Chapter 25 – Waverly
WAVERLY
With tremulous hands, I unwrap the gold-foiled box and lift the lid to find…
papers. Official-looking papers, but still papers.
There’s a thick stack of them, and I quickly glance at the top page.
OuestHicks Chief Operating Officer official offer letter.
I scroll through the few paragraphs and nearly shove it off my lap.
“What is this? I don’t understand,” I admit.
“We don’t have a COO because we have two CEOs.
One doing the biotech side and one doing the business side,” Brax explains.
“But now we’re growing, expanding, and we need someone who can oversee the company as a company.
Who can compile all the moving parts into one and manage everything.
” He meets my gaze, his expression open and hopeful.
There are a million things brimming in his eyes, but he lets it all end there.
“This says I report to the board of directors.”
“Yes,” Tristan acknowledges. “It’s a senior vice president and executive director role, and with that, you’d report to the board. Not us.”
“But you’re on the board.”
Tristan shrugs. “It’s not an issue. There are enough board members that we don’t have direct authority over you.”
“You wouldn’t be my bosses,” I state matter-of-factly, and I can’t tell what the fuck this is. Did they do this so we could continue having sex? So that I could—
“I see where your mind is going,” Brax cuts off my thoughts, inching in a bit on me so we’re eye to eye.
“But that’s not how it is. This acquisition wouldn’t have been able to happen nearly as well as it did without you.
There’s a reason we’ve had you in every meeting, as part of every chart we’ve coursed since you started.
You are the COO. You’ve just been stuck under the designation of Tristan’s assistant. ”
“Maybe you should take this downstairs and discuss it in private,” Alain suggests. “We can give Waverly her presents tonight before the party.”
And with that, we’re almost dismissed. I can hardly meet the eyes of Tristan’s family.
I don’t know what to make of this. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman being offered the penthouse in LA and the unlimited spending budget while her boss can use her as he needs and is passing through town.
Brax rises and extends his hand to me. I’m…
I don’t know what I am, but I take his hand only to release it immediately.
He’s not my boyfriend, and the man who is supposed to be my boyfriend isn’t either.
Why are they doing this? I’m an assistant.
There’s not a clear linear path between the CEO’s assistant and the COO.
The moment we step onto the elevator, I wrap my arms around my chest.
“You’re mad,” Tristan brilliantly surmises.
“Yeah. I am. Because what the absolute fuck?!”
He chuckles, and I go to strangle him when Braxton steps in between us. “Okay, slow down, Sunshine. You’re misinterpreting this.” He grabs my fists and wrangles them down to my sides before his face gets right up in mine. “What do you do for a living?”
“What?”
“What. Do you do. For a living?”
“I’m the assistant to the business CEO. I maintain his calendar and keep up-to-date functional notes on all accounts. I run interference between him and employees and third parties seeking access. I—”
“Run the goddamn company!” Tristan booms. The elevator doors open, and he sweeps me off, gripping my other hand before he and Braxton pin me to the wall in the hall. “You run the goddamn company, Waverly. You make the organization function. Who the fuck else does that?”
My breath lodges, along with my words, in my chest.
“That’s right, Princess. No one. It’s you.
Goddammit, when Braxton mentioned this to me the other day, I was furious I hadn’t thought of it myself.
But when we went to the board and laid it out, they didn’t hesitate.
They agreed. This is how it should be. It’s not because you’re fucking us, you amazing slut.
And it’s not because we’re crazy about you, which we are.
It’s because working for us is wrong because you are the one who leads us. ”
Tristan’s panting. I’m panting. Braxton is smiling.
“This is what I’ve been talking about,” Braxton states.
“I told you we’d figure something out, and it’s not because I want to keep fucking you or make you my girl.
It’s because this is the job you’ve worked for.
The job you’ve earned. I didn’t know our Scrooge You was going to do it this way because I wanted to do all of this tonight in private, but here it is, and you have to face it.
You’re ours, but more than that, you’re part of us.
Our company, our lives, our blood. Our hearts. ”
I lick my lips. “And in two months when you grow bored of fucking me or sharing me? Or when Tristan moves to Paris because he has to? Or when the board catches on and throws a fit?”
Brax moves in on me, his hand on my jaw. “Do you honestly think that’s why we did this?”
I open my mouth, and he closes it for me.
“I want you to be my girlfriend,” he continues.
