Page 8 of A Forgotten Promise

Now, that raw honesty is a fucking turn-on. Besides her loyalty to her brother, I kind of wish we could start over, forget the building, and just get to know each other.

Not only between the sheets. The thought shocks me, and now I’m even more annoyed.

“You came to motivate me to do something that makes no business sense to help your brother behind his back?”

She nods, rolling her eyes. Not at me, more at the situation, I think. Fuck, she’s adorable.

“That is the most preposterous thing I’ve heard, and I’m mostly surrounded by idiots.”

“Are you calling me an idiot?”

Most certainly not.“’I’ve not decided yet.”

She gives me a look that would kill. I feel its hatefulness down to my bones.

“You know what? Go fuck yourself. I don’t need you to humiliate me. This was a mistake. Just forget I was ever here.”

She pushes past me and marches to the door.

“Saar, wait—”

But she doesn’t stop. That is most possibly the first time someone didn’t obey me.

I hate it. I respect it. I hate that I respect it.

Rooted to the spot, I call my realtor. “Jack, find out discreetly if Finn van den Linden wants to buy the Hudson River property.”

“Okay, why?”

“I want to sell it to him.”

“To him in particular? And why are you selling it—?”

“Just fucking do it.”

I hang up and stare at the space where I got the last glimpse of her.

I think I’ve just met my future wife.

Chapter 2

Saar

Two years later

“Hmmm…” It’s all my manager says, and the sinking feeling that I’m disappointing him rolls around my stomach.

I’m used to disappointing my parents—it’s their default setting, anyway. It cost me—both time and money in therapy—to accept that Charles and Melody van den Linden only love themselves.

Disappointing someone who became my proxy father when I made my foray into this business—that’s a very different story.

Vito Conti has been with me since I started modeling at fifteen. Rationally, I know that my leaving the industry after twelve years isn’tthatunexpected, but it still feels like I’m betraying him.

Vito shovels four spoons of sugar into his cappuccino. The man, with his impeccably styled salt-and-pepper hair and thick-rimmed glasses that accentuate his sharp, intelligent eyes, is always charming and composed.

But when he’s reaching for sugar, I know he’s stressed. That’s his only tell, and I might be one of only a few people who knows that about him.

“Saar, this is…” Vito smooths his silver scarf, which matches his silk pocket square, and licks his lips. “I should have known something was up when you were waiting here for me.”

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