CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 14
CARTER
“Mr. Volcor, I’m sending the jet. You need to get back to the office immediately.”
The storm’s cleared. The airports are open. Life is back to normal. And I woke up to a barrage of missed calls, emails, and texts—from my assistant, from the board of directors—all hammering home the same urgent message: Get back. Handle this.
“Mr. Volcor, this lawsuit… these accusations… they’ll destroy your reputation—and the company’s,” one of my senior advisors says, his voice tight with nerves.
The old me would’ve been on the first flight out, no hesitation. Business first. Always.
But the man I am right now—the one wrapped up in Ivy, the one who just remembered what it feels like to live—he doesn’t want to go anywhere. He wants to stay with her. In this bubble where the world doesn’t get a say.
But I can’t. I know I can’t.
As much as I hate everything my father did—hate it enough to say fuck it all—the truth is, Volcor Holdings is clean now. I made sure of it.
Every deal, every contract, every operation—we rebuilt it brick by brick, the right way.
When I called Liam, we mapped out a plan.
Move fast. Get ahead of this. Protect the company before it burns.
Because it’s not just my name at stake—it’s thirty thousand employees, contractors, families who count on us to keep the lights on and food on the table.
I have enough money to disappear for a dozen lifetimes if I wanted to. But they don’t.
They trusted me to do better than the generation before me. And I did.
Now, I have to figure out what happens next.
I stand in the doorway, drinking her in. Sprawled across the bed, tangled in the sheets, the morning light slipping like gold over her bare skin.
How could someone be so beautiful?
The pull in my chest is sharp and painful, a raw need I can’t name.
The jet’s waiting. The world’s waiting.
But I’m not ready to leave.
Not yet.
I step into the bedroom. I know I have to leave. But before I do—
I need to taste her one more time. Feel her. Burn her into my memory.
Slowly, I approach the bed. I can’t help but run my finger across her mesmerizing face. She softly responds to the touch.
Her laptop sits too close to the edge of the bed, half hanging off like it could crash to the floor any second. She must’ve fallen asleep working.
I reach over to move it, just to set it somewhere safe, and the damn thing flips open in my hand.
The screen wakes up. And there it is.
I stare at it, the letters punching through me harder than any hit I’ve ever taken.
Three words. Three words that gut me straight through the heart. Big. Bold. Undeniable.
Volcor Holdings Scandal
The Billion-Dollar Betrayal: Volcor Holdings Profited While Families Lost Everything.
I freeze. The breath rips from my lungs like a gut punch.
A headline designed to bleed. To humiliate. To destroy.
And right there under the headline, in clean, professional black-and-white:
By Ivy Monroe
The laptop slides from my hand onto the bed. I stagger back a step, the blood roaring in my ears.
Three words. One name. One betrayal I’ll never be able to unsee.
The woman tangled in my sheets, the woman I just whispered forever to… was holding the knife the whole time.
I finish packing my shit in record time, throwing the last of it into my suitcase like it’s going to change anything.
Like moving fast will stop the way everything inside me is ripping the fuck apart.
It doesn’t.
I should leave. Just walk out the door and never look back. Get on the damn jet and forget this ever happened.
But I don’t.
I make the mistake of walking back into the bedroom. Just to see her one more time.
Just to make it hurt a little more.
She’s still wrapped in the sheets, hair messy, breathing slow and even. God, she looks so goddamn perfect it makes my teeth ache.
Her big brown eyes blink open and find me right away, like she’s been looking for me even in her sleep. And then she smiles.
That smile. Soft. Beautiful.
The kind of smile that could wreck a man.
“Hey,” she says, her voice still heavy with sleep.
I stand there like an idiot, the suitcase handle gripped so tightly my knuckles go white.
I can’t speak. I can’t move.
For the first time in my life, Carter Volcor—the guy who always has something to say—has nothing.
Not a damn word.
Her smile falters, confusion flickering across her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, pushing up onto one elbow, the sheet slipping low across her chest.
And fuck, if this wasn’t so broken, it would’ve been perfect.
But it’s not.
It’s already ruined. It’s already too late.
I turn and walk out.
No explanation. No goodbye. Nothing.
“Carter?” Her voice chases me down the hallway, soft and scared.
Once, hearing her say my name made me feel like I could tear the world apart just to give it to her.
Now it feels like a goddamn knife between my ribs.
How the fuck did I let this shit happen?