“Don’t let them intimidate you, Grady. You’re smarter than every one of them.” Evan moved up beside him, shoving a plate of food into one of Grady’s sweaty hands and a glass of punch into the other. “Just stay busy eating and ignore them.”
Hoping the punch was heavily spiked, Grady took a large gulp, his eyes meeting Evan’s, nodding with a confidence he wasn’t really feeling at the moment.
This is why Evan comes home, even when he doesn’t really want to. He comes because of me.
His brother didn’t really want to be here either. Grady could sense it. Evan might try to play the badass young businessman to appease their father, but Evan would never come close to being the man their father was, and he didn’t enjoy this crowd. Evan was here for one reason and one reason only: to lend support to his younger brother Grady.
One by one, Grady’s four siblings surrounded him, none of them speaking, but silently lending support.
Grady remained at the fringe of the crowd, his heart pounding, his dizziness never quite subsiding. He promised himself, at that very moment, that this would be the last Christmas he’d ever suffer through this gathering of vultures who had swooped down and humiliated him every single Christmas since he could remember. He would never, ever go through this again!
As it turned out, Grady kept that vow.
A few hours later, while Grady’s father was lecturing his children about everything they’d done wrong during the Christmas party, his eyes rolled back in his head. He clutched his chest, struggling for breath as he fell to the floor, his face diaphoretic and ashen as he took his last breath. Every Sinclair sibling knew that their father was dead, but not a single tear was shed by any of them. Martin Sinclair left each one of his children and his wife exceptionally wealthy, and it was the very last Sinclair annual Christmas party.
It was also the year that Grady Sinclair admitted he hated Christmas and always would.
CHAPTER 1
“I can’t believe you’re really going to approach the Amesport Beast for a donation. You’re either very brave or very desperate. Grady Sinclair is the last person who would help you out.”
Emily Ashworth glanced up from her seat at her office desk, frowning at her best friend and Youth Center volunteer Randi Tyler. Miranda, better known by everyone in Amesport as Randi, was a local teacher, and volunteered her time at the Center to help kids who needed extra assistance with learning.
“Do I have a choice? He’s a billionaire, he lives in Amesport, and we need the money. It’s only three weeks until Christmas, and Paul took everything.” Emily’s eyes drifted down to her computer screen, the balance in the account of the Youth Center of Amesport glaringly showing the numbers in the red. Her ex-boyfriend—if she could even call him that—was gone, and so was any money the YCOA had had in the business account. Damn it! She should have known Paul was a con, his attention too focused, his pursuit of her too unusual. All his attention and supposed affection was nothing more than a ruse to get his hands on readily available money, funds he shouldn’t have been able to steal.
It’s my fault. I’m the director. I should have watched him closer, not ever left him alone in my office.
Paul had completely duped her, and she’d stupidly fallen for his con job. The bastard! He’d been in to visit her here at the Center two days ago. She’d had an emergency with one of the kids playing basketball and left him alone for a while in her office. The next day he was gone, and the business account was empty. She’d allowed Paul complete access to the account by rushing away from her desk while the bank account was open on her computer, the password already entered so she could review the accounts.
“It’s not your fault,” Randi told her soothingly, plopping her jeans-clad butt into the chair in front of the desk. “You had no way of predicting this would happen.”
“He always said all the right things, but his compliments were a little contrived, and he seemed nervous and uptight the last time I saw him. I don’t know, he just seemed distracted and edgy, but I blew it off as him having a bad day. I should have noticed something wasn’t quite right.” Emily eyed her petite, dark-haired friend warily, wondering if Randi would have been stupid enough to fall for Paul’s smooth lines. Probably not! “No matter whose fault it is, I have to fix this. The Center could go under. And we definitely won’t have any funds to buy Christmas presents and food this year for the annual party. The gift from us is the only thing some of these kids get every Christmas.” Emily’s heart sank to her feet, guilt squeezing at her chest. “I can’t let the kids down. I can’t let the community down.”
Amesport was a small coastal town, but the population of kids who needed this youth center was fairly substantial because of all of the surrounding villages. Losing the Center would be a tough blow to the whole town and the surrounding communities.
Randi rolled her eyes. “So you’re just going to walk up to Grady Sinclair’s door and ask for money?”
“That’s the plan, yes. We can get small donations from the community, but we’re missing the whole operating budget for the rest of the year. There’s no way to fix this other than to receive a huge donation,” Emily replied, sighing as she laid her head down on the desk with her arms underneath it for support, tears of anger and frustration finally escaping from her eyes. “And I don’t have the funds to replace it myself.”
“I wish I had it to give to you, but I don’t have that kind of money lying around either,” Randi replied wistfully. “He won’t give you the money, so I think you should save yourself the humiliation of asking. Grady Sinclair isn’t exactly known for his kindness and generosity. Maybe one of the other Sinclairs—”
“He’s the only one in residence. The others are all out of town,” Emily replied glumly, aware that the rest of the family, who all had homes on the Amesport Peninsula, were unavailable. She’d already checked. The last thing she really wanted to do was to approach a man who was known for being rude, antisocial, and condescending. But he was the only Sinclair available. So, beast or not, she was asking. Honestly, she probably deserved to have the guy slam the door in her face. This was entirely her fault, even though the police had already told her that this exact same scenario had occurred in several businesses in Maine in the last several months, but they hadn’t yet been able to nail the perpetrator. Still, had she not been so completely charmed by Paul’s flattering attention, the future of the YCOA wouldn’t be in jeopardy.