Chapter One

Ava Carmichael was worth twelve and a half billion dollars. Billion. With a B.

She could afford a Rembrandt. Or a Van Gogh. But instead, she had a framed inspirational poster hanging on the wall behind the desk where her receptionist sat. Cori wasn’t sure why that annoyed her. But it did.

Cori studied the poster and thought about her sister. Maybe the poster annoyed her because it read INSPIRATION and was a photo of a guy hang-gliding and she knew for a fact that Ava had never gone hang-gliding.

Or maybe it was because Cori was 99 percent sure that her sister had no idea what poster was hanging behind the front desk at Carmichael Enterprises. The stupid thing had probably been hanging there when Ava had taken over as CEO five years ago.

And yes, that was what irritated Cori about it. Ava had been so determined to follow in their father’s footsteps that she hadn’t even replaced the wall art in his office when he’d moved to Bumfuck, Kansas and put her in charge.

“Oh, Ms. Carmichael!”

Cori straightened from where she was leaning on the tall front desk as the receptionist, Sarah, came rushing around the corner with an armful of file folders. She dropped the stack in the middle of the desk, folders sliding precariously.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were here! I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“No worries. I just got here,” Cori said with a smile. “Just didn’t know which conference room we were meeting in.” That was a bald-faced lie. Ava had texted her an hour ago that it was Conference Room A.

But there was no way Cori was showing up for that meeting on time. Being on time—or God forbid early—for this meeting would make it seem important. And she did not want it to seem, or to be, important. For her or for her sisters.

She was going to stroll into the enormous conference room with the table that could seat fourteen and the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Manhattan, as if it was just one more thing she had to do in her day and was hardly worth a second thought. She’d even worn black jeans and her black T-shirt that said Sorry I’m late, but I didn’t want to come under her red leather jacket. All of which would completely exasperate Ava.

But better Ava be exasperated with her than anxious about the documents the lawyer was going over with them today. Exasperated with Cori was a normal state for Ava. And Cori was determined to give her sisters—both of them—as much normalcy as she could as they listened to the lawyers go over the paperwork.

Yeah, the paperwork. Also known as their father’s will.

“They’re in Conference Room A,” Sarah said. “Do you need some help getting everything down there?”

Cori grinned as she picked up the two cardboard trays of coffee cups, balancing one on top of the other, along with the whipped cream dispenser she’d set on the front counter. “Nope, I’ve got it.”

“Okay, fourth door on the right,” Sarah said.

“Thanks.” Cori started down the long stretch of gray carpet. Gray. Of course it was gray. She hadn’t visited the offices of her father’s company in years, but she definitely had memories of lots of gray and white and black. Clean, professional, sterile colors for the décor that screamed money and intimidation and perfection.

She reached the conference room far too quickly, so she paused for a moment before stepping in front of the glass wall that separated the conference room from the hallway. She took a deep breath, dug for her this-is-no-big-deal-I-can-make-anything-fun side, and pasted on a huge smile. Then she tucked the stainless-steel canister full of whipped cream under her arm, balanced the trays in one hand, and reached for the door.