Chapter Two
RYDER
I hurt Alex.
I hurt him.
Deeply, severely hurt him.
My stomach burned as though I’d consumed nothing but espresso for days, my chest ached each time my heart thumped behind my rib cage, and my head felt too heavy for my neck to bear.
I’d wounded him so critically that he couldn’t even speak to me.
Alex was no pushover. He had no problem speaking his mind and telling someone—me—off when necessary.
We spent years hating each other, and I’d lived on the wrong end of his caustic tongue that entire time.
I much preferred my position on the side where he used that tongue for pleasure instead of cutting a man down.
But I’d pushed him so far that he couldn’t even tell me to go fuck myself as I deserved.
I have no idea when I finally fell asleep. All I knew was I woke up alone in the bed and the penthouse with a rock in my stomach.
I sighed as I stared at the financial projections on my laptop screen.
The numbers blurred together like they had for the past two hours.
The mahogany desk where my computer rested, belonging to my grandfather and then my father, felt like a monument to expectations I’d never wanted to meet.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the corner office, Boston stretched wide beneath me.
The view should have felt triumphant, but only reminded me how far I had to fall.
A soft knock interrupted my spiraling thoughts.
“Come in.”
Right on time for our ten o’clock meeting, Raquel Chen stepped through the door.
Her usual confident stride was replaced by something more cautious.
As my father’s head of research and development, she typically burst into meetings with the enthusiasm of someone who lived and breathed technological innovation.
Her staff jokingly called her Tigger because of the way she bounced from lab to lab.
Today, she clutched a tablet against her chest like armor, and her face was devoid of its usual smile.
“Good morning, Ryder. I have the results from the prototype trials.”
I gestured to the chair across from my desk, noting how she avoided my gaze as she slid into it.
My stomach sank. In the five months I’d been sitting in this chair—five months that felt like five years—I’d learned to read the subtle signs of bad news from my department heads.
The way Raquel perched on the edge of her seat with her spine straight, the careful placement of her tablet face down on the desk, and the slight downturn of her burgundy glossed lips didn’t instill confidence that this meeting would go the way I’d hoped.
“How bad is it?” I asked, leaning back in the leather chair that had never felt comfortable, no matter how many hours I’d spent working in it.
Raquel’s shoulders sagged a few inches. “The servo actuators failed stress testing. Again. We’re looking at another six months of development, minimum, and that’s if we can solve the head dissipation issues.” She paused, then added quietly, “The board meeting is tomorrow.”
We were rapidly approaching the board meeting, where I’d have to stand before seasoned executives and explain why we were behind schedule and over budget on our flagship project.
I’d encounter the disappointment in their eyes and the longing for my father to return to his seat on the throne of our family’s legacy.
I was the placeholder who couldn’t fill the shoes I’d never wanted to wear.
“The investors?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Morrison is threatening to pull funding if we don’t hit the next milestone.
” Raquel leaned forward, her voice taking on the same encouraging tone I’d heard from my lacrosse coach when I struggled in a game.
“Ryder, this is just a setback. Every major innovation faces obstacles such as these. It was no different for your father. He—”
“My father would have had this solved months ago.” The words came out flat, matter-of-factly. Not bitter, just tired. So damn tired. “He would have seen the heat issue coming during the design phase. He would have anticipated the servo problems.”
“You’re not your father.”
No, I’m not. The thought should have been liberating.
I’d never strived to become a clone of the man.
Instead, it felt like another weight on my shoulders.
I wasn’t my father, and I wasn’t on my way to becoming the teacher I’d planned to be.
I was suspended in this corporate purgatory, failing at a job I’d never wanted while my dreams gathered dust and my boyfriend spent his nights alone, resenting me.
My phone buzzed against the desk, and my heart leaped into my throat.
Alex. I glanced down to see Corvin’s name flashing across the screen for the second time today.
