As he walked down the dark streets of Amesport, he cursed the lack of ability of the transport company that was supposed to have had his vehicle at the Amesport airport. He’d arrived on schedule in his private jet only to find that his vehicle hadn’t yet been delivered to his location. Dammit, he didn’t have time for the ineptitude of other companies. He ran his own business like a well-oiled machine, and he expected the same of every other company.
Damn his younger brother Dante and his unusual urgency to enter the state of wedded bliss within a few weeks’ time. Evan really couldn’t understand Dante’s enthusiasm to have that event happen so quickly. He was already living with the woman, why did he have to marry her so hastily? That was the real reason that Evan didn’t have his car, and his ever-present driver, Stokes, who never separated himself from the vehicle. Evan’s own transport jet had been tied up doing a favor for a very important business client, unavailable because Evan hadn’t known he would need it. He’d promised it months ago, and had scheduled accordingly. He didn’t like schedule changes, and he never broke a promise once he agreed to something. So, he’d been forced to use a damn transport company that obviously couldn’t deliver, even though they were the most expensive and supposedly the best company in the business.
“Amateurs,” he growled angrily to himself.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t known that Dante would end up married to Sarah . . . eventually. After all, he made it his business to know exactly what was happening with his siblings . . . or rather, he should say all his brothers. He’d screwed up with his sister, Hope, finding out about her adventures way too late to prevent her from suffering the consequences of her rash actions.
My fault. I should have known better than to assume that Hope was living a quiet life in Aspen. Women were trouble, every single one of them, including his sister. Evan knew that he was the only Sinclair aware of all that she’d been through in the past, and it wasn’t because she’d told him. No. She’d hid everything from her own brothers. The only reason he knew now was because he’d gotten a call from Grady that she’d gone missing in Colorado. He’d gotten an investigator involved, even after she’d been found by her now husband, Jason Sutherland, and the agent had subsequently uncovered the fact that Hope had been leading a completely different life than the illusions she’d maintained to all of her brothers. Presumably, her husband knew the real Hope and the trauma she’d suffered, but it didn’t stop Evan from regretting that he hadn’t checked up on her often enough to find out the truth sooner. She’d suffered, and Evan hated that.
Hope was a very important missed detail, even more critical than business for me.
He tried not to think about the horror of Hope’s life, attempted to put it out of his mind since she was happy now. And she’d stay that way. He’d make sure of it.
The walk from the airport into town had calmed his temper somewhat, but he was still irritated by the time wasted for him to walk to his Amesport Peninsula home from the airport outside of town. Yes, he could have called Grady, Dante, or Jared, but it was late, and he was the eldest Sinclair. He wasn’t about to make one of his siblings get out of bed to come pick him up. He’d never hear the end of it from his brothers if they had to come give him a ride in the middle of the night because his car hadn’t arrived at the airport before he did. Such things just didn’t happen to him.
Evan, the oldest and very anal Sinclair sibling.
Evan, the manager-of-every-single-detail brother.
Evan, the meticulous planner who never missed having anything prearranged, no matter how big or how small, had actually been stranded at the airport without a car?
Oh, hell no. He’d walk until he got to his home, even if it did mean a several-mile hike in the middle of the night and the possible destruction of one of his favorite custom-made suits and fine leather shoes. The rain that had been coming down off and on left him damp, pissed off, and ready to strangle the delivery team the second they arrived with his car. He couldn’t blame Stokes. The elderly driver had never left the vehicle, and he couldn’t control the inability of a company to deliver. Stokes was where he needed to be. The delivery service was not.