Richer Than Sin
Meghan March
Contents
Richer Than Sin
About This Book
Also by Meghan March
Prologue
1. Lincoln
2. Lincoln
3. Whitney
4. Whitney
5. Lincoln
6. Whitney
7. Whitney
8. Lincoln
9. Whitney
10. Whitney
11. Lincoln
12. Whitney
13. Lincoln
14. Lincoln
15. Whitney
16. Whitney
17. Whitney
18. Whitney
19. Lincoln
20. Whitney
21. Whitney
22. Whitney
23. Lincoln
24. Whitney
25. Lincoln
26. Whitney
27. Lincoln
28. Lincoln
29. Whitney
30. Lincoln
31. Lincoln
32. Whitney
33. Lincoln
34. Whitney
35. Whitney
36. Whitney
37. Lincoln
38. Lincoln
39. Whitney
40. Whitney
41. Lincoln
42. Whitney
43. Whitney
44. Whitney
45. Lincoln
46. Whitney
47. Lincoln
48. Whitney
49. Lincoln
50. Whitney
51. Lincoln
52. Whitney
53. Whitney
54. Lincoln
Preview of Ruthless King
Also by Meghan March
About the Author
Richer Than Sin
Book One of the Sin Trilogy
Meghan March
Copyright © 2018 by Meghan March LLC
All rights reserved.
Editor: Pam Berehulke
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Cover design: Letitia Hassar
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Cover photo: Wander Aguiar
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Visit my website at www.meghanmarch.com
About This Book
A Riscoff and a Gable can never live happily ever after. Our family feud is the stuff of legends.
Ten years ago, Whitney Gable caught me off guard with her long legs and grab-you-by-the-balls blue eyes.
I didn’t know or care what her name was.
Like any Riscoff man worth the family name, I went after what I wanted. And we burned like a flash fire until she married another man.
She hates me, and she should.
I objected on her wedding day.
Now she’s home, with those same long legs and man-eater stare, but there’s no ring on her finger.
They say a Riscoff and a Gable can never live happily ever after . . . but I’m not done with Whitney Gable.
I’ll never be done with her.
Richer Than Sin is the first book in the Sin Trilogy.
Also by Meghan March
Sin Trilogy
Richer Than Sin
Guilty As Sin
Reveling In Sin
Mount Trilogy:
Ruthless King
Defiant Queen
Sinful Empire
Savage Trilogy
Savage Prince
Iron Princess
Rogue Royalty
Beneath Series:
Beneath This Mask
Beneath This Ink
Beneath These Chains
Beneath These Scars
Beneath These Lies
Beneath These Shadows
Beneath The Truth
Dirty Billionaire Trilogy:
Dirty Billionaire
Dirty Pleasures
Dirty Together
Dirty Girl Duet:
Dirty Girl
Dirty Love
Real Duet:
Real Good Man
Real Good Love
Real Dirty Duet:
Real Dirty
Real Sexy
Flash Bang Series:
Flash Bang
Hard Charger
Standalones:
Take Me Back
Bad Judgment
Prologue
Lincoln
“I object.”
Every head in the entire congregation swung toward the double doors I’d flung open.
My vision was fuzzy, no doubt from the two fifths of Scotch I’d used to try to drown out the fact that she was marrying someone else today.
Because a Gable and a Riscoff could never be together.
But that didn’t mean I was going to watch Whitney Gable marry someone else and not say a goddamned word.
“You asshole. How dare you?” Whitney was dressed in white, looking like the perfect bride, aside from the militant look on her face as she stomped down the aisle toward me.
I might have miscalculated in my drunken haze.
“You can’t marry him.” I was pretty sure my words slurred, but I didn’t care.
“I don’t know why you think you get to have an opinion, but get the hell out of here.”
“I can buy and sell him.” More slurring.
Whitney’s eyes burned with anger. “I. Don’t. Care. Because you can’t buy me.”
Two sets of arms grabbed me from behind and dragged me back toward the doors.
“Don’t do this—” My words were cut off as I was shoved down the front steps of the church.
