1. Talia

Chapter 1

Talia

17 years later

I ’m about to take a bite of my favorite omelet in the world, courtesy of my favorite café in Santa Monica, when my phone buzzes on the table. It shimmies over the polished wood surface, heading toward the edge. Ignoring its impeding demise, I shove my fork in my mouth and flavors explode on my tongue.

I groan. “I’m convinced Rhubarb’s kitchen runs on magic dust.”

My breakfast date, Mia, laughs and snatches my phone before it can launch itself to the floor. Placing it safely on a napkin, she glances at the screen.

“Don’t tell me who it is,” I say quickly, but my mouth is full again and the words come out garbled except for “tell” and “who.”

“Gail Katz,” Mia says helpfully.

I blink in surprise and swallow. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.” I load up my fork with another piece of heaven and shrug. “She’ll leave a voicemail.”

The buzzing thankfully stops, though no voicemail arrives. Stuffing down my curiosity, I focus on catching up with Mia. I relish our standing monthly breakfasts, especially now that they have an expiration date—or at least an upcoming hiatus.

As Mia shifts in her chair and winces, I ask, “And how’s the tiny terror treating his mama today?”

Her smile is radiant as she rubs a hand over her rounded belly. “Currently tap-dancing on my bladder.”

I make a face. “That sounds awful—I mean, so happy for you.”

She laughs, and my phone starts buzzing again. We look down at the same time to see the caller. Gail Katz.

“Weird,” I mutter.

The phone stops buzzing. Once again, there’s no voicemail.

Mia gives me a concerned look. “You should call her back. What if she can’t leave a message or text for some reason?”

I sigh and grab the phone. Mia is a counselor at a middle school and her husband, Leo, is a gifted psychiatrist. Bleeding hearts, the both of them .

I scoot back my chair and stand. “Fine, but only because I can’t say no to a pregnant woman. Be right back.”

She waves me off. “I know the drill.”

Stepping out of our secluded corner, beautifully screened by potted trees, I stride purposefully across the crowded restaurant toward the patio doors. Eyes follow me and whispers ripple in my wake, a recent development in my life and a giant hassle.

For the thousandth time in the last two weeks, I regret the charitable impulse that made me say yes to an interview with a tiny, online health blog. If I’d known the interviewer was going to warp my words for maximum shock value and pitch the resulting article to Buzzfeed, I never would have agreed .

Live and learn.

The patio is empty, the January temps keeping diners indoors. I take a deep breath of the ocean-scented breeze, then dial Gail. It rings twice before she answers.

“Talia, hi! I’m so sorry for calling twice. I should have left a voicemail or texted, but I panicked. Both times. Sorry.”

I’m suddenly back in a cramped off-campus apartment at UCLA with the fastest talker I’ve ever met. It brings a smile to my face.

“Hey, Gail. How are you?”

“Um, good. I’m good.” She giggles, a nervous burst of sound. “You’re probably wondering why I called. Twice.”

“A little, yeah. Not that it’s not nice to hear from you.”

“It is, isn’t it? I mean, it’s nice to hear your voice, too.” She hesitates, and I have a ten-year-old memory of her face flushing in embarrassment. “Sorry again. I’m not really sure how to say this.”

“What’s going on?” I ask gently.

“I need a favor. A big one.” She takes a breath. “Long story short, my brother-in-law is in dire straits. His situation is unique, and, um?—”

I frown as she falls silent. A few seconds later, I hear a door close.

“Gail?”

“Yes, sorry.” She suddenly sounds like a different woman. Tired and stressed. “I heard my husband coming downstairs. He knows I’m calling someone who might be able to help, but it’s a touchy subject. He’s really worried about his brother.”

I chew my lip, wishing I hadn’t listened to Mia. “I’m really sorry about whatever’s going on with your brother-in-law, but this isn’t how I operate. If you want to pass along my information to him, feel free to do that. Full disclosure, though, I think my soonest appointment isn’t until late March.”

There’s a long beat of silence, another indicator of maturity from a woman who rarely thought before she spoke.

“He can’t wait that long,” she says finally, her voice even softer. “I realize there’s a risk I’m burning the bridge of our friendship, but I’m begging you, Talia. Help him. Please try.”

My stomach sinks. Dropping my head back, I stare at the giant, spiky fronds of a nearby palm tree .

“My brother-in-law is Kieran Hayes. If you can see him today, we’ll pay you triple your normal rate.”

I barely register the second half of her statement. My ears ring, his name the reverberation of a mighty bell. Closing my eyes, I breathe past the sudden sensation of a free fall.

If it were anyone else…

Shit.

“Okay, Gail. I’ll see him.”

After ending the phone call—that went on long enough my fingers feel frozen and my hair damp—I return to the table to find Mia gone, the bill paid, and my leftovers packaged. I shoot her a text thanking her and apologizing, then head to the valet outside.

