“I’m glad. Unlike my father, I never wanted Brian to lose that.”

“Why do you two hate him so much?” Her eyes popped open in surprise at the brain leak. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t know if Brian hates our father so much as disrespects him as a parent, a feeling that has multiplied infinitely since Skylar was born. I, on the other hand, do hate the man. I have since the fourth grade, from the day I saw him sucking face with some woman who wasn’t my mother, and then coming home to make her feel small for no reason at all later that night.”

A hard edge darkened his expression. “Before that day, I used to work really hard in school to try and gain his approval, to get him to just stop and notice me. For once in my life. But he never did. Brian, my mother, and I simply didn’t register on his radar. We were merely an obligation. If even that. The only thing he cared about was his work, and all those other women he was screwing around with.”

Abby couldn’t imagine anyone being so callous to their own family.

Connor shrugged. “After the fourth grade, I kept on getting good grades, but for myself, not for him anymore. Then by the time I was in high school, my motivation to do well academically shifted to one goal: going away to a school on the east coast without having to ask my father for a penny.”

“Hence, Columbia.”

“Yep. And since I wasn’t the athlete Brian was, I had to rely solely on academics to get me a scholarship. Ironically, that was the one and only time I ever remember my father sounding even remotely proud of me. The day I found out that I’d gotten my full ride there.”

“That must’ve felt good.”

“You’d think.” His jaw muscle ticked. “But then he ruined it by immediately mapping out my whole life for me—law school at Stanford and eventually a partnership in his firm so I could be the second Sullivan listed on the door. As always, it was still all about him. I know it sounds petty but I remember practically gloating when I stopped him and told him there was no chance in hell I was majoring in pre-law or going to law school. Hell, I almost fell over in shock when I saw him actually display an emotion then. A little one of annoyance. Of course, ten seconds later, he just dismissed me completely once again, shoved me back to the completely invisible status I shared with my mother and brother.”

Abby listened to Connor practically spit the words out, utter them with such hostile contempt that she was momentarily too thrown to ask how in the world his life ended up taking the very road he’d swore it never would—Stanford Law and the youngest senior partner at Caldwell, Sullivan & Phillips.

Then she did the math.

He was three years older than Brian; he’d been a senior at Columbia when Brian found out Beth was pregnant. Of course. “You went to law school for Brian,” she said quietly.

He stiffened.

She pulled back and looked at his shuttered eyes. “Does Brian know?”

“No, and you can’t tell him. He thinks I always wanted to go to law school.”

She remained silent, giving him the chance to get it all out. Undoubtedly for the first time ever.

“Brian was planning on quitting college to go work full-time and build up some savings before the baby came. I couldn’t let him do that. Unlike me, he’d always known what he wanted to do. My major was basically ‘anything but law’ while his had always been business. Honestly, Brian has a natural knack for business that in many ways surpasses mine. If he’d been the one to get a dual JD/MBA from Stanford, he’d probably be a major CEO by now.”

Very true.

“But that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to be a dad, deemed nothing more important than that from the very second that stick turned blue. So we sat together and discussed his future, weighed his options. Since teaching was another thing he’d always been interested in, he decided to apply for the teaching program at ASU and major in business and economics. A perfect life choice for him, really.”

So how did Connor’s going to law school fit in all this?

“The biggest obstacle Brian faced was money,” he explained as if reading her mind. “When he told my parents about the pregnancy, my mother simply drank herself into oblivion as she always did, and took her usual pretend-it-wasn’t-happening method of handling it to save face at the club. My father, however, was much more direct. He offered to pay for a one-way trip for Brian and Beth to go live in a different state. As if his son becoming a father as a freshman in college was the most shameful thing for him, the great Marcus Sullivan. After that, Brian refused not just my father’s insulting offer but his tuition money as well.”

Abby didn’t blame him.

“So, I made a decision. I cashed out my entire savings, along with the trust fund from my grandfather that I’d just gotten control over after turning twenty-one, and bought Brian a house. I told him it was a property investment that I wanted him to live in and take care of for me while I was away. Simple enough and pretty much true. But that still left the issue of Brian’s tuition. I was tapped out at that point and Brian didn’t have much of a savings to speak of to cover schooling on top of day to day living. And with a baby on the way, I didn’t want them to be buried in student loans when he had a perfectly good trust fund just like mine to cover his tuition and incidentals. So, I went to my father and asked him to invoke his power as trustee to release the funds to my brother even though it was three years premature.”

He glowered. “My father, of course, refused. Held it hostage.”

“Until you made a deal with him,” Abby guessed. God, their father was a bastard.

“Yep. The agreement was that I’d follow through with all the plans he set forth for my future in exchange for that one piece of paper.”

She couldn’t believe it. Connor basically bargained away his entire life for his brother. For her best friend.

Voice thick with emotion, she whispered, “You’re incredible, you know that right?”

A wary cloud passed over his expression. “Abby, I told you not to do that. Don’t build me up to be someone I’m not.”

Tears prickled in her eyes. Why couldn’t he see how wonderful he was?

Frowning, he stroked her cheek. “Stop, honey. Don’t cry over—”

Not wanting to hear him dismiss his actions or himself yet again, she stubbornly fused her mouth over his and just let go, allowed herself to sink into a kiss that held everything she was feeling but wouldn’t dare say, everything she knew to be true about him that he simply wouldn’t accept.

Emotions tangled, soul ripped bare, she started taking as much as she gave until eventually, he was kissing her back just as desperately. Threading his hands through her hair, and transforming this all into so much more than just a kiss.

Gasping, she sat back.

When had she ended up on his lap?

No matter. It was one less step for her to take. She flung off her shirt and reached for the hem of his. Skin and heat, and muscles that were tensing just from the touch of her fingers—she needed to feel it all. Now.

Two large hands trapped hers and held her tight against his stomach, stopped her from dragging his shirt open, from sliding her hands any higher over the rock-hard muscles of his abs.

So she moved lower instead.

“Christ, Abby. Not like this.”

The sexy gravel of his voice was so much grittier than usual. Hotter. So sexually charged she felt she’d go insane if he didn’t do something, anything to quench this fire building inside her.

She could hardly make out what he was saying.

All she knew was that the mere sound of her name had never brought her this far this fast before.

It would take just one touch, just one, for her to go up in flames.

That’s when it occurred to her that she couldn’t open her hands. Couldn’t budge them at all. Eyes closed, mind half gone, mouth still being devoured by his, she finally realized he was restraining her, preventing her from undoing his belt buckle.