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PROLOGUE

Caleb

My father always said I would knohen the right wo He was such a wise man When it happened, I didn’t even question it because the process was so effortless I just fell into herbecause ht away

Knew she was the one for me

I’d known her for years actually She carandmother after her parents were killed in a car crash A devastated fifteen-year-old trying to adapt to a new life in a new place, trying to find where she fit in a world so different from where she’d come—a forty-square-randmother ran the household at Blackwater, the family ancestral home

Should have known of her, that is

Our paths didn’t cross that I am aware of, but it’s possible I rarely visited the island in those days because I was a twenty-three-year-old junior executive fresh out of Harvard Business School, learning everything I could about the fa the excite at off-hours business affairs by night I worked hard at both Affairs, liaisons, one-night stands had all colance Nahts whenever I wanted theer players vying for a piece of the pie became my normal I embraced every aspect that came with the lifestyle Wealth, sexual favors, a certain celebrity born out of my naht years, I had the world in the pal a personal fortune in addition to increasing the family coffers

Or so I thought

I didn’t yet knoasfrom my life Until her And then, when I realized exactly who she was, and how fate had gotten the last laugh on me, it was already far too late She’d bewitched me utterly And furthermore, I knew she had no idea who I was or what ties connected us

Maybe that’s what ?

I didn’t know and I didn’t care because it made absolutely no difference to me I wanted her with a primal desire I could barely understand, yet I embraced that desire wholeheartedly because I was incapable of doing anything else with it How could I not? She had enchanted me

However, once ed to catch up, it wasn’t quite so effortless to accept this new and unfa for a woht fuck

I struggled against the idea of her at first for a few reasons She was too young My ether Others in my world would probably chew her up and spit her out, destroying her sweetness But I soon found outfuck about any of those reasons The heart wants what it wants, and I’d discovered that for e that was Brooke Ellen Casterley

The death of my father fros and s, but it can’t stop the Grio Death is called the great equalizer And it truly was Wealth is a trivial thing when it’s only extra fuckin’ zeros on a balance sheet that makes any difference between lives lived Doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor when you die, because none of it counts at the end You leave this life the sa “There has to bemoney, son,” he told me at the end He took hold of e so as to rets and wanted to share withthe same mistakes I understood him clearly

Thewith my brothers and sisters was the idea of family Family took precedence over row, Caleb,” he said

A strong fa that trulyat the end of the day

The Blackstones had been here on the island since the days when the Mayflower made its treacherous journey to the untamed American shores As the eldest son it was my duty to make sure the Blackstones would still be here a hundred years from now

My plan to fulfill my duty included her It wouldn’t work any other way for me I knew it the first time I ever felt the heat of her eyes as they burned me from across the room

I knew it down in my bones

I was going to land, and she would be mine

Caleb