“If you ever look at my sister again, I will fucking kill you myself. I don’t care how much fucking money your family has.” Whitney’s brother loomed over me, and I didn’t doubt his promise, especially not while he was wearing his army dress uniform and green beret.
Next to him was the groom. The man who’d sold Whitney the biggest crock of shit I’d ever heard in my life. I’d told myself there was no way she’d ever go through with it. No way her brother would let her.
I was wrong. He’d let her marry anyone but a Riscoff.
The groom smirked but said nothing, then they both turned and marched up the steps.
If I weren’t so fucking wasted, I’d go back in and try again.
He might be marrying her today, but I wasn’t done with Whitney Gable.
I’d never be done with her.
1
Lincoln
Ten years later – Present day
“Time to shit or get off the pot, boy. You can’t keep her dangling after you forever. I’m not getting any younger, and you need to get started on the next generation. The Riscoff line must continue, and I’m sick of waiting.”
My grandfather offers his unsolicited advice as my phone vibrates with a text on the table between us. We’re having our regular morning meeting on his deck overlooking the gorge and the r
iver.
“This isn’t relevant to the conversation at hand.” I slide my phone off the table and slip it into my pocket. Ignoring the message from the woman I’ve been seeing occasionally for the last few months, I flip open a file with a stack of documents needing Commodore’s signature.
Business comes first. Last. Always. That’s the Riscoff family way.
Any woman who spends time around me knows it, and that these meetings with my grandfather are sacrosanct. I may be the heir apparent to a multibillion-dollar empire, but Commodore still officially holds the reins, and every decision I make has to be signed off on by him. Does it drive me fucking crazy? Yes. Do I have a choice? No, because that’s family tradition. We preserve and protect the legacy at all costs. That’s part of being the Riscoff heir.
“What is relevant, however, is you signing these documents so we can close the deal on these contract negotiations and make us another few hundred million before the end of the year.”
I push the stack of resolutions in front of him and hold them down as the wind whipping off the river causes the pages to flap, threatening to carry them away. It was more convenient when he lived at the family estate, but that ended when he accused my mother of trying to poison him two years ago and moved out to this cabin overlooking the river. Now I have to haul my ass out here every day, over ten miles of winding roads up through the mountains, with shitty cell service.
Part of me wonders if he decided to buy this place because Magnus Gable, his lifelong sworn enemy, bought the falling-down place next door, and Commodore wanted to keep an eye on him.
Keep your enemies close. Commodore is Machiavellian enough that I wouldn’t put anything past him.
I still don’t know what to think about whether my mother was trying to poison him. Would she try to hasten his demise to force the company holdings to be passed down? I should be able to say no with certainty, and the fact that I can’t says a lot about my family, and none of it good.
When there’s billions of dollars at stake, no one’s motives are without question, regardless of whether they share your blood, your name, or both.
Commodore’s right hand, still tanned and capable, shakes just enough to be noticeable as he drags his finger across the pages, reading every single word. The other hand hangs over the side of his motorized chair, absently stroking the dark head of his Chesapeake Bay retriever, Goose. Just like his shotgun, the dog never leaves his side, except when Commodore yells, “Duck, duck, goose.” The dog charges down the stairs to the river and vaults into the water to retrieve whatever Commodore shot.
Right now, the shotgun rests against the side of the chair beside me, most likely to menace Magnus Gable when the old men get riled up.
Commodore flips to the next page, reads it, and reaches out with his left hand for his Mont Blanc pen. Once he scrawls his signature on the page, he looks up at me. His brown eyes are still as sharp as my very first memory of him when I was four years old and he told me that my only job in life was to preserve and protect the family legacy.
“You did good on this deal. Proud of you, boy.” He shoves the resolutions back into the folder and grabs the river rock he uses as a paperweight to keep the documents authorizing multimillion-dollar decisions from flying away.
“Thank you, sir.” I reach for the documents.
“We’re not done yet.”
“Is there something else we need to discuss before I take this back to the office and make a shit-ton of money?”
“Damn right.” Commodore leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his barrel chest. His snow-white hair and thick beard barely move, even though the wind is picking up. “She’s coming back.”
My hand freezes in midair, hovering over the file as the old man studies my every move and reaction.
