Sophie nodded, damp-eyed. “With you to look after her as my maid of honour?”

It was Kara’s turn to well up, and she reached for a nearby box of tissues and dragged them over.

“What are we like?” She laughed shakily. “I think we can safely assume that your wedding day will not turn into the fiasco that mine did. Lucien adores you.”

“I know he does.” Sophie grabbed a tissue too. “I thought it might be nice to have the wedding in Norway.”

Kara slid her mug across the counter and touched it against Sophie’s in assent.

“God, yes! I’d love that. Maybe I can snag myself a Viking of my own after all.”

“If you still need to. You seem pretty loved up with a certain American hottie right now.”

“Sexed up, not loved up,” Kara corrected.

“One has a habit of leading to the other,” Sophie said.

“Not for this gal,” Kara said, sliding off her stool. “I’m happy for sex to just lead to more sex right now.”

“I know… but he seems like a nice guy, that’s all.”

Kara picked up the keys to the Mustang. “As did Richard this time last year. And we all know how that one turned out, don’t we?”

She prepared herself for the usual stabbing sensation that she always felt when she said his name. Whether it was pain from her own heart or the desire to stab his she wasn’t entirely certain, but either way, it didn’t come.

Fuck, she’d finally done it. She’d moved on. Washed that man right out of her hair. Richard had made the coward’s choice on their wedding day, having been issued an ultimatum by his surreptitious girlfriend. Standing at the altar in the ivory dress of her dreams and waiting for a man who didn’t show had been the most humiliating experience of her life, and it had taken a lot of tears and bottles of vodka to set her on the road to recovery.

And now, finally, it would appear that she had arrived. She stood stock still, her hand over her heart and her eyebrows raised towards her best friend.

“Well, what do you know? I was right all along. The best way to get over a man is to get under another one.” She sashayed out of the kitchen, elated.

At the club later that afternoon, Dylan rocked back in his swivel chair and stretched his arms above his head. Lucien sat alongside him and rolled his shoulders as he closed computer files down, work done at last for the day. Opening night was drawing closer and they’d spent the afternoon going over fine details to make sure that everything was in place to guarantee a seamless launch. The press were hungry to see how the club fared on the famed White Isle. While Lucien refused to hide their raison d’etre beneath a veil of prudishness, he equally didn’t allow his clubs to be categorised as seedy. They were hedonist palaces of intense pleasure for the open minded, and he was fiercely proud of the empire he’d created. The impression that the first night would create on guests and the media mattered to him very much.

He opened the desk door and placed a bottle of whisky and two glasses on the top. “Drink?”

“Sure,” Dylan said, watching Lucien pour out two heavy-handed measures. He’d come to admire the other man’s business acumen over the couple of weeks they’d worked together, and sensed that he was someone who played it straight down the line. Dylan was gratified that their business relationship was definitely moving into the territory of friendship too. He really liked this guy.

Lucien took a conversational tone.

“I asked Sophie to marry me yesterday.”

Dylan grinned and accepted the glass Lucien held out along with the confidence he’d shared.

“No way, man! Congratulations!” The whisky hit his throat with a welcome burn. “Although… I’d kind of assumed that you guys were married anyway.”

Lucien knocked back a good slug of whisky. “It’s never been high on our list.”

Dylan nodded slowly, his mind back in the States. “I know what you mean.” He regretted his choice of words as soon as they were out, and Lucien was too clever by far to miss the fact that his response was laden with meaning.

“You do?”

Measured words were needed. “I’ve been close once or twice,” he said non-committally, draining his glass then scrubbing his hand over the roughness of his cheek with a half smile. “Women, huh?” He was well aware that his sweeping generalisation sounded lame.

Lucien lifted one shoulder as he replenished their glasses.

“Dylan, I’ll be straight with you. I offered you this job on instinct, and you haven’t given me cause to regret it. You obviously know your way around this business.”

Relieved that the conversation had changed course, Dylan relaxed.

“I’m excited about it. This whole island sits well with me, the job too. It feels good.”

“Should I have asked you for references? Would you, if you were me?”

Okay, not so relaxed. He shrugged, his expression turning philosophical.

“I appreciate that you didn’t. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have found it easy to provide them.”

Lucien eyed him steadily, waiting for more. They were similar in age, equals in body and in strength of mind. Dylan came from a family where brotherhood had turned out to stand for very little, yet he felt a quiet unity and trust in Lucien Knight.

He didn’t want to lie to this man. He just wanted a clean slate and a simple life.

“Things didn’t go well for me back home.” He sighed heavily and took a deep slug of whisky. “I left with nothing but the shirt on my back, and none of that shit will follow me here.” He shook his head, the memories all ugly. “Trust me, I’d’ve been happy to never set foot on American soil again if it wasn’t for my mom.”

A look of understanding passed between the two men. Dylan didn’t know it, but he’d managed to say the one thing that reassured Lucien most.

“So, this thing you’ve got going on with Kara…” Lucien said, changing the conversational course once more and leaving his sentence there for Dylan to make of it whatever he wanted.

A slow smile crept across Dylan’s face at the mention of her name.

“She’s a breath of fresh air.”

“She’s not as tough as she makes out.”

For all her smart one-liners and her bold moves, Dylan had seen the fragility behind Kara’s eyes. “I get that.”

It was the thing that scared him most about her.

“Kara’s history is hers to share, but you should know she's the closest thing I have to a sister.”