Two Princes: The Biker and The Billionaire Read online

  “We’re leaving. No one can see you looking like this.”

  “No sir. I’m not leaving until I see what you do when you’re not with me.”

  She started walking toward the music coming from the other side of the building, which made Brant have to jog to catch up.

  He grabbed her and brought her to a stop. “Garland. I’m seriously not kiddin’ around when I say I need you to stay with me.”

  “I wasn’t going far.”

  He pulled her into his side and they walked around the corner of the building. A group of the guys were standing around an open fire pit, with a pig on a spit that was rigged to constantly turn like a huge rotisserie.

  They were talking quietly, holding beers. Every one of them wore a sleeveless leather vest with the same artwork on the back. In the center was a depiction of a Corinthian temple with Hydra’s heads emerging from the columns, snarling at the viewer. Above the artwork was an arc of text that said Sons of Sanctuary. Below was an inverted arc that said Texas.

  The evening was eye-opening for both Brant and Garland. He introduced her with pride, but noticed that some of the guys raised their brows at him as if to say, “What the fuck you doin’ with a woman like that?”

  Brant introduced her to his father, his mother, and his older sister, who was married to somebody named Doobie. As the night became dark and the drink flowed freely, the mood of the party changed from a family picnic vibe to something else altogether. At one point Brant watched Garland taking everything in and tried to imagine his life through her eyes. That’s when he knew she wasn’t going to stay.

  It didn’t stop him from trying.

  When the calendar ran down to seven days left, he made his play.

  “I don’t want you to go. Stay here. With me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is your life. Not mine.”

  “But it could be ours.”

  “No. It couldn’t. It would always be me trying to fit into yours.”

  She cried. She told him she loved him and always would. She cried some more. But in the end she left with her father.

  CHAPTER 7

  Brant sat on his bike on a patch of grass at the southern end of the airport and watched the Germane jet take off. The sleek plane was beautiful and Arctic white, but looked miniscule sandwiched between a 747 and an Airbus on the runway. He watched it climb until it was out of sight.

  Some guys would have crawled into a hole with a bottle. But Brant rode to Chuy’s, took a seat on the patio, and ordered a frozen Margarita with fish tacos.

  His life would be forever divided into before and after that summer. Before Garland, he’d been a simple man with simple needs. After she left, he was a man on a mission called money.

  When the table server came to check on him, he put cash in her hand and stepped out the patio gate. Fifteen minutes later he was walking past the bar in the Sons of Sanctuary club house.

  “Where’s the old man?”

  “Office,” said Digger, looking up from his beer.

  Brant knocked twice. When he heard his father say, “Open,” he stepped in.

  “Make me a prospect.”

  F.J. Fornight looked his son over. “What brought this on?”

  “I got my reasons.”

  After staring Brant down for a full minute, he said, “Okay. I’ll sponsor you. You know the rules. No favors.”

  “Got it.”

  “Church day after tomorrow. Seven o’clock. I’ll put it to vote, but everybody has to agree.”

  “I know. I’ll be here.”

  Brant had his hand on the door, when his father said, “This have anything to do with that beauty you brought by?”

  It had always been impossible to get anything past his old man.

  “Reasons are my own.”

  F.J. nodded and went back to what he was doing.

  EPILOGUE

  Garland was three weeks into the fall semester at the Wharton School when her pregnancy was confirmed. Her initial panic was assuaged when she reasoned that lots of women go to school while pregnant. She’d have to take off spring semester because of her due date. Her father would have to be told. And Brant. She couldn’t decide which she dreaded most. The single saving grace was that she could do it by phone and wouldn’t have to see either of their faces.

  It took four days to work up her courage. She took a hot tea out onto the balcony of her University City apartment that overlooked the Schuykill River. She pulled the hoodie up on her red, boiled wool jacket because it was chilly out. If there was going to be serious unpleasantness, she wanted to deal with it outside.

  The phone call with her father was every bit as awful as expected, especially the part where he insisted that there was a quick fix that could resolve the problem for everyone. It left her shaken, and thinking it was a mistake to plan to make both calls on the same day.

  The phone rang three times before Brant answered. Since she was intimately acquainted with how small his house was, she almost hung up.

  “Hello.”

  Her breath caught, hearing the sound of his voice. It was like a blow to her solar plexus and caused her to close her eyes. “It’s me.”

  There was a long pause before he simply said, “Garland.”

  She heard the lingering pain in his voice and hated herself for causing it. “I have news.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Another long pause. “I thought you were on the pill?”

  “I am. Was. It’s not guaranteed.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I’m having a baby in April.”

  “You’re keepin’ him.”

  She heard relief in Brant’s voice. “Of course I’m keeping it.”

  “No. I didn’t mean keepin’ him like that. I meant you’re not thinkin’ about adoption or any shit like that. Because I have dibs.”

  “Dibs?” She smiled. “You’re calling dibs on the baby?”

