CHAPTER ONE
Fifteen months later
STILL NO NEWS.
Oblivious to the faint thud of music coming from the club below, Finn tossed his phone onto his desk and stalked to the window, frustration boiling through him as he stared out through the Georgian sash window into the dark London night.
It had been two months since he’d found the adoption certificate amongst the papers left behind by the man he’d always considered to be his father, and he was no closer to discovering the truth surrounding his birth now than he had been the moment he’d figured out what he was holding and his life, already shattered by grief, had blown fully apart. The only people who could shed any light on anything were no longer around to ask, and the investigation agency he’d hired—allegedly one of the best in the country—had hit a dead end with every lead.
The paralysis was driving him demented. All he wanted was answers. All he needed was clarity. He’d thought the sorrow and emptiness that had consumed him in the days following his father’s—no, Jim’s—death and the realisation that he was now all alone in the world had been harrowing, but at least there’d been a feeling of closure. At least there’d been a logical, if agonising, process to get through.
Now there was nothing but chaos. Where order and certainty had once ruled Finn’s world, confusion and doubt now reigned. He no longer knew what to believe; facts he’d never once had cause to examine now tormented him day and night. Who was he? Where did he come from?
The questions that spun around his head and left scorching trails of betrayal in their wake were many and relentless. Why had he been adopted? Where and who was his real family? Had he been abandoned? How had he ended up where he had?
And, most crushingly, why had he never been told the truth? There’d been eleven thousand opportunities to explain the circumstances surrounding his adoption, give or take a day or two, and eleven thousand opportunities missed. Why keep it a secret? His father, the man he’d so admired and looked up to, who’d circled the wagons when his mother had died and to whom he’d turned for advice and support back in the early days of his business, had become a stranger overnight.
As a result Finn had no idea how much of his thirty-one years on the planet had been genuine and how much hadn’t. In the absence of fact, his previously staid imagination ran riot. In the darkest moments, when he couldn’t sleep and prowled around his penthouse apartment unable to stop the constant churning of his mind, he found himself revisiting the circumstances of his mother’s death. He’d only been ten when she’d stepped out into a road and been hit by a bus. The driver had sworn she’d seen him coming, had even looked him straight in the eye, but why would she have done it deliberately, a pale-faced, tight-jawed Jim had immediately countered, when she’d had no reason to take her own life and everything to live for?
The coroner had ruled her death an accident and Jim had always unflinchingly maintained this verdict, but in the cool, calm quiet of the early hours of the past couple of weeks the doubts had crept into Finn’s head and taken root. Jim had lied to him about his birth, had lied to him his entire life, and now he couldn’t help thinking, what if he’d been lying about that too? What if his mother’s death hadn’t been an accident? What if every time she looked at him, her adopted son, she was reminded of what she’d never been able to create for herself? What if that had finally become too much to bear? What if she’d deliberately stepped in front of that bus because of him, because in some way he’d failed her, because he’d behaved too badly or somehow hadn’t been a good enough son?
If he’d been able to think logically, rationally, he might have seen this extrapolation for the unlikelihood it was, but logic and reason were long gone. His identity, his history, his entire belief system had been decimated and he didn’t know what to think or who to trust any more. He couldn’t even trust himself. He’d been taken for a fool and deceived his whole life, yet had never suspected a thing. The instincts he’d always considered rock solid and uncannily reliable were clearly worthless, and as a result his ruthlessly efficient decision-making ability had vanished. His concentration was shot and his attention to detail was history. His usually long fuse was now microscopically short, and he was snapping and snarling at anyone who had the misfortune to cross his path.
He neither recognised nor liked the man he’d become, a man who no longer knew his place in a world he’d always dominated, but there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it. The armour he’d taken for granted had been brutally stripped away and he was all at sea, unanchored and rudderless, and it was hell.
‘Boss?’
Shaking free of his tumultuous thoughts, Finn turned from the window to see the club’s doorman standing in the doorway.
‘Yes?’ he all but growled.
Bob, built like a tank and in possession of an attitude to match, didn’t even flinch. ‘There’s someone looking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘No idea. But she’s outside, asking if anyone knows you.’
‘She?’
‘Brunette. Mid-to-late twenties, I’d say. Slim. Could be stunning if she tried. Not really dressed for partying. She’s saying she met you in the bar the October before last. She sounds like a fruitcake if you ask me, but I thought you should know in case she turns out to be a crazy stalker or something.’
Finn’s brows snapped together. ‘CCTV?’
‘Sure.’
The doorman pulled a device from the inside of his jacket and hit a couple of buttons. ‘There she is,’ he said, pointing at a figure on the screen.
Finn took the device, examined the live feed and froze, his entire body clenching with recognition and an unwelcome punch of heat.
Georgie.
Once met, never entirely forgotten, much to his irritation.
If he chose to, he could recall the night they’d spent together as clearly as if it had been yesterday. The heated looks they’d exchanged at the bar, the heavily laden conversation, the bizarrely intense connection... The chemistry between them had been incredible. The sex had been hot and wild, the best he’d ever had. Over and over again that night she’d given him the oblivion he’d craved, and for a brief mad moment as dawn had broken he’d been tempted to ask for her number before remembering that they’d agreed to one uncomplicated night only, and, in his case, why that was. He’d had enough on his plate with Jim’s illness. He’d been in no way looking for anything more. But that hadn’t stopped her invading his dreams and giving him uncomfortably sleepless nights for weeks afterwards.
‘What does she want?’ he asked, ignoring the heat and handing the device back with an odd sort of reluctance.
‘She won’t say. Just keeps flashing around this photo of you on her phone.’