The leap from friends to lovers means they have everything to gain...

or everything to lose...

Colleagues, confidants and best friends for years, Flynn and Sabrina have never crossed that line. Until one searing Valentine’s Day kiss. And when circumstances force Sabrina to move in with Flynn...that line disappears. But becoming friends with benefits must stay a secret. Because if word gets out, they’ll be risking their professional reputations and their relationship...

A former job-hopper, JESSICA LEMMON resides in Ohio with her husband and rescue dog. She holds a degree in graphic design currently gathering dust in an impressive frame. When she’s not writing supersexy heroes, she can be found cooking, drawing, drinking coffee (okay, wine) and eating potato chips. She firmly believes God gifts us with talents for a purpose, and with His help, you can create the life you want.

Jessica is a social media junkie who loves to hear from readers. You can learn more at jessicalemmon.com.

Also by Jessica Lemmon

Lone Star Lovers

A Snowbound Scandal

A Christmas Proposition

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Best Friends, Secret Lovers

Jessica Lemmon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09207-4

BEST FRIENDS, SECRET LOVERS

© 2019 Jessica Lemmon

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For Jules. I’m so blessed to call you a friend.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

About the Publisher

Prologue

“Twenty minutes minimum, or else she’ll tell everyone you’re horrendous in bed.”

“If you’re down there for longer than seven minutes, you dumb Brit, you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“Spoken like a guy who has no idea what he’s doing.”

Flynn Parker leaned back in his chair, his broken leg propped on the ottoman, and listened to his two friends argue about sex. Pleasing women in particular.

“If either of you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be single,” he informed his buddies.

Gage Fleming and Reid Singleton blinked over at Flynn as if they’d forgotten he was sitting there. Drunk as they were, they might have. Gage grabbed the nearly empty whiskey bottle resting on Flynn’s footstool and splashed another inch into Reid’s glass and his own.

But not Flynn’s. Thanks to the pain medication he was on, the only buzz he would be enjoying was courtesy of Percocet.

“You’re one to talk,” Reid said, his British accent slurred from the drink. “Your ring finger is currently uninhabited.”

“The reason for this trip.” Gage clanked his glass with Reid’s, then with Flynn’s water bottle.

Flynn would drink to that. His recent split from Veronica was what drove them all up here, to the mountains in Colorado to go skiing. The last time they were in Flynn’s father’s cabin had been their sophomore year in college. The damn place must be a time machine because they’d devolved into kids just by being here.

Gage and Reid had been nonstop swapping stories, bragging about their alleged prowess, and Flynn had been foolish enough to try the challenging slope...again. His lack of practice led to his taking a snowy tumble down the hill. Just like the last time, he’d ended up in the hospital. Unlike the last time, he’d broken a bone.

Skiing wasn’t his forte.

So. Veronica.

The ex-wife who had recently ruined his life and his outlook. His buddies had come here under the guise of pulling him out of his funk, but he knew they were mostly here because they hadn’t left each other’s sides since they were in college. Sure, Reid had fled back home to London for a short time, but he’d come back. They’d all known he would.

Before he boarded the plane for this vacation, Flynn had learned two things: One, that his father’s diagnosis of “pneumonia” was terminal cancer and Emmons Parker would likely die soon, making fifty-three the age to beat for Flynn; and two, that when he returned home he’d be sitting in his father’s office with the title of president behind his name.

Running Monarch was all Flynn had ever wanted.

Was.

Despite years of showing an interest and trying to please his father, Emmons Parker had shooed Flynn away rather than pulled him in. Now the empire was on Flynn’s shoulders, and his alone.

Reid howled with laughter at something Gage said and Flynn blinked his friends into focus. No, he wasn’t alone. He had Reid, and Gage, and the best friend who’d been a part of his life longer than those two, Sabrina Douglas. His best friends worked at Monarch with him, and with them in his corner, Flynn knew he could get through this.

The senior employees were going to freak out when they found out Flynn was going to be president. He’d been accused of “coasting” before and would be in charge of all of their well-beings, which Flynn took as seriously as his next line of thought—the pact he’d been ruminating about since before his leg snapped in two on that slope.

“Remember that pact we made in college? The one where we swore never to get married.”

Reid let out a hearty “Ha!” UK-born Reid Singleton was planning on staying as unattached as his last name implied. “Right here in this room, I believe.”

Gage pursed his lips, his brows closing in the slightest bit over his nose. “We were hammered on Jägerbombs that night. God knows what else we said.”

“I didn’t adhere to it. I should have.” Flynn had been swept up by love and life. He hadn’t taken that pact seriously. A mistake.

Gage frowned. “It’s understandable why you’d say that now. You’ve been through the wringer. Back then no one expected to find permanence.”

“None of us wanted to,” Reid corrected.

Flynn pointed at Gage with his water bottle. “You and this new girl have been dating, what, a month?”

“Something like that.”

“Get out now.” Reid offered a hearty belch. He lifted his eyebrows and downed his portion of whiskey, cheeks filling before he swallowed it down. “You and I, Gage, we stuck to the pact.” He smiled, then added, “If you were Flynn, you’d have married her by now.”

Reid wasn’t exaggerating. Flynn and Veronica had been married on their thirty-day dating anniversary. Insanity. That they’d lasted three years was more a testament to Flynn’s stubbornness than their meant-to-be-ness.

The final straw had been Veronica screwing his brother.

