Chapter One

Seven months later…

R yker Langston sat in the study of his family estate home and gazed out the window at the snowy Colorado wilderness.

Sometimes, life threw a person lemons, but right then, he was tired of lemonade.

"What have you decided?" Synclair Brick's voice jogged Ryker's attention away from the view and back to the rich decor.

"Hmm?" He glanced at his best friend in confusion.

That was right…he suddenly recalled. He'd been bitching about Marshal to Syn.

"I want him back." Ryker frowned, pulling at his bottom lip.

"I thought you were mad at him."

"I was. I am!" Ryker sighed. "I mean, I don't even know why he left. How could he just walk out like that?" He took a tentative sip of the amber liquid in his glass.

"Did you ever ask him why?" Syn stretched his legs out and balanced a glass on one thigh. His friend was beautiful, sexy, wealthy, and always well-dressed.

Ryker gazed down at his own faded sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants. He, on the other hand, did not care what he looked like and hadn't for months. It didn't matter anyway. He lightly touched the scar on his chin.

He knew what he looked like. The car crash that had almost killed him had left his face horribly scarred.

They had been fortunate…it could have very well killed him, Syn, and Syn's bodyguard, Mateo. As it was, Syn's driver had died at the scene.

"Ryker?" Syn murmured, drawing him from that awful day.

"No," he cleared his throat. "I never asked him why."

"Okay…Why do you want him to come back? To be your bodyguard or something else?" His friend gave him a sly look.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," he admonished with a smirk. "It's not like that between us."

Oh, he'd wanted more once upon a time with the sexy man, but without it reciprocated, he had buried his attraction.

"He is a hot bodyguard. And damn…that cowboy hat and slight drawl is yummy." Syn smirked.

"Does Bishop know you talk like that about other men?" Ryker admonished his friend with a smile.

"Bishop is confident enough not to worry about how I describe a bodyguard."

Clearing his throat, Ryker squinted at his best friend. "Marshal isn't only a bodyguard; he also has a Harvard degree."

"Really?" Syn looked taken aback.

"Yep."

"Why didn't you ever tell me that?"

"It never came up? He graduated before we ever attended," Ryker said.

"I thought he was in the military," Syn said slowly.

"He joined the Secret Service after he graduated Harvard with an MBA at seventeen."

"Wait…he graduated at seventeen?"

"He's a child prodigy." Ryker smiled at Syn's incredulous tone.

"No shit?"

"Yeah, no shit." Ryker waved one hand around. It had been hard to find the Secret Service information about Marshal, but anything was possible when a person had enough money.

"Wait, are prodigies allowed in Harvard?" Syn squinted and Ryker laughed.

"They are. The youngest ever recorded was eleven. I had to look that up," he admitted sheepishly and Syn smirked.

"I just remember him being one of your bodyguards at your house."

"Yeah." Ryker ran his hand through his hair, thankful that his hair had grown back enough to cover his head. If he pulled on it, the curls would cover his ears.

"But you had Brandon and Chad at school."

Ryker smiled. He could see Syn trying to work out in his head why he hadn't had Marshal as a full-time bodyguard when they'd attended Harvard.

"Brandon and Chad are more my age, that's why they were with me when I attended school."

"Ah, okay." Syn sipped at his drink.

"Marshal helped me behind the scenes to get Belle Makeup and Skincare launched," Ryker murmured.

Belle Makeup and skincare was a dream Ryker had wanted since high school and when he came into his grandfather's money at the age of twenty-five, he'd finally been able to bring his dreams to fruition. During the process, he excelled at the chemistry aspect but had struggled with the business part until Marshal had stepped in to help.

"I didn't know he had a hand in your business, but then I was abroad for a few years," Syn said, scratching his head.

Ryker nodded, sipping at his glass. "He's kind of private and doesn't talk about himself much at all."

Other than Marshal's school and Secret Service job, he knew next to nothing about the guy except that he'd repeatedly proved himself with the Langstons. And really…that was what mattered, right?

"Bishop has a feeling there is bad blood between Marshal and your parents."

"That's because Marshal left us. He helped my dad with some financial decisions that pretty much saved our company and then he walked away."

"Then why do you want him back?" Syn asked, shooting him a curious glance.

"Because he saved me," Ryker murmured. It wasn't the only reason, but it was a big one.

"When?" Syn stared at him.

"You know there was an attempted kidnapping on me."

"Yeah…years ago when we first met you told me, but you kind of brushed it off." Syn scowled. A brief flash of hurt filled the other man's eyes. "Spill it."

The kidnapping had happened before meeting Syn and he felt a bit guilty for not giving Syn details later on, but he'd been schooled in the art of privacy by his father.

"I'd been sworn to secrecy by my family before heading off to Harvard."

