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CHAPTER ONE

IF SHE STOOD very still—if she held her breath and kept herself fro—Mattie Whitaker was sure she could make the words that her older brother Chase had just said to her disappear Rewind them then erase them entirely

Outside the rah above the Hudson River some two hours north of Manhattan, the cold rain came down in sheets Stark, weather-stripped trees slapped back against the October wind all the way down the battered broard the sullen river, and the estate had shrunk to blurred gray clouds, solereen pines and the solid shape of the old brick house called Greenleigh, despite the lack of reen Behind her, at the desk that she would always think of as her father’s no one now, Chase was silent

There would be no rewinding No erasing No escaping what she kneas co But then, if she was honest, she’d always known this day would arrive Sooner or later

“I didn’t hear you correctly,” Mattie said Eventually

“We both know you did”

It should have made her feel better that he sounded as torn as she felt, which was better than that polite distance hich he usually treated her It didn’t

“Say it again, then” She pressed her fingers against the frigid pane before her and let the cold soak into her skin No use crying over the inevitable, her father would have said in that bleaklyafter they’d lost their mother

Save your tears for things you can change, Mattie

Chase sighed, and Mattie knew that if she turned to look at hi, always-in-on-the-joke British tabloid staple he’d been throughout his widely celebrated bachelorhood in London, where he’d lived as so-dead British , hard four months since their father had dropped dead unexpectedly Harder on Chase, she expected, who had all their father’s corporate genius to live up to, but she didn’t feel like being generous just now About anything

Mattie still didn’t turn around That ht make this real

Not that hiding fros has ever worked, either, whispered a wry voice inside her that reet—the smell of the leather seats in that doo theht into hell—

Mattie shut that down Fast and hard But her hands were shaking

“You proether,” Chase said quietly instead of repeating himself Which was true She’d said exactly that at their father’s funeral, sick with loss and grief, and not really considering the implications “It’s you and me now, Mats”

He hadn’t called her that in a very long tiether, in fact, and she hated that he was doing it now, for this ugly purpose She steeled herself against it Against him

“You andme off to like some kind of fatted cow, you mean,” Mattie corrected him, her voice cool, which was much better than bitter Or panicked Or terrified “I didn’t realize ere living in the Dark Ages”

“Dad was nothing if not clear that ses lead to better business practices” Chase’s voice was sardonic then, or maybe that was bitterness, and Mattie turned, at last, to find hi her with that hollow look in his dark blue eyes and his arms crossed over his chest “I’ for me since the day of the funeral but he’s hters off his hands, I’ll find s with the Board of Directors that es, Mattie”

She laughed, but it was an empty sound “Should thatbut a little more misery to spread around”

“We need money and support—serious money and very concrete support—or we lose the company,” Chase said, his voice flat and low So unlike him, really, if Mattie wanted to consider that She didn’t “There’s no prettying that up The shareholders areacy and we’re on the brink of losing it”

And what’s left of theht as well have It echoed inside of Mattie as if he’d shouted it through a bullhorn, and she heard the rest of it, too The part where he re their mother—but then, he didn’t have to remind her He’d never had to remind her and he never had There was no point There was scarcely a moment in her entire life when she didn’t remind herself