Chapter One
I don’t believe in love or happy endings but I do believe in lust.
Call me cynical at the tender age of twenty-four but after having my heart broken by my first love and college boyfriend, Kevin, I no longer allowed myself to get involved in relationships.
However I wasn’t dead and my libido was still quite active. That annoying, sexual part of me was the reason why I studied the latest piece of eye candy with interest the moment he’d stepped into my gallery, Maison des Artistries. Yes, I owned my own art gallery in the luxurious bohemian district of Tribeca because my parents were incredibly wealthy beyond belief and my older brother worked for one of the top Wall Street firms that didn’t take a hit during the downturn. His firm, CDG Investments, also didn’t have to beg one dime from the Federal government because they’d covered their asses and preferred their clients invest in blue-chip stock instead of starter-up companies that had decided to go public.
Jude tried to hold my attention but my eyes were glued to his “actor friend” he had brought to my gallery.
“Hello, earth to Jerrica? Brandon really needs your assistance in acquiring some pieces that would suit the brand new mansion he purchased in L.A.”
I silenced my brother with an icy glare and he smirked at me.
The Brandon in question was hot new actor, Brandon Wilkinson, and he was older. Not old as in late thirties old but he had to be at least twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He and my brother, Jude, had gone to Princeton together and he’d left a few credits shy of his degree to try his passion for acting.
Princeton had given him his degree in Business Administration when he’d won an Oscar for best original screenplay; the film he’d also starred in had swept the award show season that year and he’d been in demand and a sex god ever since.
Jude and Brandon could have passed for brothers since they both had blond-streaked brown hair, cobalt blue eyes, lightly tanned skin, tall with lean, muscular bodies and were not only handsome but sexy as well.
However, I had grown up with my brother and although I was told by all my friends he went well beyond just sexy and good looking, personally, I couldn’t see it. He would always be plain old Jude to me.
Not that it had stopped him from going after every one of my best friends and for that I could have killed him. He shattered my best friend’s heart in Academy so bad, her parents’ pulled her from the school and she finished her high school education in a fancy Swiss boarding school. Meanwhile, my brother’s punishment was spending his senior year at an all-boys boarding school in Massachusetts.
I wasn’t friendly with anyone I attended high school at the Academy in Connecticut because while most of my friends chose Princeton, Yale, Harvard or Stanford to attend—along with a few who had opted for Cambridge or Oxford in England—I had decided on Vassar College long before my junior year was over.
My parents thought I was crazy and so did my brother but from the moment I visited, I knew it was the university for me. Had I not gone there, I wouldn’t have met my three best friends: Talia, Savannah or Autumn.
They were all so different and we all came from such different corners of the States—with the exception of Talia Viaro-Stewart because I’d known her at the Academy. Her beautiful yet working-class mother had married a wealthy man though she was originally from South Boston. Autumn Jensen was a Gold Coast raised Chicagoan on her mother’s side while her father was originally from Wisconsin. Savannah Becker was from an upscale neighborhood in northern Virginia near Washington, D.C.
It was funny because while my mind was concentrated so deeply on my friends, I was able to show Brandon several pieces by up and coming artists he thought would be perfect for his new L.A. pad.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I inquired as soon as my brother got an emergency phone call and had to take it away from us.
“I’m sorry?” He honestly looked perplexed by my question and his cobalt blue eyes stared deeply into mine.
“What are you doing here in New York?” I rephrased quickly before I allowed my lips to part with warmth.
Brandon immediately relaxed and smiled back at me. “Oh, I’m filming a movie up in New England but it doesn’t start until next week so Jude invited me to spend a few days at his pad. I was happy to oblige. Your brother is a great guy though I can see why he never introduced his kid sister to any of us.”
If it was possible for me to blush, I would have but I had a pretty high self esteem about myself despite everything that had happened in my life so far.