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But I'd always known hi as I could remember He met my oldest brother, Caleb, at St Damien's when they were ten years old, and they'd been friends ever since I o Willow and I went to St Daht years later when it was our turn to be shipped off to boarding school—our twin brothers, Wyatt and Lucas, five years before us In the Blackstone f

amily, children were schooled away frohened theh the "real world" was so far res like: twenty-year-old mothers orked the streets so her children could have food and a place to sleep; or ho abuse and suicide were the real world

Those things just weren't the "real world" examples my parents referred to

Boarding school was only one of theup rich James understood completely because he'd been raised in much the same way The Blakneys owned a beach retreat on Blackstone Island not far from my family's ancestral estate, Blackwater, and so our tis and social functions for as long as we both could remember

As the years went along, I loved Jarowhio to run aith a senior partner in his father's law fire in his personality Leah Rawlings turned out to be a ry bitch who'd left a trail of destruction in her wake She broke my James's heart And she did it publicly in a way that was cruel and unnecessary, and on the day they were to beat the church I'll never forget the look on James's face when Caleb led him out of there

Crushed

I didn't know all the reasons for his devastation at the ti at the altar Worse than that, I would discover in time

I couldn't have known all of the machinations that went on behind the scenes in our world when I was barely nineteen years old, but I'd learned enough to know a lot of it wasn't nice

Despicable was a much better adjective

James had been twenty-seven when he found out there were ht if you knehere to look

I think the discovery of just how depraved was part ofsocial work at Boston University I wanted to live my life differently than the people in my "social" circle I didn't desire to be impoverished, but I didn't desire to waste my money on frivolous excess either I wanted to use it to help make a difference for people who desperately needed someone to care, and had no one

No one at all

After his wedding-that-didn't-happen, I heard that Ja hiether With fierce resolve to overco, a mask descended over his handsome face James lost his carefree manner and the easy smile he'd always had for others, and most importantly, in ing after Leah worked him over

I missed the old James terribly at first, but I didn't have rad at BU I was busy being a student, and Ja himself from his father's firm There was drama over that decision at the ti it, but in the end, Ja hiland James R Blakney & Associates, PC was retained by my dad for Blackstone Global Enterprises as soon as Jaed with Caleb heading up BGE since Dad's death In fact, Ja for anyone faced with settling the billion-dollar personal fortune our father left to us—and he handled it without a blip On top of being a close family friend, James knew the conditions of ain access to it before my thirtieth birthday, too He was the one who'd explained it toof the will Lucas and Wyatt had nothing to worry about given they were twenty-nine when Dad passed away