PROLOGUE

           The room was empty, but Paxton’s entire conversation with his little brother lingered between those four walls: every single word, every single promise, every single cry of pain.        

‘You must take care of her,’ Kieran had told him. ‘She is not the woman you think she is, Pax. I am not the man you think I am, brother.’

          Paxton could still recall his moments before the nurses and doctors came to the room and took him quickly to surgery. The pain had changed his little brother’s expression while he was revealing what happened during Paxton's absence.

‘She is now my wife… I had to… do it. Paxton, she is pregnant. So, you must take care of her, and the baby.’  

          Rhiannon was now his wife? How? When?

          And she was pregnant?

          Paxton turned and looked at the empty space where Kieran’s bed was.

“I need to get out of here,” he whispered.

          He went out on the hallway and then walked straight to the waiting area. Thank God, there was no one there. He wanted to be alone. He needed to calm down and think of what happened to Kieran during those past few weeks.

          Standing in the waiting room, Paxton was looking outside the window, deep in the night.

          Everything was so bizarre…

          Like he was existing in another dimension.

‘I tried to save Rina… To take care of her… for you…’ Kieran had added and a groan of pain had left his throat.

‘For me…?’ Paxton had replied. ‘I don’t understand…’

‘You care about her, too, Paxton. More than I care… More than anyone else…’

‘Kieran… what the hell have you done…?’

          Paxton loved his brother so damn much, but accept that woman, be with her… No!

‘Promise me… You must take care of Rina… She is a Ridgway now. If you’ll do this one thing for me, we will call it even.’ 

‘Kieran, no… Not this…’

‘She needs help, Pax… The restaurant… Austin’s precious place, his dream… He asked for my help too… Before his death… Rhiannon needs a lot of help to keep it alive… Be there for her. Like I was… Like I would have been if it wasn’t for this…’

‘Kieran…’

‘I don’t have much time left, Pax… I need your word…’         

          Tears of anger and hurt were starting to burn his eyes but Paxton quickly pushed them back.

“That damned woman!” Paxton groaned thinking of Kieran’s speech.

          He cleared his throat and then with a glance, turned and gazed around to see if he was still alone. No one should see a Ridgway crying. No one must ever see Paxton Ridgway crying!

‘Say it, brother!’             

          Paxton remembered his brother’s voice. Shaky, filled with pain and suffering. Kieran was so worried not for himself but for that woman. The entire time, he kept talking about her and her needs. That awful, greedy woman… The woman he desperately tried to push away from Kieran’s life.

‘Promise me, Pax…’

          He nodded. Right after that, Kieran went into cardiac arrest. The nurses and doctors were able to stabilize him and then wheeled him away to the surgery room. Paxton stood still in the hallway, with his back against the wall, like a lonely, helpless, scared little boy.

          The world stopped existing around him. There were no sounds… People in the hallway stood still. Even the air stopped moving. All he could see was Kieran disappearing in an elevator, whose doors were closing behind him and the medical staff.

          ‘Promise you’ll take care of my wife… My wife…’

          Those last words were still running around his head.

“Dammit, he went on and married Rhiannon King…” Paxton said in a low, angry voice. “Even after all I did to put a stop to this madness, to her presence in his life, Kieran still married that woman, making her a Ridgway now…”

          He started pacing the waiting room. The promise he made to Kieran was starting to burn all his insides. He wanted nothing to do with her. He didn’t want to take care of Rhiannon. He didn’t want to be responsible for her life, her business… her baby.

          A baby…

“Rhiannon was already pregnant when we… had sex in my penthouse… Fuck! She was already expecting my brother’s baby… And she still said yes to me… That whore… And Kieran… That poor fool did everything he could to protect her, to save a liar, a cheater.”

          Paxton stilled in the middle of the waiting room. The wheels in his brain started to turn and so many unanswered questions were now getting their answers.

“That’s it! He did it for the ten million. He needed to get the money from his trust fund to help a friend… He told me that two months ago… Getting married at twenty-five was the key to unlocking the Ridgway vault. And having a baby meant more money… A baby was the icing on the cake… A natural heir, a Ridgway heir, was the perfect solution for both Rhiannon King and Kieran's situation…”   

          Suddenly, Paxton felt cold shivers running up and down his back.

“I must do something to stop her for good this time! She must be punished for cheating on my brother… For lying to me… For treating Kieran like her personal piggy bank.”

          Since he couldn’t stand forever in that empty room, staring outside that damn window, or pacing the waxed floor tiles, Paxton decided it was time to go and start his game.

          It was time to show the world what Ridgways were made of.

          It was time to show Rhiannon King that she wasn’t all that safe and sound.

          Yes, he promised to protect her, but she was not a member of the Ridgway family. She was a menace to his family’s image… The Ridgways, the family that took him in and took care of him, needed his protection from her greed. Their honor and good name needed his strength. They were more important than her.

          Paxton left the waiting area and headed to the emergency room. Here, he found a nurse who took him to Rhiannon King. Two women, probably family by their looks, were hovering over her. She was lying on a narrow bed that had been curtained off from the other beds in a large room, filled with other patients and nurses, going back and forth.   

“Hello,” he said holding out his hand. “I’m Paxton Ridgway, Kieran’s brother. I’m her… brother-in-law.”