Whatever, he thought, as the sting of betrayal shocked his system afresh. He’d never liked Julian much anyway.

“He’s doing the thing,” Reid muttered not quietly, given his state of inebriation. His gaze met Flynn’s, but he spoke to Gage. “Where he’s thinking of her.”

“I can hear you, wanker.” Flynn lost his marriage, not his hearing. Though “lost” would imply he’d misplaced it. It hadn’t been misplaced, it’d been disassembled. Piece by piece until the felling blow was Veronica’s head turning for none other than his older, more artsy brother. She was the free spirit, and Flynn was the numbers guy. The boring guy. The emotionally constipated guy.

Her words.

“Hey.” Gage snapped his fingers. “Knock it off, Flynn. We’re here to celebrate your divorce, not have you traipse down depression trail.”

But Flynn wasn’t budging on this. He’d given it a lot of thought since he’d tumbled down that hill. It was like life had to literally knock him on his ass to get him to wake up.

“I’m reinstating the pact,” Flynn said, his tone grave. Even Reid stopped smiling. “No marriage. Not ever. It’s not worth the heartache, or the broken leg, or hanging out with the two worst comrades in this solar system.”

At that Reid looked wounded, Gage affronted.

“Piss off, Parker.”

“Yeah,” Gage agreed. “What Reid said.”

With effort, Flynn sat up, carefully moving every other limb save his broken leg so he could lean forward. “I don’t want either of you to go through this. Not ever.”

“You’re serious,” Gage said after a prolonged silence.

Flynn remained silent.

Gage watched him a moment, a flash of sobriety in the depths of his brown eyes. “Okay. What’d we say?”

“We promised never to get married,” Reid said. “And then we swore on our tallywackers.”

Gage chuckled at Reid’s choice of phrasing.

“Which means yours should have fallen off by now.” Reid’s face contorted as he studied Flynn. “It didn’t, did it?”

“No.” Flynn gave him an impatient look. “It didn’t.”

Reid swiped his hand over his brow in mock relief.

“Come on, Parker, you’re high on drugs,” Gage said with a head shake. “We made that pact because your mom was sick and your dad was miserable, and because Natalie had just dumped me. We were all heartbroken then.” He considered Reid. “Except for Reid. I’m not sure why he did it.”

“Never getting married anyway.” Reid shrugged. “All for one.”

“So? Swear again,” Flynn repeated. “On your tallywackers.” That earned a smile from Reid. “Big or small, they count.”

The first time they’d made the pact none of them truly knew heartache. Breakups were hard, but the decimation of a marriage following the ultimate betrayal? Much worse. Reid and Gage didn’t know how bad things could get and Flynn would like to keep it that way. He didn’t want either of them to feel as eviscerated as he did right now—as he had for the last three months. All pain he could have avoided if he’d taken that pact seriously.

His buddies might never find themselves dating women who slept with their family members, but it wouldn’t matter how the divorce happened, only that it did. He’d heard the statistics. That 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce was up to around 75 nowadays.

He’d heard some people say they didn’t harbor regret because if they’d never married, and divorced, they wouldn’t have learned life’s lessons. Blah, blah, blah.

Bullshit.

Flynn regretted saying “I do” to Veronica all the way down to his churning stomach. The heartbreak over her choosing his brother would have been more bearable if she’d told him up front rather than three years into an insufferable marriage.

“I swear,” Reid said, almost too serious as he crashed his glass into Flynn’s water bottle, then looked at Gage expectantly.

“Fine. This is stupid, but fine.” Gage lifted his glass.

“Say it,” Flynn said, not cracking the slightest smile. “Or it doesn’t count.”

“I promise,” Gage said. “I won’t get married.”

“Say never, and we all drink,” Flynn said.

“Wait.” Reid held up a finger. “What if one of us caves again? Like hearts-and-flowers Gage over here.”

“Shut up, Reid.”

“One of your monthlong girlfriends could turn into the real thing if you’re not careful.”

“I’m careful,” Gage growled.

“You’d better be.” Flynn stared down his friends. The enormity of the situation settled around them, the only sound in the room the fire crackling in the background. “The lie of forever isn’t worth it in the end.”

Reid eyed Flynn’s broken leg, a reminder of what Flynn’s stupidity had cost him, and then exchanged glances with Gage. These men were more like Flynn’s brothers than his own flesh and blood. They’d do anything for him—including vowing to remain single forever.

“Never,” Gage agreed, holding up his own glass.

Reid and Flynn nodded in unison, and then they drank on it.

One

Flynn Parker, his stomach in a double knot, attempted to do the same to his tie. His hands were shaking from too much coffee and not enough sleep. It wasn’t helping that the tiny room in the back of the funeral home was nearing eighty degrees.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and slicked his palms. He closed his eyes, shutting out his haggard reflection, and blew out a long, slow breath.

The service for his father was over, and when Flynn had left the sweltering room, the first thing he’d done was yank at his tie. Bad move. He’d never return it to its previous state.

God help him, he didn’t know if he could watch his father being lowered into the dirt. They’d had their differences—about a million of them at last count. Death was final, but burial even more so.

“There you are.” Sabrina Douglas, his best friend since college, stepped into view in the tall mirror at the back of the funeral home. “Need help?”

“Why is it so hot in here?” he barked rather than answer her.

