Saving Us (The Billionaire Brothers of NY Duology #1)

1. Gage

CHAPTER 1

Gage

“ H ey, asshole,” Chase said from over my shoulder, and it made me jump in my chair. He got a look at my phone before I had a chance to close the screen. “Who’s the hot chick? That’s some rack she’s got.”

Looking at her green eyes on a phone didn’t do them justice. As brilliant as they appeared through a screen, they were breathtaking in person. More than breathtaking—they were captivating. And that was what she did to me. She captivated me. But we weren’t meant to be.

How the fuck did my brother get into my office, literally behind me while I was sitting at my desk, without me noticing?

This was my problem lately. I was consumed by thoughts of her and oblivious to everything else around me.

Becca.

That was who she was.

But I needed to forget about her.

“No one, just a hook-up from my time down at brU.”

brU: Blue Ridge University. It was where I’d gotten my undergraduate degree instead of going to NYU like my parents wanted.

Like Chase.

And brU was where I returned, or rather escaped, for a few months last fall to start my graduate degree. When the shit hit the fan last year during my contentious divorce, I took it upon myself to take a leave from work to further my education.

“A hook-up? You’re telling me you only tapped that once while you were down there? What a waste.”

I swiveled in my chair to respond, no, to retaliate , but he’d already moved away from me to the well-stocked bar in the back of my office. I left him to his own devices and returned to my thoughts. Staring out the window onto Nassau Street in lower Manhattan, I hoped the views would distract me. But nothing seemed to work lately.

She consumed my thoughts. All. The. Time.

Some people never fall in love. They never get to experience that feeling when the most beautiful creature they’ve ever seen walks into the room, and their heart melts. Or that reaction when they gently run a finger along an arm in passing and it stops your breath.

And I believe most have not experienced it twice.

But I did.

I’d also had my heart broken.

Twice.

The first time I was blindsided. She tore it out, stomped on it, and took a piece with her. And to make it worse, it happened quickly and while we were young. Shit, I was still young. After that, I guarded my heart.

But I made a mistake and let my guard down.

I didn’t think I’d allowed my heart to open. But apparently, I didn’t have as much control over it as I thought I did.

It was supposed to be sex—just sex. And it started off that way. She was a siren in bed, and out, for that matter.

Full of life, mouthy, seductive.

She was exactly what I needed at that moment in my life to make me forget.

She brought me back to life after…Rebecca.

But I let it go too far, and we both got hurt.

It wasn’t my intention. We talked about it and outlined what we wanted from the start. We went into it with boundaries. But my fucking heart got in the way.

Not my dick, my heart. Figured.

If I were more like my brother, none of that ever would have happened. The heartless son of a bitch never fell in love. At least I didn’t think he did. Lately, I was left wondering if his latest breakup hit him harder than I’d realized. But we didn’t really talk about shit like that.

I needed to delete the pictures I still had of her, and us, on my phone. Too much of my time had been spent scrolling through them, staring at her sparkling emerald eyes as they looked at me through the lens. It was as if those eyes were still staking a claim on my heart every time I looked at them, breaking it in two over and over again.

This particular picture was taken by the pond on the campus of brU, right as she was heading off to class. Her smile was wide as she turned away from me and the breeze caught her hair a bit, those red highlights in her dark strands shining in the sun. It was the same day we came up with our “agreement”: supposedly keeping it simple, only hooking up, no strings.

It was also the first day I touched her. The first day I heard her moan. The feel of her skin against my fingertips made my dick hard, that was all it took. My thoughts traveled to that day often, remembering how her tits felt in my hands, the weight of them. How she spread her legs and let me know exactly what she wanted me to do to her. Just thinking about running my fingers along her pussy and pushing them inside of her was making my dick twitch in my pants now.

Chase’s footsteps approached, and I quickly adjusted myself and closed the screen of my phone. Turning toward my brother, I saw the glass of amber liquid in his hand. He motioned to it as he took a seat in the chair in front of my desk.

“Want one?”

“No,” I answered, my disbelief evident in my voice. But I was sure my tone was lost on him. He didn’t mind a few drinks daily. I’d been trying to stay away from drinking during the day while at work. Having a bar in our offices was a tradition set by our old-school father, and our clients appreciated the drink when they came in for meetings. But performing at a high level at work and day drinking didn’t really mix.

At least for me.

“So, did she get the job done?” he asked, his drink motioning toward my phone, which was now on my desk.

Staring blankly at him, I wondered for a moment if he had read my mind and was truly asking me if she was able to get me off. Was he that much of an ass? Or was it just me? Back when we were growing up, he and I actually got along. We used to hang out together.

We had some of the same friends in high school and, believe it or not, used to confide in each other.

I wasn’t sure when that all changed for him, and us.

“Gage, c’mon,” he scoffed as he leaned back in his chair, swirling the contents, making the large, singular ice cube clink against the sides of the expensive crystal. He took a generous sip of his bourbon before speaking again. “Did she make everything go away? Did she help ya, man?”

It was my turn to lean back in my chair. My hands went behind my head, fingers interlocking, as I looked up at the ceiling, doing whatever I could to avoid answering his question. It seemed to be a sincere question. Swiveling the wheels away from him, I turned to look out the wide, expansive, floor-to-ceiling windows that took up one wall of my office.

It was a bright, sunny, cool spring day in New York City. It had been a few months since I’d returned from Virginia, putting off my decision to pursue my advanced degree for the time being. The cars and people on the street below looked tiny from forty floors up, but they were bustling about, all going about their day, oblivious to the pain some people around them might be dealing with.

My eyes remained fixed out the window. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. He could always tell when I was lying. We may not hang out as much as we used to, but that didn’t change the fact that we were still brothers.

And I had to keep reminding myself: I was done with relationships. No more. Nada. Stick to anything but long term. I was never a one-night stand kind of guy, always leaning toward relationships for some reason. But if that was what it came to, then that was what it would have to be.

“Yeah, she got the job done.” I propped my feet up on the tiny table behind my desk, securing my position turned away from my brother. “She, um…” I blew out an unsteady breath as I sat forward in my chair. “She definitely helped me forget about Rebecca.”