making me sick,” she admitted, dragging her eyes from the windows.

  “It’ll get better in a minute, I promise. The thing is, we got together and it’s all been about the tournament and the contract and fighting and I wanted to stop and just be here with you, on top of the world. Here,”

  Aaron reached into his back pack and pulled out the long green scarf his mother had made. He looped it around her neck slowly, with infinite care.

  “You know this scarf means a lot to me. I want you to wear it,” he said.

  Zoe nodded mutely, feeling oddly tearful standing in the lookout tower wearing his scarf.

  “There’s one other thing I want you to wear for me,”

  “Okay…” Zoe managed.

  He reached back into his bag and she half-expected him to produce a matching sock hat but instead he handed her a plastic bag.

  “I’m not going to throw up. I’m fine now. I just won’t look out the window,” she protested.

  “Look inside it,” he prompted.

  Zoe reached inside the plastic bag and pulled out a shiny blue cardboard box. Lifting the lid, she saw a velvet box inside. Raising her eyebrows, she looked at him questioningly. Please, please, please don’t be earrings! Be the impossible…be a ring! She thought with a surge of nervous anticipation. She flipped back the hinged lid and her lips parted in awe. A little round diamond nestled in a plain gold band.

  “See I got to thinking about what a real man does…” he grinned.

  Zoe threw her arms around his neck, laughing and crying at once. He held her tight, burying his face in her neck, the tangerine fragrance of her shampoo mixed with the fuzzy wool scent of his own scarf and it smelled strangely like coming home.

  “Like I was saying before you tackled me,” he said, pulling back to look at her, brushing a tear off her face with the calloused pad of his thumb, “a real man does things a certain way. He meets the right girl and they fall in love and then he buys a ring. If he needs to, he gets down on one knee, the old-fashioned way,”

  “Don’t kneel down. Don’t even move. It’s already perfect. Aaron, I can’t believe, I can’t believe that you’d do this. That you want to marry me.”

  “A lot has happened that I can’t believe, like I didn’t beat that Lambert guy’s face in when he threatened us, which just proves that people can change and grow up and that my brother is right. Irish Catholic boys do seem to have all the luck. So will you marry me?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” she said, kissing him again and again.

  Aaron pried the ring out of the box and slid it on her finger proudly. This was winning, he thought, this was what mattered. Zoe burrowed her head against his chest and he closed his arms around her.

  “This is exactly where I want to be,” She said with a happy sigh, sniffing back the last of her tears, “It’s where I’ve wanted to be since you saved me in the alley the night we met,” she confessed.

  “It’s where I’ve wanted you to be. It’s right where you belong.” He said in that low, warm voice that made her crazy. “I plan on keeping you there forever.”

  END OF BOOK I

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  “That’s right, Miss Hollingford, number nine on the list. Rebecca, actress, 27. Tonight at the Blake, say eight o’clock,” Jasper told his social secretary.

  So far, the project had worked like a charm. Hot and cold running blondes at the touch of a button. Last night’s text had delivered a stunning lab assistant to his favorite sushi place in a barely-there bandage dress. She wouldn’t eat, swearing that there were bacteria in raw fish, so he didn’t even have to buy her dinner, just a dirty martini. Tonight he wanted someone light and fun. An actress sounded just right, although 27 was a little on the elderly end of the spectrum for his taste.

  Jasper had had a p
roductive day, finalizing the acquisition of two more promising competitors in the wind energy industry. He didn’t care much about green energy, but he liked to breathe and figured it was easier to make a profit off people who were healthy and generating income to buy his other products. It seemed a sound investment. Better than those e-cigarettes he’d passed up; although they were gaining popularity, he still thought they looked ridiculous. He hoped the actress didn’t smoke plastic cigarettes or anything else…he couldn’t stand the taste.

  At eight, Jasper was sitting at the bar at the Blake in the same suit he’d worn to work. If it had been a date or an event, something where he had to worry about the impression he’d make, he would have gone home to change. As it was, he was able to work straight through until 7:45 and still make it to his rendezvous on time. He congratulated himself again on the sheer convenience of his planning…investing in a hotel with a lux bar close to the office, hiring a secretary and ersatz bagel boy to orchestrate his social life. It was good to be king, he mused complacently.

  At 8:10, his actress had not arrived. He called Miss Hollingford with instructions to text the woman again. At 8:20, he demanded the number and texted her himself. There was no response, and certainly no delectable blonde on the menu at the Blake Bar. Exasperated, he texted again five minutes later. Didn’t she realize his time was valuable? If she showed up by 8:30 and apologized, he’d still sleep with her, he decided magnanimously. If she showed up by 8:40 and was suitably gorgeous, he might even buy her a drink first, although to his mind she had already wasted the getting-to-know-you courtesy quarter hour with her appalling lateness. He knew he should give up and return to the office, but he was reluctant to admit that his system had failed. It was a matter of pride now. Even though he could be at the gym or signing off on a leveraged buyout. Irritated beyond the telling of it, Jasper texted again. It felt good to plague her with obsessive reminders. It was satisfying somehow. He didn’t even admit the possibility that she’d discarded the phone or forgotten to charge it.

  At nine, a vagrant entered the bar, her cut-offs and tank top spattered with paint. Messy brown hair was coming out of a lopsided ponytail and her face was flushed. Perhaps she was mentally ill, Jasper thought idly. Security should come take care of this before the patrons were importuned with some sort of scene. Even his house cleaner dressed better than that. What business she thought she had in an upscale hotel bar was beyond him. He punched in another text angrily. Seconds later, an absurdly loud message beep sounded…from the phone that vagrant creature held in her hand. She brandished it with disgust and marched directly up to him.