She clucked her tongue at his overreaction. Much like this moment, she’d come in and out of focus over the years, but she’d always been a constant in his life. She’d been at his side at work, diligently ushering in the new age as he acclimated as president of the management consulting firm he now owned. She’d been with him for every personal moment from his and Veronica’s wedding to his thirtieth birthday—their thirtieth birthday, he mentally corrected. Sabrina was born four minutes ahead of him on the same damn day. She’d jokingly called them “twins” when they first met in psych class at the University of Washington, but that nickname quickly fizzled when they realized they were nothing alike.

Nothing alike, but unable to shake each other.

Her brow crinkled over a black-framed pair of glasses as she reached for the length of silk around his neck and attempted to retie it.

“I do it every morning,” he muttered, Sabrina’s sweet floral perfume tickling his nose. She always smelled good, but he hadn’t noticed in a while.

A long while.

His frown deepened. They hadn’t been as close in the years he was married to Veronica. His hanging out with Reid and Gage hadn’t changed, but it was as if Veronica and Sabrina had an unspoken agreement that Sabrina wasn’t welcome into the inner circle. As a result, Flynn mostly saw her at work rather than outside it. The thought bothered him.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He was speaking of his own reverie as much as his lack of ability to tie his necktie.

“Flynn...”

He put his hands on hers to stop whatever apology-slash-life-lesson he suspected was percolating. As gently as he could muster, he said, “Don’t.”

Sabrina leveled him with a wide-eyed hazel stare. Her eyes were beautiful. Piercing green-gold, and behind her glasses they appeared twice as large. She’d been with him through the divorce from Veronica, through his father’s illness and subsequent death. The last couple of months for Flynn had started to resemble the life of Job from the Bible. He hadn’t contracted a case of boils as the Monarch offices collapsed in on themselves, yet. He wasn’t going to tempt fate by stating he was out of the woods.

Emmons Parker knew what his sons had been through, so when he’d had his lawyer schedule the meetings to read the will, he’d made sure they happened on separate days.

Flynn on a Sunday. Julian on a Monday.

Unfortunately, Flynn knew Veronica had gone to the reading with Julian, even though he’d rather not know a thing about either of them. Goddamn Facebook.

Julian inherited their father’s beloved antique car collection and the regal Colonial with the cherry tree in the front yard where they’d grown up. Flynn inherited the cabin in Colorado as well as the business and his father’s penthouse apartment downtown. Julian was “starting a family,” or so the lawyer had read from the will, so that was why Emmons had bequeathed their mother’s beloved home with the evenly spaced shutters to his oldest, and least trustworthy, son.

The son who was starting a family with Flynn’s former wife.

Today Flynn had accepted hugs and handshakes from family and friends but had successfully avoided Julian and Veronica. His ex-wife kept a close eye on Flynn, but he refused to approach her. Her guilt was too little and way too late.

“I don’t know what to do.” Sabrina spoke around what sounded like a lump clogging her throat. She was hurting for him. The way she’d hurt for him when Veronica left him. Her pink lips pressed together and her chin shook. “Sorry.”

Abandoning the tie, she swiped the hollows of her eyes under her glasses, careful of the eye makeup that had been applied boldly yet carefully as per her style.

He didn’t hesitate to pull her close, shushing her as she sniffed. The warmth of that embrace—of holding on to someone who cared for him so deeply and knew him so well—was enough to make a lump form in his own throat. She held on to him like she might shatter, and so he concentrated on rubbing her back and telling her the truth. “You’re doing exactly what you need to do, Sabrina. Just your being here is enough.”

She let go of him and snagged a tissue from a nearby box. She lifted her glasses and dabbed her eyes, leaning in and checking her reflection. “I’m not helping.”

“You’re helping.” She was gloriously sensitive. Attuned. Empathetic. Some days he hated that for her—it made her more at risk of being hurt. He watched her reflection, wondering if she saw herself as he did. A tall, strong, beautiful woman, her sleek brown hair framing smooth skin and glasses that made her appear approachable and smart at the same time. She wore a black dress and stockings, her heeled shoes tall enough that when she’d held him a moment ago she didn’t have to stretch onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Okay. I’m okay. I’m sorry.” She nodded, the tissue wadded in one hand. Evidently this okay/sorry combo marked the end of her cry and the beginning of her being his support system. “If there’s anything you need—”

“Let’s skip it,” he blurted. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew it was the right thing to do.

“Skip...the rest of the funeral?” Her face pinched with indecision.

“Why not?” He’d seen everyone. He’d listened as the priest spoke of Emmons as if he was a saint. Frankly, Flynn had heard enough false praise for his old man to last a lifetime.

Her mouth opened, probably to argue, but he didn’t let her continue.

“I can do it. I just don’t want to.” He shook his head as he tried to think of another cohesive sentence to add to the protest, but none came. So he added, “At all,” and hoped that it punctuated his point.

She jerked her head into a nod. “Okay. Let’s skip it.”

Relief was like a third person in the room.

“Chaz’s?” she offered. “I’m dying for fish and chips.” Her eyes rounded as her hand covered her mouth. “Oh. That was...really inappropriate phrasing for a funeral.”

He had to smile. Recently he’d noticed how absent from his life she’d been. It’d be good to go out with her to somewhere that wasn’t work. “Let’s get outta here.”

“Are you kidding me?” His brother, Julian, appeared in the doorway, his lip curled in disgust. “You’re walking out on our father’s funeral?”

Like he had any room to call Flynn’s ethics into question.

