Chapter 1

ONE

“Five…four…three…two…one…HappyNew Year!”

Oakley Manfred raised his glass of Krug Grande Cuvée and joined the crowd of other Brotherhood members and their guests in calling out “Happy New Year!” Glitter and confetti and balloons spilled down on the ballroom at The Chameleon Club. Oakley told himself he was happy as he smiled at the festive excitement around him and took a long gulp of his champagne, which already had a few pieces of confetti in it.

Only as an afterthought did he turn to see what the sparkling young twink with glittery eye make-up and shining pink lips who clung to his side wanted.

“Happy New Year, babe,” the precious young thing beamed up at him, invitation in his eyes.

Ellis truly was gorgeous. He was an up-and-coming runway model, and he’d been one of the most sought after companions last fall, when Oakley had somehow acquired him. He had the tall, lean, angular build that designers loved, and much to Oakley’s surprise, he was actually intelligent on top of that.

And Oakley felt nothing as he smiled at the man.

“Go on, give us a kiss then, love,” Ellis said, sliding his hand up Oakley’s chest to caress the side of his face. “It’s a new year. It’s time for a new life.”

“Of course, of course,” Oakley said, his face pinching a little. He looped his free arm around Ellis’s waist and pulled him close. “I guess the champagne has gone to my head and made me a little fuzzy.”

Ellis sent him a mock stern look and plucked Oakley’s champaign flute out of his hand. “I’d say that’s enough for you, then,” he said, then made a scoffing noise. “Too drunk to remember to kiss your boyfriend at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s. That’s bad luck you know.”

Oakley didn’t believe in luck, good or bad. He believed in sex, though, and if he wanted to have it before the night was done, he knew he’d better play up to Ellis’s expectations.

With a smile he hoped projected affection as well as lust, he pulled Ellis into an embrace and kissed him soundly. Ellis opened up and allowed Oakley to do whatever he wanted to him, which was the usual way of things between them. Ellis wasn’t just pretty and bright, he was an incredibly good bottom, which was why Oakley hadn’t grown bored of him after three months.

Hadn’t grown bored of him yet.

As the final chorus of Auld Lang Syne faded away and the members of the Brotherhood burst into applause and whistles and more shouts of “Happy New Year”, Oakley pivoted away from Ellis, his arm still hooked around the glittering beauty’s waist, and searched desperately through the other club members for some sign that he wasn’t the only one who felt anything but new.

He felt old, despite his thirty-seven years. He felt like he’d done everything, tried everything, and ticked every item off the list he’d made himself when he graduated from university all those years ago. He was a partner at a wildly successful real estate development company that had swelled his bank account to an obscene degree. He had more money and more power than any man should have. And that was without taking his family’s bundle of titles and estates into account. He was a bloody earl in an era where that sort of title only meant something to a select few stuffy old men.

He owned multiple homes, including an estate in Cumbria, near Keswick, and a vacation home on Lake Cuomo in Italy. He had an entire garage of fast cars, including the Bugatti Chiron parked in the club’s garage. He had a private jet, a yacht currently moored in the Mediterranean, and every high-tech toy a man could want. Ellis was the latest in a string of beautiful, accomplished, often famous boyfriends who had adored him—or at least the gifts he’d bestowed on them—until they didn’t.

But as he looked across the ballroom and spotted his younger brother, Heath, dancing in the arms of his fiancé, Aubrey, the two of them smiling at each other with love that radiated like the sun, blissfully unaware that the music blasting through the room was some upbeat pop song and not a slow-dance, Oakley felt broke.

Aubrey had stumbled into Heath’s life last summer. He’d been hired as a nanny for Heath’s daughter, Eugenie. Through some confusing jumble of misunderstandings that Oakley still found ridiculous, Aubrey had ended up moving in with Heath and Eugenie. And he’d changed their lives completely. Oakley had never seen Heath so happy. He never would have guessed that his brother would have kissed another man in public, as he was doing with Aubrey just then. And he absolutely would have never thought that Heath would fall for a ginger from Cornwall.

“Aw, darling, what’s that face for?” Ellis asked in a too-cute voice, drawing Oakley’s attention back to him. When Oakley tried to smile at the man and didn’t quite pull it off, Ellis gave him a more serious look and said, “I definitely think you’ve had a few too many, love. You’re starting to get that maudlin, gloomy look.”

“What maudlin, gloomy look?” Oakley asked, intending to smile, but frowning instead.

Ellis laughed. “The one you get when you’re drunk and start acting like some sort of nineteenth century poet in need of laudanum.”

“I do not act like a nineteenth century poet,” Oakley protested.

“Right,” Ellis said with a doubtful smirk. “I’ll go fetch our coats and we can head back to my flat.”

Without waiting for Oakley to say more, Ellis turned and walked off.

Oakley’s frown deepened. He should have been turned on by their banter. Usually, he loved a little clever banter as foreplay. Maybe with someone else, the exchange would have done it for him. But as he watched Ellis walk away, the sway in his walk as he went a clear indicator that he knew Oakley, and likely everyone else in the room, was watching him, Oakley felt flat.