  There was a part of her that was thrilled that Brant wanted to be father to their child.

  He let out a long breath. “Yeah, if you didn’t want to raise him, I would make it work. Somehow. Gonna be hard for me to be part of his life if you stay in Yankeeland.”

  “I guess. Okay, then. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Garland.” His heart seized with panic knowing she was about to hang up. He didn’t know what to say. He just knew that he didn’t want to let go of that little piece of Garland¸ her voice on a phone that was fifteen hundred miles away.

  “Yes?”

  “How are you?”

  She sighed into the receiver. “School is okay. I like business better than I thought I would.” Pause. “How about you?”

  “I miss you. I wish you’d change your mind. Especially now.”

  “I think about you a lot. But we made the right decision.”

  Brant barked out a laugh. “We didn’t decide this. You did.”

  She sighed again. “Let’s don’t fight. I called Dad first and it was… hard.”

  Brant relented and backed off, as he always did. He couldn’t stand to think about her hurting. Fucking David St. Germaine had some karma coming and Brant fantasized about being the one to serve it up.

  “Okay. Are you… stayin’ in school?”

  “This semester. At least. Next semester… well, with an April baby…”

  “Yeah. Let me know if you need anything?”

  “Sure.”

  “Or just want to talk?”

  It was her turn to pause. “Hearing your voice just makes it harder.”

  “Yeah.” Brant wasn’t accustomed to the sting of tears threatening. He was a bad-ass second generation biker. Not a slobbering little pussy-face bitch. “I’m here if you change your mind. At least give me regular updates about the baby.”

  “Okay, bye.” She started to hang up and then called out. “Brant?”

  He heard her voice and brou
ght the phone back to his ear. “Yeah?”

  “Why do you keep calling the baby ‘he’?”

  He smiled.

  On May 1st, when the sun resided in the constellation of Aries, Garland St. Germaine gave birth to two big beautiful boys. Identical twins. She named them Brandon and Brannach.

  When she’d learned that the ‘baby’ was actually babies, she and Brant Fornight had many long late-night talks before deciding that he would take one home to Texas and she would keep the other. The first time she saw the boys, she regretted that decision with all her soul. But she was also grateful for the gift of that choice because the look on Brant’s face when he held Brannach told her that it was the right thing to do. She knew that little boy would help heal the scar that she’d left on her biker’s heart.

  They decided together that it would be easier on the boys to not know about each other. So, on the birth certificates, Brandon was given the surname St. Germaine and Brannach became a Fornight.

  It was 1988 when Brant boarded a plane for Austin with a brand new baby and an ache in his heart that never went away.

  TWO PRINCES: The Biker and The Billionaire

  Sons of Sanctuary MC, Book 1

  “I was minding my own business, buying peanuts at the H.E.B., when I saw this asshole on the cover of “NOW” Magazine. He was wearing a pinstripe suit… and my goddamned face.” – Brash Fornight

  Two brothers, one a player, one a playboy, are on a collision course with destiny and a woman who thought she’d scored a coup when she was allowed a look inside the Sons of Sanctuary Motorcycle Club.

  Brigid was a graduate student at the University of Texas. It wasn’t hard getting her thesis approved, but finding a Hill Country motorcycle club willing to give her access to their lifestyle was starting to look impossible. Then she got a lead. A friend of a friend had a cousin with family ties to The Sons of Sanctuary. Perfect. Or so she thought.

  What she wanted was information to prove a scholarly proposition. The last thing she had in mind was falling for one of the members of the club. Especially since she was a feminist academic out to prove that motorcycle clubs are organized according to the same structure as primitive tribal society.

  Brash was standing in line at the H.E.B. Market when his world tipped on its axis. While waiting his turn to check out, his gaze had wandered to the magazine display and settled on the new issue of “NOW”. The image on the cover, although GQ’d up in an insanely urbane way, was… him.

  After reading the article, he threw some stuff in a duffle and left his only home, a room at The Sons of Sanctuary clubhouse, with a vague explanation about needing a couple of days away. He left his truck at the Austin airport and caught a plane for New York, on a mission to find a mysterious guy walking around with his face.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Sir?” Brash Fornight gradually became aware that someone behind him in the grocery checkout line was trying to get his attention. “Sir?” He refocused and glanced behind him. The woman leaning on a cart overflowing with chip bags and cookie boxes nodded toward the cashier indicating that it was his turn to move forward. Brash looked her in the eye and had to give her props. Most people wouldn’t have the balls to try to herd a guy wearing Sons of Sanctuary MC leather.

  The club employed a woman who cooked and did grocery shopping several times a week as part of her job description, but Brash didn’t like to explain his semi-constant craving for peanuts and he liked being teased about it even less. He didn’t know whether it was the Vitamin B or the fat or just because he liked the taste, but he couldn’t imagine going a day, or even half a day, without them.