Veronica’s blonde head peeked around Julian’s shoulder. Her gaze flitted to Flynn and then Sabrina, and Flynn’s limbs went corpse-cold.

“Honey,” she whispered to Julian. “Let’s not do this here.”

Honey. God, what a mess.

Sabrina took a step closer to Flynn in support. His best friend at his side. He didn’t need her to defend him, but he appreciated the gesture more than she knew.

Julian shrugged off Veronica’s hand from his suit jacket and glared at his brother. It was one of Dad’s suits—too wide in the shoulders. A little short in the torso.

Julian didn’t own a suit. He painted for a living and his creativity was why Veronica said he’d won her heart. Evidently, she found Flynn incapable of being “spontaneous,” or “thoughtful,” or “monogamous.”

No, wait. That last one was her.

“You’re not going to stand over your own father’s grave?” Julian spat. Veronica murmured another “honey,” but he ignored it.

“You’ve made it clear that it’s none of my business what you do or don’t do.” Flynn tore his gaze from Julian to spear Veronica with a glare. “Both of you. Same goes for me.”

Her blue eyes rounded. He used to think she was gorgeous—with her full, blond hair and designer clothes. The way her nails were always done and her makeup perfectly painted on. Now he’d seen what was under the mask.

Selfishness. Betrayal. Lies.

So many lies.

“Don’t judge me, Flynn,” she snapped.

“You used to be more attractive.” The sound of his own voice startled him. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“Son of a bitch!” Julian lunged, came at him with a sloppy swing that Flynn easily dodged. He’d learned how to fistfight from Gage and Reid, and Julian only dragged a paint-filled brush down a canvas.

Flynn ducked to avoid a left, weaved when Julian attempted a right, cracked his fist into his older brother’s nose. Julian staggered, lost his balance and fell onto his ass on the ground. Sabrina gasped, and Veronica shrieked. Julian puffed out a curse word as blood streamed from his nose.

“Honey. Honey. Talk to me.” Veronica was on her knees over Julian’s groaning form and Flynn didn’t know what sickened him more. That his ex-wife cared about his brother’s well-being more than the man she’d vowed to love forever, or that Flynn had lost his temper with Julian and hit him.

Both made his stomach toss.

“Are you okay?” Sabrina came into focus, her eyebrows tenderly bowed as she watched him with concern. He hated her seeing him like this—broken, weak—like he’d felt for the last several months.

“I’m perfect.” He took her hand and led her from the small room and they encountered Reid and Gage advancing at a fast walk down the hallway.

“We heard a scream.” Reid’s sharply angled jaw was set, his fists balled at his sides. Gage looked similar, minus the fists. His mouth wore a scowl, his gaze sweeping the area around them for looming danger.

“You okay?” Gage asked Sabrina.

“I didn’t scream. That was Veronica.”

“We’re fine,” Flynn said before amending, “Julian’s nose is broken.”

“Broken?” A fraction of a second passed before Reid’s face split into an impressed smile. He clapped Flynn on the shoulder.

“Do not encourage him,” Sabrina warned.

“So what now?” Gage asked at the same time more of Julian’s groaning and Veronica’s soothing echoed from the adjacent room.

“We’re skipping the rest of the funeral,” Flynn announced. “Who wants to go to Chaz’s for fish and chips?”

“I do,” Reid said, his British accent thickening. The man loved his fish and chips.

Gage, ever the cautious, practical friend, watched Flynn carefully. “You’re sure this is what you want to do?”

Flynn thought of his father, angry, yelling. His gutting words about how if he wanted to become as great a man as his father, Flynn would have to first grow a pair. He thought of Emmons’s bitter solitude after Mom had succumbed to cancer fifteen years ago. Emmons had suffered that same fate, only unlike Mom, he’d never woken up to what was really important. He’d taken his bitterness with him to the grave. Maybe that’s why Flynn couldn’t bear seeing his old man lowered into it.

Sabrina wrapped her hand around Flynn’s and squeezed his fingers. “Whatever you need. We’re here.”

Reid and Gage nodded, concurring.

“I’m sure.”

That was all it took.

They skirted the crowd patiently waiting for him to take his place as pallbearer. Moved past nameless relatives who had crawled out of the woodwork, and past one of Veronica’s friends who asked him if he knew where she or Julian were.

“They’re inside,” he told her.

Never slowing his walk or letting go of Sabrina’s hand, he opened the passenger side door for her while Gage and Reid climbed into the back. Then Flynn reversed out of the church’s parking lot and drove straight to Chaz’s.

Two

Six months later

At Monarch Consulting, Flynn brewed himself an espresso from the high-end machine, yet another perk—pun intended—of being in charge.

The break room had been his father’s private retreat when he was alive and well, and he’d rarely shared the room. Not the case for Flynn. He’d opened up the executive break room to his closest friends, who shared the top floor his father had formerly hogged for himself.

Flynn didn’t care who thought he was playing favorites. When he’d returned home from vacation and become president, he’d outfitted the upper floor with three new offices and placed his friends at his sides. They were a good visual reminder that Flynn wasn’t running Monarch in a vacuum—or worse, a void.

It was his company now. He could do what he wanted. God knew Emmons had been doing it his way for years.

Monarch Consulting was a management consulting firm, which was a fancy way of saying they helped other businesses improve their performance and grow. Monarch was dedicated to helping companies find new and better ways of doing things—an irony since Emmons had done things the same way for decades.

