The Bachelor Pact

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.”