“Not hidden. Not only when the doors are closed and no one is watching. But for real. I think I’ve already made that very clear.
In fact, I believe I told you that I love you.
Get the fuck out of your head, woman. You deserve the job.
If I had never slept with you, if you had been any other woman doing the same incredible work that you’ve been doing, I would have said that.
We need this position. We need you in it.
But on top of that, I need you to be mine.
The two are mutually exclusive. We can have one without the other, you as the COO regardless, but I’m hoping we can have both. ”
My heart is pounding. I’ve been holding back… everything. I’ve never fought something as hard as this. But I’ve already lost so much, and the thought of loving them and then having that ripped away from me… I couldn’t do it.
I blink and look over at Tristan.
He’s not smiling, though.
“I’m going to be moving to Paris,” he says, and it’s as if the wind is knocked from my sails. Braxton wasn’t expecting this either.
“What the fuck?” he booms, and Tristan glances around, suddenly remembering that we’re in the hall, and drags us down to his apartment.
The door slams shut, and Braxton starts to pace. I’m not big on pacing, so I go over to the sofa and sit calmly on it, only to remember the three of us in here last night and stare down at the thing like it’s stabbing me with needles.
“Don’t act surprised,” Tristan says in a calm voice to Braxton. “You heard my father, and you knew this was coming. Hell, we had even talked about it briefly when we started to look at Smithfield.”
Brax shakes his head, his hands on his hips. “That was months ago. That was before.”
“Yes, before. Before my father told me he wants to retire. Before we acquired a French company. Before the weight and responsibility of my family, of being a Ouest, came down on me.”
“So everything we’ve built this week?” Braxton asks, stopping to search his best friend’s face.
Tristan throws his hands up. “What do you want me to say? I’ve loved every second of this week. But there isn’t a reality where two men can share one woman in the light of day. Think of what that would do to our company, our credibility. Think of what that would do to the Ouest name.”
“I don’t give a fuck what people think of me,” Brax states. “I never have.”
“Because you don’t have anyone to answer to but yourself.”
The accusation is a direct hit, but it’s also a truth neither of us can deny.
Tristan blows out a breath and scrubs his hands up and down his face. “I’m sorry.” Another breath. “I don’t have a choice, Brax. This is what my family does. It’s who we are.”
“So you just bow out?”
“I’ll still come to Boston whenever I can. I’m not leaving OuestHicks. I’ll simply run the Parisian operation.”
“But you are leaving us,” I say softly, looking at him, so I make sure I have this correct.
“You have Braxton. You don’t need me,” he says, though his eyes flicker with pain as he says that. “You never liked me much anyway, remember? You hated me.”
My throat tightens, making it hard to breathe as tears curl along my lower lids.
I haven’t cried in a million years. Not since I was a kid.
Not even when I put Nana in a home because I knew if I broke then, I’d never come back from it.
But the thought of losing Tristan hurts in an unfamiliar and unexpected way, and my emotions are catching me by surprise.
“Actually, I was falling in love with you.”
Agony rips across his face, and he stares at me for a very long moment before he looks down at the floor, breathing heavily.
“You want to give that up?” Braxton asks. “You want to tell her that you haven’t been in love with her for two fucking years?”
“I don’t have a choice,” he whispers, his voice breaking on the end. “Why do you think I was the way I was? I knew if I let her in, it would eventually ruin me and hurt her because it was always going to get to this point. I was always going to be here. Always.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have to be Tristan Ouest!” he yells. “I have to marry and create heirs and be the face of two companies. That’s how this goes.
I don’t get to have the happily ever after with the girl of my dreams. But you can.
” His eyes pin Braxton. “That’s my Christmas gift to you both.
Each other. Love each other. Have everything you’re both meant to have.
” He chuckles ruefully. “Who knows? Maybe whenever I come to Boston, the three of us can relive some memories.”
He pulls something from his pocket and walks over to me, handing me a soft, velvet box.
“I was going to give you this later when we were getting dressed for the party. It would mean a lot if you’d wear them.”
I take the box from his shaky hand into mine. I don’t want to open it. It’ll rip me apart, but I do, and choke on a sob. Everything hurts, and I hate this feeling. I hate the helplessness of it. The wanting someone in your life you can no longer have.
“They match the diamond pendant Brax bought you to go with your gold chain.”
With that, he turns and walks out of the apartment, leaving me here with two sparkling diamond heart earrings and a broken heart.