What was he doing, dating yet another twenty-something-year-old, glittery twink? What did he think he was proving with a man like Ellis? The sex was great, but if he was honest, there wasn’t much else to it besides that.

He sought out Heath and Aubrey in the crowd again. They’d stopped dancing, but were now talking and laughing with a few of Heath’s friends. Heath had his arm looped around Aubrey’s waist, and Aubrey, cheeky devil that he was, had his hand firmly on Heath’s arse.

Oakley sighed so loudly that if the room hadn’t been so crowded and noisy, it would have echoed off the ceiling. Maybe he should let Ellis go and get on with things with a man closer to his own age. He knew plenty of datable men, through the Brotherhood and through work. With the empire he’d built for himself, he could pretty much have his pick of eligible bachelors.

Case in point, as he stood there mulling over the moroseness of his existence—and regretting that Ellis had taken his champagne away when he’d gone off to fetch their coats—he caught the eye of an old university friend, Jamison Croft, who had been standing alone, but now headed toward Oakley.

“Happy New Year,” Jamison greeted him with a smile, adjusting his glasses before offering Oakley a hand. “And many happy returns.”

“Same to you,” Oakley shook his hand. He was at a complete loss for what to say, and blurted out, “Here alone?”

He wanted to smack himself for such a personal question.

Jamison smiled guiltily and said, “Oh, you know. Just haven’t found the right one. No one has really done it for me of late.” He sent Oakley a subtly significant look.

Oakley knew full well what he meant. He’d known Jamie since uni, and as far as he knew, in all those years, Jamie’s proclivities hadn’t changed. He might have been a respected professor of Psychology now, but Oakley was reasonably certain that underneath his suit, Jamie was as marked up as the most degraded whipping boy.

“You’ll find the right one eventually,” Oakley said with a sympathetic smile, patting Jamie’s arm.

“I should say the same about you,” Jamie said, his look significant in another way. He glanced across the room to where Ellis was talking, possibly flirting, with the coat-check boy.

Oakley opened his mouth to protest that he and Ellis were blissfully happy. But part of the unspoken code of the Brotherhood was absolute honesty with each other, so he sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and said, “I should let him go, shouldn’t I.”

Jamie shrugged. “If you’re not planning on keeping him.”

Oakley nodded sagely. “I don’t suppose it would be ethical to fuck him one more time before breaking it off,” he said.

Jamie laughed. “As a connoisseur of the human mind an all its ethical workings, I can safely say that that’s entirely up to him.”

Oakley laughed weakly, then turned to watch Ellis again for a moment. He felt awful. What a shitty way to star a new year. He’d made up his mind that he would break it off with Ellis before they got home. Maybe an expensive watch would be enough to soften the blow.

“Are you heading out to your Cumbrian house anytime soon?” Jamie asked, distracting him away from the guilt that gnawed at his stomach.

“Hmm?” he hummed, then flinched a little as the conversation sunk in. “Oh. Yes. You know, I really should.”

“There’s nothing like a good hike through the mountains to clear one’s head after a heartbreak,” Jamie said sympathetically.

Oakley laughed with even less humor than before. “The mountains are forgiving,” he said. “We’re old friends. I love hiking up there. It’s just me and the wind and sometimes the rain. That’s where peace grows like the flowers of the meadows.”

“Beautifully put,” Jamie said.

Oakley’s smile turned ironic. Perhaps he was a poet after all. And perhaps he would schedule a quick weekend at Brynthwaite House. He wasn’t lying when he said that hiking in the mountains was what settled his soul.

By the time he’d said his goodbyes to Jamie and as Ellis approached him with their coats, he’d made up his mind. He would break things off with Ellis on the drive home, get a good night’s sleep to get the champagne and sorrow out of his body, and in the morning he would start making arrangements for a hiking weekend in Cumbria.

“You ready, love?” Ellis asked as he handed over Oakley’s coat.

“As I’ll ever be,” Oakley sighed, then rested a hand on the small of Ellis’s back as he steered him through the ballroom.

They weren’t the only ones heading out, now that midnight had come and gone. They waited outside in the frigid, icy air while one of the valets fetched Oakley’s car, not saying much. An epic sort of exhaustion was settling into Oakley’s bones, and he knew that as soon as he said what he needed to say and let Ellis go, he would be beyond exhausted.

“Ah-ah,” Ellis said in a too-cheery voice, snatching the keys from the valet before Oakley could take them. “You’re not driving, Oakley. Not tonight. Not in your state.”

“I haven’t had that much to drink,” Oakley lied. Pride made him protest, but he knew Ellis was right to take the keys.

“And I haven’t had any at all,” Ellis said. “I’m eighteen months sober, and I intend to stay that way. So get in the car, old man.”

Oakley made a show of fussing and protesting, but he let Ellis shuffle him into the passenger’s seat all the same. As Ellis dashed around to the driver’s side, Oakley fiddled with his seatbelt. It occurred to him that maybe he was a little drunker than he’d claimed to be, because he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to work the seatbelt when it was going in the opposite direction he was used to.