Machiavellian to the core.
“Excuse me?” I ask carefully, even though I heard him perfectly.
“You heard me. She’s coming back, and I need to know if you’re going to be able to keep your head this time.”
I school my expression to show nothing. Another lesson from the old man.
“Who?” I ask, forcing as much nonchalance into my tone as possible. I voice the question to buy time as my brain spins with the information. There’s no doubt who she is. There’s only ever been one she for me.
Commodore unfolds his arms and leans forward, rests his elbows on the table, and interlocks his fingers. “Don’t play that shit with me, boy. You know damn well who I’m talking about. Fuck the girl if you have to. Work her out of your system. Then move the hell on and get cracking on that next generation. I won’t live forever, and I want to know that this company won’t end up in Harrison’s hands.”
For all his billions of dollars, Commodore Riscoff still sounds like he just stepped off a navy ship when he’s making sure there’s no way to misinterpret him. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to make sense of what the hell is happening. Only one thing that he said matters.
She’s coming back.
Whitney Gable . . . the only girl I ever wanted to see walk down the aisle in white.
And then she did. To someone else.
Ten years ago, she fucked my world six ways to Sunday when she walked into that bar . . .
2
Lincoln
The past
I got called home like a fucking dog. And like one of the obedient retrievers Commodore uses to fetch his birds, I came when I was called. That didn’t mean I had to like it. What twenty-five-year-old man worth his salt packed up everything and skipped home when his grandfather snapped his fingers?
That’s right. Me. It was what a good heir to a family fortune did.
But I didn’t just do it for the money. No, I did it because Commodore had hammered the family motto into me since I was four years old—Preserve and protect the legacy. That’s what Riscoffs did. We filled the family coffers with even more money than was there when we took the reins, and then passed it on to the next generation.
My father was doing a shitty job of living up to Commodore’s rigorous standards, based on the reports I’d been getting in New York. Apparently, he spent more time with his mistresses than he did in the office. This last message made it clear that Commodore had had enough. According to him, it was time for me to come back to Gable and pick up the slack.
I came, but I didn’t have to like it. Just because I was an obedient heir didn’t mean I wasn’t a pissed-off one. Which explained why I was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall bar outside of town, glaring at the tequila in front of me.
I could handle whatever responsibilities Commodore threw at me, but I wasn’t ready to come back to Gable. Not by a long shot. New York was in my blood, and I was climbing the ladder in a company where no one with my name sat in a corner office. I was proving myself and my worth.
Gable might be my home, but it had never been comfortable to live here. It was an enclave tucked into some of the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen, but it was a town divided.
My family had seen to it over the years.
The Riscoff-Gable feud was the stuff of legends, and it wasn’t dying anytime soon. Everyone had chosen sides, especially with the latest incident last month when Commodore bought the Gables’ family farm at auction when they lost it for getting behind on taxes. Commodore didn’t need or want it. He just enjoyed taking something from the Gables.
A day after the sale, the house and big barn burned to the ground. The cops didn’t know if Commodore did it out of spite or if the Gables torched it because they couldn’t handle the Riscoffs owning it.
I didn’t fucking know the truth, and I didn’t want to know. The only thing that mattered was that I couldn’t go anywhere in this town without people looking at me and knowing exactly who I was, and half of them hated me. The anonymity I’d enjoyed in New York was stripped away the minute I stepped off the company jet.
I reached for the bottle of Patrón in front of me and poured a shot as the dull roar
of the bar kicked up another notch.
It took me all of three days to find someplace I could sit and be pissed off without anyone looking twice at me. In my battered Mets cap, plain white T-shirt, and ripped jeans, no one gave a single shit who I was at Mo’s. It was basically a shack favored by bikers heading up into the mountains. It was on the opposite fork of the road that headed to the family estate, a place I couldn’t wait to escape the second I crossed the threshold. The estate was nothing but a reminder of family responsibility dictating the course of the rest of my life.
I was my own man, but with my grandfather calling the shots now, I was frustrated as hell.
Mo’s was the perfect hideaway, and tonight I wanted to drink in peace while I tried to settle into the idea of accepting my fate. That would take a hell of a lot more tequila.