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containing the jewelry that Josie had pawned. He examined each piece before carefully returning it to the tissue so it wouldn’t get damaged.
    It was quality. He wasn’t an expert but it looked vintage and real. Definitely not fake. It was worth far more than Josie had pawned it for, and the pawnbroker knew it, judging by the price it had cost Ash to get it back.
    He didn’t like the desperation in that single act. Of pawning jewelry for a fast buck and taking far less than it was worth because she had no other choice. He was going to give that choice back to her. But other choices? Not so much. Not if he had anything to say about it.
    It made him arrogant and demanding, but he knew himself to be both, so it didn’t bother him. It was who he was. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted Josie. Now he just had to put the ball in motion.
    His intercom buzzed and he jerked his head up in irritation.
    “Mr. McIntyre, your sister is here to see you,” Eleanor, his receptionist, said in a crisp voice that sounded pissed off.
    But then it wasn’t a secret how Ash—and Gabe and Jace—felt about his family. Eleanor had been with them for years and it likely hadn’t pleased her to buzz him with this kind of information.
    What the fuck was Brittany doing here? Had his mother resorted to having his sister do her dirty work for her? He could feel his blood pressure rise, even knowing he had to stop allowing them this kind of power over him.
    “Send her in,” Ash said grimly.
    No way he was going to air family shit outside the privacy of his office. Whatever it was Brittany wanted, Ash would give her a few minutes and then let her know she wasn’t welcome at his office. None of his family was, and for that matter, none of them had ever stepped inside the HCM offices. They saved their venom for holidays and family get-togethers.
    If they ever set foot inside the HCM offices, they’d be forced to acknowledge his success instead of treating it like a dirty secret no one talked about. They’d be forced to see firsthand that he didn’t need them and he’d succeeded without their help or influence. No way they were going to do either.
    A soft knock sounded at his door and he voiced a “come in.”
    The door slowly opened and his sister walked in, apprehension written all over her features. She looked more than nervous. She looked terrified.
    “Ash?” she asked softly. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
    Brittany was a replica of his mother. Not that his mother wasn’t a beautiful woman. She was. And Brittany was every bit as beautiful, if not more so, than their mother. The only problem was his mother was ugly on the inside and it forever marred his perception of her looks. Because he knew what resided behind that pretty face. It was a cold and calculating mind. He firmly believed she was incapable of loving anyone but herself. It was a mystery to him why she’d ever had children. And not just one, but four.
    Besides Brittany, Ash had two older siblings. Both brothers and both firmly under the grasp of their mother and father. Though younger, Brittany was approaching thirty. Or maybe she’d turned thirty already? He couldn’t remember and he didn’t spare an ounce of sadness over that fact. And she was as solidly under the family thumb as their brothers. Perhaps even more so.
    Their mother had handpicked Brittany’s husband. An older guy she’d married Brittany off to when she was barely out of college. Wealthy. Influential. All the right connections. The marriage had barely lasted two years and Ash’s mother blamed that squarely on Brittany. Never mind that in Ash’s digging, he’d found a hell of a lot of skeletons in Robert Hanover’s closet.
    He was not a man he’d want his sister—or any woman—married to. But Brittany had meekly submitted to her mother’s desires despite Ash’s warning to her that Robert was not the man he seemed.
    At least she’d had the balls to get out of the marriage. That had