"I get it, plus you didn't know me very well back then." Syn sighed and sipped at his drink—he understood the level of privacy that only applied to the wealthy class. "Don't tell me if you're going to get in trouble."

"No, I'll tell you," Ryker murmured, taking another swallow from his glass, welcoming the burn.

He thought back to the day of the attempted kidnapping.

"I was walking out of a club with Chris…" he began.

Instead of taking the family town car, he had wanted to continue drinking. And that was only because he'd been a rebellious young adult—one with too much bravado and too little brains, he told Syn.

"With my fake ID, I could get into any club I wanted," he recalled. "When the SUV rolled up, Chris and I had been too busy checking out guys on my cell phone to pay much attention."

He took a deep breath and hurriedly went on as the memories assaulted him.

"Then I was grabbed."

When big arms had snatched him, he'd fought, kicking and screaming. He remembered the stench of sweat from the man's body. Another man shoved Chris to the ground and left him there. That was when it dawned on Ryker that they were after him.

"Run, Chris! Get help," Ryker screamed, fighting and kicking both men, trying to make a difference.

Fuck! He had been eighteen years old and set to enter Harvard later that year, but there was nothing he could do to stop getting dragged into the vehicle.

Only, he wasn't dragged inside, he kind of toppled inside when a mountain of a man wearing a cowboy hat came out of nowhere and crashed into one of the kidnappers.

Ryker was lifted off his feet and forced farther into the van by the other kidnapper.

The big hat-wearing man came after them and caught the second kidnapper by the throat, pulled him out of the van, and tossed him to the ground.

"You okay?" his rescuer asked gruffly and held out a hand to him.

Ryker felt dazed, but he was fine, a hell of a lot better than he could have been. Slowly, he took the man's hand. As he was helped from the van, the two kidnappers rolled to their feet and took off running down the street. Chris shoved to his feet, picked up their phones, and walked over to them.

"Should I call 911?" Chris asked.

Ryker shook his head.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he said belatedly to the guy. "Thank you." He took his phone from Chris, but his eyes were on the man who'd saved him.

"Why no cops?" Chris wanted to know.

"My father will handle it," Ryker said.

"Let me see you safely home," his savior said gruffly, his eyes shadowed by the brim of a black cowboy hat.

When the man tipped his head up, Ryker caught a glimpse of blue eyes. He had to crane his neck way back to gaze up at the man who would later, that very same day, become his bodyguard until he left for school.

His father, Robert Langston III, had been grateful when he had returned home with Marshal in tow. After a lengthy discussion, and Ryker was sure some detailed investigation, his dad had offered Marshal a job on the spot.

"What happened to the kidnappers?" Syn asked when he stopped speaking.

"I found out later that they both died from overdoses." Ryker held Syn's gaze. It wasn't a stretch to realize Robert Langston had had a hand in their demise. "So, that's the story."

"So, what are you going to do now?" Syn asked.

"Now? I'm going to get him to come back."

Marshal may have been their family-employed bodyguard and even though Ryker had wished for things to be different between them, they had at least been friends…or so he'd thought.

"So, you're not pissed at him anymore?"

"Yeah, I'm pissed. He left without a fucking word," Ryker said, scowling before he tossed back the rest of his booze.

"And you have no idea why he suddenly left?" Syn frowned into what remained of his drink.

"I honestly don't know. One day, I turned around and found his resignation on my desk."

The stunned devastation he'd felt holding Marshal's resignation letter was something he would never forget.

"Well then, you, my friend, need a makeover."

"Why?" He frowned.

"Because looking good makes us feel good."

Ryker rolled his eyes with a snort. "I'll never look good again."

"Don't say that. Let's go shopping. A new outfit will do wonders." Syn turned in his chair toward him.

"After I have my surgery. I can't go out like this…no fucking way."

Ryker covered the marred half of his face with one hand. The car crash that had damaged his face seven months ago had left visible scars a cosmetic surgeon said could not all be fixed.

He knew what he looked like without gazing in a mirror. An angry V-shaped scar ran from the top right of his forehead, angling down to his upper right cheek before it cut diagonally across his cheek to end just at his chin. His shorn head helped deliver the brutality of it all.

At least he wasn't bald any longer; he now had enough hair that he could style it a bit.

"My doctor said I should wait at least six months before surgery," he hedged. It was already past that date and he still hadn't made an appointment…and he couldn't pinpoint why he was putting it off.

"Hey…you own a fucking makeup company and hair salons under the Belle name."

Ryker gave a half smile. "True."

"Then why don't we use makeup and a wig if you feel self-conscious."

"The paparazzi are trying to get a picture of me," he reminded his friend.

"Well then, let's give them something to film." Syn's grin turned wicked.

Ryker found himself laughing even though it pulled at the skin on his face, but it felt damned good.