Gage Fleming’s official title at Monarch was senior sales executive. He was in charge of the entire sales department, which was a perfect fit for his charm and likability. Reid was the IT guy, though they fancied up his nameplate to read Digital Marketing Analyst. Sabrina, with her fun-loving attitude and knack for being a social lubricant, was promoted to brand manager, where she oversaw social media factions as well as design work and rebranding.

Flynn stirred a packet of organic cane sugar into his espresso and thought about his best friends’ support of his climb to the very top. They were the glue that kept him together.

“What’s up, brother?” announced one of those best friends now. Flynn turned to find Gage strolling into the room. Gage wasn’t his biological brother, but was worthy of the title nonetheless.

Oh, that I could choose.

Gage’s hair had grown some since Flynn’s father’s funeral. Now that it was longer, the ends were curling and added a boyish charm to the mountain of charm Gage already possessed. Flynn didn’t know anyone Gage didn’t get along with, and vice versa. It made him an asset at work, and he provided a softer edge for Flynn whenever he needed it—which, lately, was often.

“Surprised you’re still upright after the long weekend.” Gage slapped Flynn’s back.

The long weekend was to celebrate the finalization of Flynn and Veronica’s divorce. It couldn’t have come soon enough, but Flynn hadn’t felt like celebrating. His divorce marked an epic failure that piled onto the other failures he’d been intimately acquainted with lately. In no way would Gage and Reid have let the momentous occasion pass by without acknowledgment.

Acknowledgment in this case meant going out and getting well and truly “pissed,” as Reid had put it. And honestly, Flynn had had fun letting go and living in the moment, at least for a weekend.

“I always land on my feet,” Flynn grumbled, still tired and, yeah, probably a little hungover from last night. He should’ve stopped drinking before midnight.

“Good morning, Fleming.” Reid sauntered in next. “Morning, Parker.” Reid had refused to leave his accent in London. He kept it fine-tuned for one essential reason: women loved it.

Where Flynn was mostly an insensitive, shortsighted, hard-to-love suit, Gage was friendly and well liked, and Reid...well, his other friend was a split between the two of them. Reid had charm in spades but also had a rough edge from a past he’d always been tight-lipped about.

Flynn figured he’d tell them when he was ready. At this rate probably when one of them was on his deathbed.

“Well, well, well, what have we here? Three of Seattle’s saddest rich boys.”

Sabrina strolled in with her signature walk, somehow expressing both childlike wonder and sophisticated capability. Her slim-fitting skirt, blouse and high-heeled shoes proved she was 100 percent woman. Sabrina had a fun-loving attitude but liked everything in its place. She was the only one who’d balked at the promotion that Flynn had had to talk her into. She put others ahead of herself often, which was so converse to who Veronica was it wasn’t even funny.

Sabrina saw the world as a sunshiny bouquet of happiness even though Flynn had cold hard proof that it was a cesspool.

“Whoa.” Sab’s whiskey-smooth voice dipped as she took in Flynn. “You look like last night handed you your own backside.” Her eyebrows met the frame of her glasses as she studied Gage and Reid. “You guys don’t look that great either. Were you... Oh my gosh. It’s final, isn’t it? It’s done?”

“He’s single with a capital S,” Reid confirmed.

Her smile was short-lived as she approached Flynn. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

That question right there was why he hadn’t told her about the finalization of the divorce. He wanted to drink away his feelings on the topic, not discuss them.

Flynn sent a glance over her head to Reid and Gage.

Little help, guys?

“You wouldn’t have wanted to accompany us even if we invited you,” Gage said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her frown returned, but she aimed it at affable Gage, which was fun to watch. He finished stirring his own coffee and sent her a grim head shake.

“Darling.” Reid looped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t make us say it.”

“Ugh. Did you all pick up girls?” She asked everyone but her eyes tracked to Flynn and stayed there. “And why wasn’t I invited? I’m an excellent wingwoman.”

Flynn felt a zip of discomfort at the idea of Sabrina fixing him up with a woman—or being there while he trotted out his A game to impress one. He’d suffered a few crash-and-burns last night and was glad she wasn’t there to witness them.

Sabrina pursed her lips in consideration. “Did the evening have anything to do with you three reaffirming your dumb pact?”

“It’s not dumb,” Flynn was the first to say. Family and marriage and happily ever after were ideas that he used to hold sacred. He’d seen the flip side of that coin. Broken promises and regret.

Divorce had changed him.

“You’re single with us, love. Did you want in on the pact?” Reid smiled as he refilled his paper Starbucks cup.

“No, I do not. And I’m single by choice. You’re single—” she poked Reid in the chest “—because you’re a lemming.”

“I’m to believe you’re single by choice,” Reid stated flatly. She wisely ignored the barb.

“A pact to not fall in love is juvenile and shortsighted.”

“We can fall in love,” Gage argued. “We agreed not to marry.”

“Pathetic.” She rolled her eyes and Flynn lost his patience.

“Sabrina.” He dipped his voice to its most authoritative tone. “It’s not a joke.”

She craned her chin to take in all six feet of him and gave him a withering glare that would’ve shrunk a lesser man’s balls.

“I know it’s not a joke. But it’s still pathetic.”

She turned for the coffeemaker and Reid chuckled. “You have no effect on her, mate.”