  That’s how he came to be standing statue still in the grocery checkout line, being prompted by some woman with more nerve than sense. While he was waiting, his eyes drifted over the magazine display and settled on the cover of “NOW”, on the Most Eligible Bachelor edition, no less. The debonair figure staring back was wearing Brash’s own face and body. His style was radically different. He had short hair and wearing a designer suit with the shirt fashionably open at the neckline, but the similarity between them was inescapable.

  On impulse he grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyor belt with his week’s stash of peanuts.

  He stuffed the bags into the saddlebags of his bike and roared toward home, nervously tapping his fingers on the handlegrips as he waited at red lights with one foot on the pavement. Eventually the anxiety overrode caution and he resorted to riding on shoulders to keep from slowing down. He was anxious to get to the privacy of his own room and read more about Brandon St. Germaine.

  Two beers, one jar of peanuts, and one “NOW” article later, Brash was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at the wall, without seeing it. His mind was buzzing with heavy thoughts. It didn’t take long for him to make a decision. He hadn’t gotten the nickname “Brash” because he lacked spontaneity. He pulled out his phone, Safaried a website, and waited on hold for ten minutes to hear the time of the next flight from Austin to New York.

  There was a flight to Newark in a little over three hours. He looked at his watch and calculated the time it would take to drive from Dripping Springs at that time of day. As he booked the flight, he stood up, walked to the small closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and began shoving stuff into it. Ten minutes later, he closed his door and locked it, threw the duffel over his shoulder, and headed straight for the office downstairs. He dropped the duffel on the hallway floor beside the closed door and knocked.

  “Yeah?” Brash looked inside, glad that his dad was by himself, and stepped in. “What’s up?”

  “I’m takin’ personal time, Pop. Gonna be gone for a couple of days.”

  “What the hell is ‘personal time’?”

  The gruffness made Brash smile. “It means I’m not gonna be here if you call and I’m not tellin’ you why.”

  The Sons of Sanctuary President looked up at Brash, over the top of his readers, and narrowed his eyes. “You got a secret?”

  “Everybody’s got secrets.”

  Brant Fornight studied his son for a minute. “True enough. Is it the kind of secret that could affect this club?”

  Brash shook his head. “Don’t see how.”

  “Well, then. See you… when did you say you’d be back?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Bein’ purposefully vague, are you?”

  Brash grinned. “That’s why they call it personal time. But I expect to be back Friday.”

  “You gonna have your phone with you?” When Brash nodded, Brant looked back down at his ledger in a deliberately dismissive gesture. “Well, get outta here then.”

  Brash parked his bike in the airplane hangar. The structure had already been on the property when the club had bought it and turned it into a compound twenty years earlier. They used part of it for vehicle maintenance and repair and part for parking.

  Some of the guys who were working looked over and shot curious glances his way when Brash threw his duffel into his pickup and started it up, but it wasn’t their way to ask questions. The Sons figured that if somebody wanted you to know something, they’d tell you.

  Brash took a cab to a midtown hotel, wondering all the way why human beings would choose to live in such a place. As he slid his credit card across the hotel counter to the agent on duty, he glanced at the name, Brannach Fornight. It seemed unlikely that it was a coincidence that the mysterious look-alike’s first name began with the same four letters. He ordered room service and pulled out his laptop.

  Getting basic intel on the guy was easy. Within an hour Brash knew where Brandon St. Germaine worked, what kind of car he drove, what kind of women he dated, who his tailor was, and where he liked to dine. There was no shortage of photos online, but the one that grabbed his attention wasn’t one of the many with starlets or debutantes on his arm. It was the one taken with his arm around his mother as they were arriving together for some red carpet fundraiser. Brash had an almost irresistible compulsion to reach up and to
uch her face on the screen in front of him.

  Of course, what Brash needed wasn’t basic intel. What he needed was everything there was to know. Maybe more.

  The knock on the door signaled that room service had arrived. He signed the check, but gave the guy a cash tip. Five minutes later he wheeled the service cart out into the hall on his way out. The food cost a fortune, but looked and tasted like shit. It didn’t take long to make a decision to close the laptop and go down to the street for a walk to clear his head and find something edible.

  Brash had always been a little vain about his “nose” for eateries and it wasn’t misplaced. He did seem to have a sixth sense that rarely failed him.

  He looked through the window of a deli that didn’t look like much. Zero ambience. Couple of tables. But the food in the case looked fresh made and the aromas called to him like a siren. He ordered a corned beef sandwich on wheat bread with mayo. The guy behind the counter just stared at him.

  “Somethin’ wrong?”

  “Well, yeah. We don’t sell corned beef on wheat with mayo. We sell corned beef on rye with brown mustard.”

  Brash couldn’t help smiling, partly because of the New York accent and partly because of the guy’s attitude. He could appreciate taking pride in work. His father had taught him that.

  “Corned beef on rye with brown mustard it is.”

  “Coming up,” said deli man as he began weighing corned beef on a scale covered in saran wrap. “What’re you having with it?”