Fifteen minutes later, I unlock my front door and step inside my personal oasis. For the first time in memory, however, I don’t feel any calming effects. The anxiousness that’s been simmering since speaking with Gail spikes as I look at my watch.

I wasn’t lying when I told her this isn’t how I operate. I normally conduct two hour-long video calls with prospective clients prior to booking. An essential getting-to-know-you period. There are good reasons why, too. Only one out of three actually commit after they learn what I really do and what’s required of them: complete surrender to the process.

But I don’t have weeks or even hours to prep. I have fifty- six minutes until the man known as the King of Silicon Beach—Southern California’s tech hub—arrives at my Marina Del Ray office.

The same man who, a lifetime ago, found a broken girl in a graveyard and told her someday the world would kneel to her.

Perching on the edge of my unmade bed with my phone, I open a browser and search his name for the first time in years. I scan various headlines before finally clicking on his Wikipedia page. My eyes linger on the included photos, even though they’re the least important detail and I already know what he looks like. You’d have to be living under a rock not to.

All the mismatched beauty I saw in a scrawny boy has found its home on the face of a king. Tousled, longish dark hair, straight brows, and heavily-lashed, piercing blue eyes. Strong, defined jawline and blade-like cheekbones. Hawkish nose. Lips a touch too full and sensual for his face.

No one would call him classically handsome or something as mundane as attractive. But likewise, no one would deny he has that unquantifiable something that causes eyes to linger and makes cameras love him. Even in his professional uniform of custom suits, he looks unkempt and a little wild. Like a wolf wearing human skin. It’s hard to stop staring at him, but I do.

I skim through his basic background, most of which I know. He’s thirty-five. Born and raised in Galway, Ireland. One brother, Alistair, older by fifteen months. His father was a mechanical engineer, his mother a primary school teacher. Both are retired now. He received dual undergraduate degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Oxford. Relocated to California at twenty-three to pursue a Master’s in Microelectronics from Stanford.

At twenty-six, Kieran founded Lumitech with his brother. Nine years later, the cutting-edge microtechnology company has swallowed dozens of smaller startups and has a market cap of 150 billion dollars. They have contracts in automotive, aerospace, military, and industrial sectors, as well as a significant presence in mass-produced consumer electronics.

I open my Notes app and type:

Highly intelligent and driven

Strategist/analytical thinker

Likely respects creative thinking

Logic centered

I swipe back to Wikipedia. While Kieran’s family, education, and professional history is significant in the sense it gives me basic insight into the way his mind works, it’s not what I need. I find that under the section entitled Personal Life.

He met Elizabeth Foster, daughter of Hollywood producer Donovan Foster, seven years ago at a charity benefit. They dated for two months before marrying. Four years ago, she was tragically murdered in a carjacking ten minutes from their Beverly Hills home. There was an investigation but no arrests. The consensus of law enforcement was that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim of senseless violence.

I remember hearing about her death—it was all over the news for days—but I’d forgotten the circumstances. Another detail comes back to me, and a quick search confirms it: Elizabeth was two months pregnant when she died.

With a sympathetic grimace, I drop my phone to the bed and walk into the bathroom to shower. As I wash my hair, I think about what else Gail told me. What’s not in his Wikipedia. That after his wife’s death and a brief period of intense grieving, Kieran threw himself back into work and dating with shocking zeal. In the years since, he’s maintained seventy-hour work weeks and an average of two to three “dates” a week. His productivity has been great for Lumitech’s net worth, but his dating habits have given their PR team ulcers and generated enough NDAs to wallpaper a building.

Then, five weeks ago, he stopped… everything.

Stopped going to work. Stopped answering calls and emails. Leaving his house. Shaving and showering. And from Gail and Alistair’s routine visits to his home, they suspect most of his meals are of the liquid variety.

The head of a massive, publicly traded tech company abruptly disappearing is not good for business. That the cause is a possible mental breakdown is immeasurably worse. So far, the company has managed to keep Kieran’s absence on the down-low, but it’s only a matter of time before the media catches wind. Alistair is desperate to help his brother and on the verge of a breakdown himself as he tries to fill Kieran’s distinctive shoes at the helm of their company.

It’s a rumbling mountaintop with the potential for an avalanche of multibillion-dollar proportions. And Gail believes I’m uniquely suited to stop it.

“I know you can get through to him, Talia. He’s an out-of-the-box thinker, and there’s no one more out-of-the-box than you.”

Backhanded compliment or not, she’s right. I’m firmly out-of-the-box. Sure, on paper I’m qualified to be his therapist. I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology from UCLA and have been a practicing psychologist for seven years. But to say I use my degree creatively is an understatement.

If it ever leaks that he’s seeing me for therapy, we might as well ignite dynamite under the mountain ourselves.