“Yeah, well, vice versa,” Flynn said, but felt the untruth hiding behind his statement. Sabrina had enough of an effect on him that he treated her differently than he did Reid and Gage. As present as she was in his life, it’d always been impossible to slot her in as one of the “guys.” And in a weird way he’d protected her when he’d excluded her from last night’s shenanigans as well as the skiing weekend. Flynn was jaded to the nth degree. Sabrina wasn’t. He needed her to stay positive and sunshiny. He needed her to be okay. For her own sake, sure, but also for his.

“Heartbreak isn’t a myth,” Reid called out to her as she walked for the door. “You’ll see that someday.”

“Morons.” She strolled out but did so with a twitch in her walk and a smile on her face. Immune to all of them, evidently.

Three

Sabrina had lectured Flynn as much as she dared. She’d pushed him to the point of real anger—not the showy all-bark/no-bite thing he’d just done in “the Suit Café” as she liked to call their private break room, but real, shaking, red-faced anger. Which was why she recognized the sound of that booming timbre when she passed by a closed conference room door later the same afternoon.

Definitely, that was Flynn shouting a few choice words, and definitely, that was the voice of Mac Langley, a senior executive who had been hired on at the beginning by Emmons Parker himself.

She bristled as more swearing pierced the air. She’d seen a glimpse of the old Flynn when the four of them had fled the funeral to go to Chaz’s for fish and chips and ice-cold beers. In that moment she’d realized how much she missed hanging out with him, and how his marriage to Veronica had been the beginning of her new, more distant BFF. In college Sabrina used to bake him cookies, do his laundry, make sure he was eating while studying.

She felt that instinct to take care of him anew. Maybe because Veronica was so classless, having tossed aside what she and Flynn had, or simply because Sabrina wanted Flynn to be happy again and their college years were when she remembered his being happiest.

Flynn loudly insulted Mac again and Sabrina winced. There’d be no putting that horse back into the barn. No man could call another man that and not pay the price. It’d take time to smooth over, and some distance. And with a man like Mac, the distance would have to be Tokyo to London.

The heavy wooden door did little to mute the noise, and as a result a few employees had gathered outside it—staring in slack-jawed bewilderment.

When the shouts ceased, a charge of electricity lingered like the stench from a burnt grilled cheese sandwich—like the tension couldn’t be contained by the room and had crept out under the door.

She pasted a smile on her face and turned toward the gathering crowd—two gawping interns and Gage.

“Yikes.” Gage smirked, sipped his coffee and eyed the interns. “Unless you want to be on the receiving end of more of that,” he leaned in to say, “you might want to clear the corridor before they come out.”

He kept his tone light and playful, adding a wink for the benefit of the two younger girls, and when he smiled they tittered and scooted off, their tones hushed.

“Do you have to charm everyone you come in contact with?”

“I wasn’t charming them. I was being myself.” He grinned. Gage was both boyish and likable. The thing was he wasn’t lying. He hadn’t been trying to charm them. Flirting came as naturally to him as breathing. Still, she doubted the wink-and-smile routine would silence the girls permanently. They would tell a friend or two or be overheard dishing in the employee lounge and then the entire company would know about Flynn’s outburst. Damage control would take a miracle.

She didn’t want anyone to think poorly of him, even though he’d been an ogre since he’d taken over the company. But couldn’t they see he was hurting? He needed support, not criticism.

Gage came to stand next to her where he, too, watched the door. “Who’s in there with him?”

“Mac. And, judging by the voices, a few other executives. I don’t hear Reid.”

He shook his head. “I passed by him in his office before doing a lap to check on the sales team.”

A meeting where none of them had been included. Hmm. She wondered who had called it.

“Did something happen this weekend?” she asked as they faced the door. Maybe the bar night where many drinks were consumed prompted Flynn to admit his feelings...though, she doubted it.

“Drinks. More drinks. Reaffirmation that the pact was the right thing to do.” Gage shrugged.

“Seriously how can you continue with that cockamamie idea?”

“You know no one says cockamamie any more, right?”

“Veronica is a hot mess, but you can’t celebrate the end of her and Flynn’s marriage like a...a...”

“Bachelor party?”

“Yes.” She pointed at him in confirmation. “Like a bachelor party. Especially when you are celebrating being bachelors forever and ever, amen.”

“Sabrina. If you want in on the pact, just yell.”

“Pass.” She rolled her eyes. Why did everyone keep offering her an “in” like she wanted to be a part of that? “I’ve never been married, but I’ve watched friends go through it. Divorce is devastating. And after losing his father, it’ll be like another death he’ll have to grieve. A weekend of shots isn’t going to remedy it.”

Over the last six months, she’d watched Flynn deal with his father’s death. The grief had hovered in the anger stage for a while, before he’d seemed to lighten up. The day they did a champagne toast to their new offices, Flynn was all smiles. He stated how Monarch was going through a rebirth. There was a sincere speech during which Flynn thanked them for sticking with him, which simultaneously broke her heart and mended it at the same time. Now the optimistic Flynn was nowhere to be found. He’d looped around to the anger stage again and was stuck in the rut worn of his own making.

“He’s busy.” Gage palmed her shoulder supportively. “Running this place is stressful and he doesn’t have the respect he deserves. Don’t worry about his emotional state, Sab. He’s doing what needs to be done. That’s all.”

But that wasn’t “all” no matter how much denial Reid and Gage were in. She knew Flynn. Knew his moods and knew his values. Sure, they’d suffered a bit of distance since his marriage to Veronica, but Sabrina had still seen him day in and out at work. She’d shared countless meetings and lunches with him.