I’d avoided his first call, remembering the pain in Alex’s voice when I’d mentioned dining with my friend last night.
Corvin’s interest in me had always been a minor annoyance for Alex, but never a threat to our relationship.
After last night, I worried I couldn’t have the two in the same room without Alex’s glare cutting Corvin down.
I had zero interest in Corvin beyond anything but friendship.
Sure, we’d hooked up a few unmemorable times, but that was five years ago, and nothing I’d pined for once it ended.
Still, knowing I’d had dinner with a man who didn’t hide his interest in me when I was supposed to be with my boyfriend had to sting like a swarm of bees.
Fuck, it had to cut like the sharpest knife.
Putting myself in his shoes, I’d be murderous.
We both knew I was the possessive caveman in the relationship.
I let the call go to voicemail.
“Ryder?” Raquel’s voice seemed to come from another room. “Are you all right?”
I blinked. I’d been staring at the phone for too long. “Sorry. Yes. The prototype.” I tried to summon some executive presence, some echo of the confidence and authority my father always wore like an expensive cologne. “What’s our next move?”
She outlined the technical solutions, the revised timeline, and the budget implications.
I nodded at appropriate intervals, made notes I’d probably never reference again, and asked questions that felt hollow on my tongue.
Through it all, a voice in the back of my head whispered the same mantra that had been growing louder each day.
This isn’t your life. This was never supposed to be your life.
Today I added an extra line.
You’re ruining your relationship with Alex.
When Raquel left, taking her disappointing data and placating smiles with her, I sat alone again with the weight of other people’s expectations.
The prototype failure wasn’t really about servo actuators or head dissipation.
It was about me and my inability to be the leader this company needed, the son my mother wanted, the man my father had tried to mold.
I dragged my laptop closer and started typing the email I’d been putting off for weeks.
The one to my graduate program coordinator, explaining why I needed to defer my enrollment for yet another trimester.
Each click of the keyboard felt like another shovel of dirt burying a piece of who I was supposed to be.
My assistant, Donna, knocked as I completed the email, reminding me of a quality assurance meeting on another project.
The rest of my day passed in a haze of meetings, paperwork, and guilt.
I tried to keep my crumbling personal life out of my mind so I could concentrate on the work before me, but I also failed at that.
Even though we had busy and often conflicting agendas, Alex and I never failed to text throughout the day.
Sometimes our communication consisted of nothing more than a quick check-in.
Sometimes they were playful and flirty or sweet and emotional, and then there were the sexy texts.
Filthy comments meant to drive each other crazy until our schedules lined up and we could act on all those dirty promises.
And, boy, did we. Fire had nothing on the heat we created between the sheets.
Or against the wall.
Sometimes in my car.
Anywhere we could manage it.
Over the last few days, I’d barely checked my phone, running from meeting to meeting and crisis to crisis.
Alex had still texted throughout the day despite my lack of response, and I’d loved seeing them, even if I didn’t read them until the end of the day.
Knowing he’d thought of me and taken the time to make contact was everything.
Today, I heard nothing but crickets.
And it fucking hurt.
Why didn’t I tell him? Why didn’t I thank him and reassure him I received and loved every text, even if I couldn’t read them right away? Did he feel as shitty not hearing from me as I did today, without seeing his name pop up on my phone?
How many times could I fuck up before I lost him?
By the time I returned to my office, the sun was setting over Boston, painting the sky in shades of gold and amber. Somewhere in the city, Alex was probably eating dinner alone because I’d chosen this office over him.
Again.
I sat in my desk chair and swiped my finger over my laptop’s trackpad, waking the screen.
There waited the completed email to the university registrar I’d abandoned many hours before.
I stared at it for a solid ten minutes with my heart lodged in my throat.
I needed to hit send, but I couldn’t make my finger move to the send button.
It was the final piece in my commitment to another four months of this hell.
A hell I’d dragged Alex into but saw no way for us to escape.