As Ellis turned on the car, he gave up and let the seatbelt just drape across his front. They were only heading to Ealing, so it wasn’t as if it mattered.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Ellis said, sending Oakley a sideways look as he took them out to Park Lane and up to Westway. The roads were relatively quiet so late at night, so Ellis sped up.

Oakley cleared his throat, and shuffled anxiously. He needed to get it over with now. There was no point in dragging things out. Ellis would understand. They had a good relationship, and again, Ellis was intelligent. He’d probably already figured out that things were over between them.

“Ellis, we need to talk,” Oakley said.

“Oh,” Ellis said, elongating the syllable. “I was wondering when you would get around to letting me go.” He shifted gears, and the engine purred as London started to whiz past them.

“You know that things between us are just okay,” Oakley said with a sigh, shifting slightly to his side. “You deserve better than just okay.”

Ellis nodded, his expression going serious. “I definitely deserve better than okay,” he said, staring straight forward. “I was hoping that I could have better than okay with you, that you might put a bit of effort into the relationship for a change.”

“I have put effort into it,” Oakley protested, feeding the feeling of offense Ellis’s spot-on observations gave him so that he wouldn’t have to feel so damn guilty.

Ellis sent Oakley a sideways look as he made a turn. “Come on, ducky. You haven’t been present in this relationship outside of the bedroom for a month now.”

“That isn’t true,” Oakley said, even though it was. “I care about you, Ellie. That’s why I want you to be happy. And that isn’t going to happen with me. You deserve someone—”

That was as far as Oakley got before all hell broke loose.

It happened in fits and clips. The car was racing forward at one point, and then it was flying, spinning, flipping. Oakley had no idea which way was up or right or left. One minute, the world was smooth and even and linear, and the next it was all chaos and angles and pain.

The pain was shocking and surreal. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Oakley barely registered that he wasn’t in the car anymore, that he was covered in glass, and that he’d hit his head on something, but also his back. He didn’t know how that had happened, but whatever had hit his back was by far the worst impact. The pain was screaming and white-blue and all-consuming.

And then there was blackness.

Blackness and cold, cut with flashes of awareness.

“Oakley? Oakley? Talk to me. Open your eyes, Oakley, please,” Ellis’s voice pleaded with him from the end of what felt like a long tunnel. “Oakley, don’t die, please.” Ellis was weeping. “They’ll be here soon. The ambulance will be here soon.”

The next thing Oakley knew, there were sirens in the distance. He was certain an eternity of time had passed, though. One minute there was blackness and infinite floating, and the next there had been sirens.

“You did well not to move him,” a woman’s voice said on the other side of the blackness. “You say he went through the windshield?”

“He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt,” Ellis sobbed. “I should have checked.”

Oakley wanted to tell Ellis it wasn’t his fault. He should have been wearing his seatbelt. He should have figured out how to make it work. But the darkness swept back over him.

The next thing he knew, he was moving. And possibly screaming. Pain radiated through every part of—

No, it wasn’t every part of him. It was his head and his arms, his back and his shoulders. Everything lower than that…wasn’t there.

“Careful,” a male voice said as Oakley felt himself lifted. “We’ve got possible spinal damage, potentially around the lower thoracic, upper lumbar region. Don’t shift him any more than you have to.”

Oakley’s awareness was suddenly acute, and he groaned in pain.

“Is he alive? Is he awake?” Heath’s voice came from somewhere, full of panic.

Oakley blinked a little, seeing every sort of flashing light and splashes of brightness around him.

“Mr. Manfred?” the female voice from before asked him. “Mr. Manfred, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

Oakley squeezed, though his confusion was so terrifying that part of him wanted to weep. He couldn’t move. Things were packed tightly all around him, like buffers to keep him absolutely still.

“He’s awake. Oakley, you’re awake, thank God,” Heath said. Oakley couldn’t turn his head to see his brother, but Heath appeared above him suddenly, smiling down, his face red and creased with distress. “We’re in an ambulance, and we’re heading to the hospital,” he said. “Just hold my hand. They’re going to take good care of you. Can you speak?”

Oakley opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d managed to open his mouth.

“He needs to be kept absolutely still,” the female paramedic said. “From what his friend described, he sustained a severe impact to his back, and possibly his head, when the car hit that patch of ice. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He’s lucky to be alive.”

Lucky to be alive. Those words rang in Oakley’s head. He drew in as deep a breath as he could and squeezed what he now knew was Heath’s hand in his.

“What about his back?” Heath asked. “How did he hit it?”

“We’re not certain,” the woman said. “His friend said it was all a blur. We’ll know more once we reach the hospital and do a scan. He may need surgery.”

Oakley didn’t like the sound of that for some reason. He had a horrible feeling deep in his gut.

Panic seeped in around the edges of his consciousness, and he tried to move, tried to get up.

Only, nothing happened. Every fiber of his being wanted to get up and walk away from whatever had happened, but he couldn’t move. And for more reasons than the stabilizing blocks packed all around him. He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel anything below his waist. It was like only half of him was there. So where was the rest of him?

“You’re going to be alright, Oak,” Heath said, brushing his head softly with one hand. “Everything is going to be fine. You’re going to be alright.”

The last thought that went through Oakley’s head before he passed out was that he was very certain that he would not be alright.