Chapter 1

ERIC POV

THE MAN BENEATH me has a beautiful back.

That is the only thought I allow myself.

It is a good back—long, lean, the muscles shifting beneath smooth skin each time I drive into him. His arms have begun to tremble. One hand twists in the white sheet while the other reaches behind him and closes around my wrist.

Not a refusal. Just something to hold on to.

I look at his fingers until they loosen, then take his wrist and return his hand to the mattress.

He is good at his job. Everyone at Blue Tears is. He knows how to angle his hips, when to arch, how much breath to put into a moan before it starts sounding rehearsed. The first few were calibrated perfectly—somewhere between genuine and theatrical. The sounds coming out of him now are rougher. His body has stopped performing ahead of what it feels.

That is usually the point at which men expect me to become gentler.

I tighten my grip on his hips and keep the same pace.

The room is built to flatter bad decisions: low amber light, dark wood, marble in the bathroom, Egyptian cotton replaced after every appointment. Nothing personal. Nothing cheap enough to remind the clients what they are paying for.

I prefer it that way.

Four hours ago, I was in a boardroom explaining patent strategy to seven men who had been running companies before I finished high school. Two of them called me son. One stopped after I corrected his numbers without looking at my notes.

None of them would recognize me here.

The suit jacket folded over the arm of the sofa cost more than this man will make tonight. My cuff links are in its pocket. My tie lies across the back, still knotted loosely enough that I will not have to redo it from scratch.

The suit belongs to Eric Perry. So do the company, the apartment, and every expectation attached to my name.

I have known for fourteen years that the life I survived is not entirely mine.

Blue Tears is the exception. In this room, wanting something because I want it is enough. There is no board, no family name, no future waiting at the end of it. What I want here begins when the door closes and ends when I pay.

My body requires no explanation. It wants pressure, friction, the brief violence of sensation strong enough to crowd out everything else. I give it what it wants and ask nothing of the man beneath me except that he remain exactly what I paid for.

He comes first. I feel the moment performance leaves him completely: his spine locks, his breath breaks, and the hand I moved returns to the sheet as though the fabric might keep him from falling apart.

I finish soon after.

For half a second, my forehead lowers between his shoulder blades. His skin is hot and salted with sweat. The room contracts to the sound of our breathing.

Then the air-conditioning turns on.

I straighten.

The condom goes into the bin beside the bed. I cross to the sofa, take the folded bills from my jacket pocket, and place them on the bedside table.

“That's yours.”

He rolls onto one hip, still catching his breath. Up close, he is younger than I registered when Dom sent him in, though still unmistakably a man. Dark hair, practiced smile returning piece by piece.

“Thank you, sir.”

I have not asked his name. He does not offer it.

By the time he reaches for his shirt, I am already in the bathroom.

The shower runs hot enough to fog the mirror before I step beneath it. Steam gathers along the glass, erasing my reflection from the edges inward. I stand under the water and wait for the tension in my shoulders to release.

For a few seconds, it does.

Then the room fills with the sound.

Water striking tile. Water rushing past my ears. Water sealing off everything beyond itself.

Darkness arrives without warning.

Cold with weight in it. Salt in my mouth. Ethan's hand locked around my wrist while something below us pulled harder than I could. His fingers slipping once, catching again.

Then not catching.

I turn the temperature down so fast the pipes knock inside the wall.

Cold water hits the back of my neck. My breath stops. Both palms meet the tile, and I hold them there, eyes fixed on the silver drain beneath my feet.

White marble. Chrome fixture. Steam thinning above me.

Lockwood. Tuesday night. The Blue Tears Club on Fifth and Meridian.

The shower is not deep enough to drown in.

My pulse takes longer to accept that than the rest of me.

Fourteen years should be enough time for a body to learn the difference. Apparently, mine is a slow student.

I finish washing with the water barely warm.

The sequence afterward is reliable: towel, undershirt, white shirt, trousers, cuff links. Matte silver tonight, no monogram. The buttons close one by one. The collar returns to its proper place. By the time I wipe a clear section into the fogged mirror, Eric Perry is looking back at me again.

Twenty-eight. Composed. Presentable.

There is a faint red mark near my wrist.

I pull my cuff over it.

My mother keeps a list of women I ought to meet. She mentioned it again on Sunday over dinner, between asking whether I had spoken to the Halperns and reminding me that my father intends to reduce his schedule next year.

“There are several wonderful families, Eric. I think you'd be surprised.”

Wonderful families. Suitable daughters. The correct education, the correct manners, the correct understanding of what the Perrys require from a marriage.

I told her I was busy.

She smiled with the patient confidence of someone who considers time an ally. My father continued cutting his steak. Ethan's name did not need to be spoken for all three of us to understand why my future remains a family matter.

If Ethan were alive, my mother likes to say.

The rest of the sentence changes. The meaning never does.

If Ethan were alive, the company would have two sons. If Ethan were alive, my father would not need to depend so completely on me. If Ethan were alive, there would be another marriage, another branch of the family, another possible heir.

But Ethan is not alive.

I am.

My parents have never said I owe them the life he lost. They have never needed to. Every plan made since his funeral has been built around the son who remained: the company I will inherit, the woman I will marry, the children who will carry the Perry name after me.

Ethan spent the last of his strength keeping me above water. Accepting the life left for me has always seemed like the least I could give him in return.

My thumb finds the place beneath my cuff where the red mark is hidden. I press once against the pulse there.

I put on my jacket and leave the bathroom.

The bedroom is empty. The cash is gone. One corner of the bedspread has been folded back neatly, as if the man who left wanted to erase the shape his body made there.

The rear corridor of Blue Tears is deliberately forgettable: gray carpet, blank doors, fluorescent light. I use the service exit, avoiding the music and conversation on the main floor.

Outside, the cold catches the damp hair at the back of my neck.

Markus is waiting at the curb. The sedan idles with a low, expensive hum, its windows dark against the city lights. He looks at me once in the rearview mirror when I get in and closes whatever question he might have had before it reaches his face.

Four years, and he has never asked where I have been unless the answer affects my schedule. Discretion is an underrated form of intelligence.

I press two fingers to the bridge of my nose. The headache gathering behind my eyes has become difficult to ignore.

“Where to, Mr. Perry?”

“The apartment.”

Markus pulls away from the curb.

Lockwood passes outside in streaks of red and white, glass towers reflecting a city that looks cleaner from behind tinted windows. I lean my head back and close my eyes.

The quiet I paid for tonight is already gone.

Ethan's wrist moves once through my memory. My mother's list waits for Sunday. Tomorrow morning, the Mercer acquisition will be open on my desk before eight, and three people will arrive with problems they expect me to solve.

Order returning to its proper places.

I let the movement of the car press me into the seat.

The men at Blue Tears change. Different faces, different bodies, different names I never ask for. By the time the door closes, none of it matters to me.

I do not go there for any of them.

I go for the room. The locked door. The hour in which I can want something that belongs only to me.

The life waiting outside is one I cannot leave and, some nights, can barely carry. Blue Tears does not free me from it. It gives me somewhere to set it down.

The hour is over.