He used to be lighthearted and open and gentle. He used to be happy. Who he was now wasn’t in the same stratosphere as happy. Though if she thought about it for longer than three seconds, she might admit that he hadn’t been truly happy in years. Veronica, even when she hadn’t been cheating on Flynn with his brother, wasn’t an easygoing person. She had a way of sucking the oxygen from the room. As much as Flynn had scrambled to appease her, it was rare that she was contented.

Sabrina shook her head, as sickened now as she was then. Flynn deserved better.

“It’s more than that,” she told Gage.

“He’s fine. Probably needs to get laid.”

Sabrina recoiled, but not at Gage’s choice of phrasing. Gage and Reid, along with Flynn, had been close friends since college. She was comfortable around them in and outside of work. No, what had her feeling uncomfortable was the idea of Flynn sleeping with someone else. She’d grown accustomed to his belonging to Veronica, but the thought of him with someone else...

“Gross.”

He shrugged and then turned in the direction of the elevator.

What a pile of crap-male logic.

Flynn needed time and space to acclimate—time to heal—and the last thing he needed was to spend time with a nameless, faceless woman.

He’d spent years with a woman who had both a face and a name. Sabrina felt possessive of him at first, but quickly determined that wasn’t fair. She’d never had a claim on him. As his best friend, sure, and that meant she supported him no matter what—that hadn’t changed. She’d tell him exactly what she thought if he started entertaining the idea of taking home a random...floozy in the hopes of improving his mood.

As she was contemplating whether anyone still used the word floozy, the door opened. A swarm of suits filed out of the room. Most of them were the senior members of the staff, the men and women who had helped build Monarch back when Emmons had started the company with nothing more than a legal pad and a number two pencil. It was admirable that Emmons Parker had built a consulting business from scratch, and even more so that it’d become the top management consulting firm for not only Seattle but also for a great deal of the Pacific Northwest.

He’d demanded excellence from all of them, in particular Flynn, who had been strong-armed into the executive level within the firm. When Flynn graduated college, he’d landed Gage and Sabrina internships. Reid started a few years later, after an unsuccessful trip back home to London resulted in his admitting that he preferred living in America. Sabrina wasn’t surprised. Reid was much more suited to Seattle than London. And the weather was similar.

She stepped out of the way of Mac, who was marching past her, propelled by the steam coming out of his ears. He wore an unstylish brown suit and his jowls hung over the tightly buttoned collar at his neck. His tie was tight and short, his arms ramrod stiff at his sides, and his hands were balled into ham-sized fists.

The rest of the executives who ran various departments of Monarch paraded out next, but no one appeared as incensed as Mac.

She offered a paper-thin smile at Belinda, Monarch’s legal counsel. Belinda was smart and tough, but also a human being who cared, which made her one of Sabrina’s favorite people.

“What’s going on?” Sabrina whispered, following Belinda’s lead away from the pack.

Belinda stopped and watched the rest of the crew wander off in various directions of the office before leveling with Sabrina in her honest, curt way. “You need to get Flynn out of here, Sabrina, or they’re going to revolt.”

“Oh-kay. I can...take him to lunch or something.”

“Not for an hour. For a few weeks. A month. Long enough for him to remember what is important or they’re going to abandon ship. Son of Emmons Parker or not, he doesn’t have their support.”

“I’ve never had their support,” Flynn boomed from behind Belinda. To her credit, she didn’t wilt or jerk in surprise. She simply turned and shook her head.

“You heard my suggestion,” she told him with a pointed glance before leaving Flynn and Sabrina alone.

“What happened in there? You guys brought down the house.”

“What happened is that they’re blaming me for stock prices taking a dive. Like it’s my fault Emmons died and made our investors twitchy.”

He dragged a hand over his short, stylish brown hair and closed his eyes. Long lashes shadowed chiseled cheeks and a firm, angled jaw. If there was only one attribute Flynn had inherited from his father it was his staggering good looks. Emmons, even for an older guy, had been handsome...until he opened his mouth. Flynn wielded those strong Parker genes like a champ, wearing jeans and Ts or suits and ties and looking at home in either. He wore the latter now, a dark suit and smart pale blue shirt with a deeper blue tie. A line marred his brow—that was a more recent feature. He’d had it since he’d taken over Monarch and inherited the problems that came with it.

“They have to know that the company was declining as soon as the Seattle Times ran the article that announced your father was ailing,” she told him. “That has nothing to do with you.”

“They don’t care, Sab.” He turned on his heel and marched to the elevator. She followed since her office was on the same floor as his. He held the door for her when he saw her coming and she stepped in next to him as the elevator traveled up the three floors she had intended to walk so she could count them on her fitness tracker.

“Belinda said—”

“Mac is a horse’s ass. He’s been pissed off since I pulled my friends into the inner sanctum instead of him, and this quarter’s numbers are the perfect excuse to summon the townsfolk to bring their pitchforks. Belinda wants me to run from him like a scared rabbit.” He glowered at Sabrina. “Do I look like a rabbit to you?”

“No. You don’t.” She gripped his arm in an attempt to connect with him, to break through the wall of anger he was behind. His features softened as his mouth went flat and a strange sort of awareness crackled in the air between them. An electric current ran the length of her arm and skimmed her form like a caress. Even her toes tingled inside her Christian Louboutin pumps.

