15. Gwendaly
GWENDALY
T he roar of Bancroft’s Porsche hasn't even faded from the driveway before I’m pacing the length of my studio. The glass walls feel like they’re closing in, shrinking with every ragged breath I take.
“She’s a Kinlow now.”
The words are a rhythmic thrum in my skull, mocking the heat that still lingers on my skin from the night before.
I look down at my wrist, where the faint redness of Huxley’s grip is already cooling.
He didn't just win a match; he marked his territory like a man who thinks he bought the rights to my heartbeat.
I’m about to hurl a charcoal pencil at the window when my phone vibrates on the drafting table. It’s a private number, but I recognize the rhythm of the pings. I pick it up, my thumb hovering over the screen.
"I’m not in the mood, Bancroft," I say the second I hit accept. "Go back to the city. Go to Montauk. Just go."
"Gwen, listen to me," Bancroft’s voice is frantic, devoid of the smugness he carried on the court. "I’m pulled over a mile down the road. I couldn't say this with him looming over us like a Victorian gargoyle, but you need to know there’s a way out. A real one."
I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the sunroom. "There is no way out. The ink is dry. The 'Kinlow Clause' is legally bulletproof. My father made sure of that."
"Nothing is bulletproof if you have a better caliber of lawyer," Bancroft counters.
"I spent the last six hours on the phone with my firm’s compliance team.
We found a loophole in the transition timeline.
If the Luckett debt is refinanced under a specific 'merit-based' restructuring plan before the first quarter integration, the Kinlow merger becomes voidable. "
I straighten up, my heart doing a stutter-step. "Refinanced? With what money? You said your firm couldn't move fast enough."
"We can now. I’ve secured a syndicate. But there’s a condition, Gwen. A big one."
I close my eyes, a familiar, sinking feeling settling in my gut. "There’s always a condition. What is it? Do I have to give up the Savannah project? Does my father have to retire?"
"No," Bancroft says, his voice dropping into a tone that’s meant to be comforting but feels like a velvet noose.
"The investors want stability. They don't trust a single-woman-led legacy after Nicholas’s health scare.
They want a union. But not with a Kinlow.
They want someone they know. Someone who has been in the Luckett inner circle for decades. "
The silence on the line is heavy. I can hear the distant crash of the waves and the hum of the air conditioning, but all I can focus on is the implication hanging in the air.
"Bancroft," I whisper. "What are you saying?"
"I’m saying I can buy you out, Gwen. I can save the ports, keep your father in the clear, and get you away from Huxley Kinlow tonight.
But you have to agree to a new clause. A Henderson clause.
You marry me instead. We merge our firms. It’s the same result for the company, but you get to be with someone who actually cares about you. "
I pull the phone away from my ear, staring at it like it’s a venomous snake. The room starts to spin.
For weeks, I’ve been fighting Huxley. I’ve been fighting the feeling of being an asset, a pawn, a piece of disputed property. I thought Bancroft was the rescue. I thought he was the man who saw the "extraordinary" girl behind the title.
"You’re doing the exact same thing," I say, my voice trembling with a new, sharper kind of rage.
"Gwen, it’s not the same. I love you. I’ve always loved you."
"You’re buying me, Bancroft!" I shout into the phone, my voice cracking. "You found a legal loophole to swap one owner for another. You’re not rescuing me; you’re just bidding higher!
Do you even hear yourself? 'Marry me instead.' You’re treating my life like a stock option you’ve been waiting to exercise. "
"I'm trying to protect you?—"
"You’re trying to possess me! You’re just as bad as Huxley. No, you’re worse. Because he’s honest about being a machine. He doesn't pretend that this is anything other than a takeover. You’re trying to wrap a cage in 'safe harbor' ribbons and call it love."
"Gwen—"
"Don't call me again, Bancroft. Ever."
I hang up and hurl the phone across the room. It hits the white bouclé sofa and bounces onto the floor, the screen dark.
I’m standing in the middle of my beautiful, gilded studio, and I realize the terrifying truth. Every man in my life—my father, my fiancé, my best friend—is looking at me and seeing a harbor, a port, a legacy to be secured. No one is looking at me and seeing Gwendaly.
I look at the door to the sunroom. Through the glass, I can see Huxley walking back from the courts. He’s wiped the sweat from his face, but he still looks like a man who just won a war. He stops for a second, looking toward the studio, and for a heartbeat, our eyes lock through the glass.
He thinks he owns me because of a signature. Braille thinks he can buy me because of a loophole.
And as I stand there, surrounded by the charcoal and the canvases and the high-thread-count lies of my life, I realize that the only way to win this game is to stop playing by their rules.
I feel a cold, absolute certainty that the only person Gwendaly Luckett belongs to is herself—and I’m about to show both of them exactly what happens when an "asset" decides to liquidate the men who think they own it.