She yanked her hand away, alarmed at the reaction. This was Flynn, her best friend. Whatever rogue reaction her body was having to him was...well, crazy.

She shook out her hand as if to clear the buzz of awareness from her body. “You’ll have to tell me what’s going on sooner or later.”

He watched her carefully, his blue eyes revealing nothing. They were more gray today thanks to the color of his suit jacket. Handsome even when he was angry.

Veronica was an idiot.

A surge of anger replaced the tingles. Whenever she thought of his ex-wife’s betrayal, Sabrina wanted to scream. He was too amazing a person to settle for someone who would discard him so carelessly.

“Flynn.”

He sighed, which meant she’d won, and she had to fight not to smile. The elevator doors swept aside and he gestured for her to go ahead of him. “My office.”

She led the way, walking into the glass-walled room and waiting for him to follow before she shut the door.

His assistant, Yasmine, was out sick today so Sabrina didn’t bother shutting the blinds. The only other two people on this floor wouldn’t heed a closed blind any more than she would. Like her, Gage and Reid had an all-access pass to everything Monarch and everything Flynn. Their loyalty to him ran as deeply and broadly as her own, which was why she pegged him with an honest question the moment he propped his hands on his waist and glared down at her.

“What is going on with you?”

Admittedly, her intervention was about six weeks too late. She’d assumed he’d bounce back any moment. A possibility that grew further and further away as the days passed.

“Meaning?”

Short of grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a good shake, she didn’t know how to reach him except to ask point-blank. “Meaning, what was the screaming about downstairs? What was it really about? I don’t want some generic comment about how you and Mac don’t see eye to eye.”

“Nothing.” His face pleated.

Deciding to wait him out, she straightened her back and folded her arms over her chest. She wasn’t going to let him throw up a smokescreen and keep her out of this any longer.

“No one here believes I can do this job,” he said.

“They’re wrong.”

“They want my father back. They want a ruthless, impersonal asshole to sit in this office and deliver their bonuses.” Flynn sat down in his chair and spread his arms. “I’m filling the ruthless, impersonal asshole part of the request and they’re not appeased. They’re like...like an active volcano that needs a virgin sacrifice.”

She lifted an eyebrow at the metaphor.

“Know anyone?” His lips twitched at his own joke.

She smiled and the tension in the room eased. “I’m sorry to say that my V-card was awarded to Bennie Todd our freshman year in college.”

“Your first clue that was a mistake was that his name was Bennie.”

“Yuck. We’re not talking about him.”

His eyes flickered playfully. The Flynn she knew and loved was still inside the corporate mannequin she was currently addressing. Thank God.

He’d always sworn he’d never turn into his father. And yet after his father’s illness and subsequent death, after finding out Veronica had screwed him over, Flynn had devolved into a close simulation of Emmons Parker.

His face drawn, he stood and gestured for her to take his chair. “Have a seat. I want to show you something.”

She sat in his plush, ergonomic chair and he leaned over her, the musky smell of him familiar and not at the same time. He’d been this close to her a million times, but this was the first time she noticed her heart rate ratcheting up while he casually tapped in the password on his laptop. What was with her today? Had it really been that long since she had male attention?

Yes, she thought glumly.

“Read this.” He opened an email addressed from Mac and backed away, taking his manly scent—and her bizarre reaction to it—with him.

“They’re threatening to leave,” he said.

She read the subject of the email aloud. “Tender of resignation?”

“Yes. From our CFO, director of human resources and vice president. They’re going to start a new company and take most of our office with them. Or at least that’s the threat. If I agree to Belinda’s suggestion and take an extended break, they’ll stick around and give me a second chance.”

“It’s mutiny.” She could hardly believe this many bigwigs at Monarch would agree to such an insane plan.

“To say the least. If we were to attempt to keep Monarch afloat after they left, I doubt we’d be able to stay open while we trained a new...everyone.” He gestured his frustration with a sweep of his arm.

He was right. Hiring that many new executives would take months. Monarch would fold like a pizza box.

“I’m not backing down.”

“What do they believe will change if you take an extended break?”

“They think I’m burned out and need to take some time to reflect.” He said it like it was a swear word.

“Well...”

How to agree and not side against Flynn? That was the question...

“Is reflecting so bad? You didn’t take bereavement after your father passed.”

His face hardened. Even twenty-three years younger than his late father, Flynn was a picture-perfect match for dear old Dad.

The execs were used to the way things were, and when Flynn implemented new things—good things that the company needed—the change hadn’t gone over well. Flynn was the future of Monarch and had always been more forward thinking than his father.

“It’s a bluff,” he said.

She wasn’t so sure. Mac was powerful. Both in position and in his ability to convince his colleagues to go along with his scheme.

“Would a monthlong sabbatical be that bad?” She turned in her chair and met his gaze, which burned through her. Eyes she’d looked into on many occasions, and never failed to make her feel stable and like she mattered.

“If I leave for a month, God knows what those dinosaurs would do to the place.” Flynn would never voluntarily abandon ship—even if it was for a break he was in desperate need of taking.

“Reid’s here. Gage is here. They wouldn’t let Mac ruin your company.” And neither would she... But she wouldn’t be here once she convinced Flynn to take a hiatus. Belinda had plainly told Sabrina to “get him out of here” and Sabrina wouldn’t leave him to his own devices. Without work distracting him, she knew he’d be unpacking some hefty emotional baggage.

She refused to let him go through that alone.

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