Chapter 15 #2
She laughs, and the sound still carries that roughness from her injury, lower than the voice I remember. I like it.
I like it far too fucking much.
Her phone rings on my desk, and the name flashing across the screen makes my jaw tighten.
Grant.
Laurel’s shoulders soften. The tension leaves her mouth, and even her breathing changes, slower and shallower.
I almost get thrown off a goddamn ledge.
There’s no trace of the woman who spent the last hour dismantling Grant’s control, dissecting his voting position and planning exactly how much of his company she intends to take from him.
She picks up the phone. “Hey.”
Damn. The softness in her voice is so convincing I almost forget who I’m listening to. Grant says something I can’t hear, and Laurel’s eyes meet mine.
“Yes, I know. I’ve been a pain in the ass.
” She looks down, her fingers worrying at the edge of the legal pad.
“I’m sorry. I’ve just been... I don’t know.
I’ve been so upset, Grant. I know you think I’m shutting you out, but I’m not trying to do that.
I just...” She draws in a shaky breath, letting it break at the end.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this.
I love you. You know I love you so much.
I just don’t know how to look at you right now and not think about what happened. ”
She turns toward the windows again, giving me her side profile, and I watch the smallest tremor pass through her mouth.
“You’re right. It was a mistake. It just...
it blew everything out of proportion, and I think I’ve finally come to my senses.
” She swallows, her fingers tightening around the phone.
“You know I’ve been staying at a hotel, and it’s just so empty.
So fucking unbearable without you next to me. I’ve been miserable, Grant.”
Grant says something longer this time. Laurel closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, she looks exhausted, like she’s been crying until there’s nothing left to hide.
“No, Grant. I’m not trying to punish you. I was hurt.” She listens, her eyes dropping to the floor. “I know I shut you out, and I’m sorry. I just needed to get away from everything for a minute because I couldn’t think straight.”
Whatever he mutters next makes her mouth tremble.
“I’m not trying to destroy Mercer Records, either.
Jesus.” A quiet, wounded laugh slips out of her.
“I helped build that company with you. Do you really think I’d wake up one morning and decide I want to burn down everything we spent fourteen years building?
I don’t even know what my life looks like without you, Grant.
Without this company. Without the life we built together.
You’re my husband. My soul, my everything.
Mercer is our life.” She swallows, her voice dropping to almost a whisper.
“I know I’m angry, and I know I have every right to be, but that doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. ”
The knowledge that it’s a farce flies out of my head, and for one fucking second, all I hear is a woman telling her husband she still loves him.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. About us.”
Grant speaks again.
“I know. Yes, I still have my ring. I only took it off for a little while.” Her shoulders rise with a quiet breath. “I know you love me. I have to go now, Grant. I’m tired.”
Another pause.
“Okay. Take care.”
The call ends, and Laurel lowers the phone slowly, standing there with it in her hand as she stares at the black screen. I wait, not sure which part of the act we’re in now, or whether I’m supposed to believe there’s an act at all.
She takes one deep breath, wipes beneath one eye with the side of her thumb, and looks at me.
“He wants me home.”
“Are you going?”
“Yes.”
I don’t like the answer, but I keep the opinion off my face. “Why?”
“Because he thinks I’m deciding whether to forgive the affair.
” She sets her phone on the desk and looks down at the ring she just used as evidence of a marriage she intends to dismantle.
“I want him focused on getting his wife back while I figure out how to take his precious company away from him.”
“You’re going to let him court you?”
“I’m going to let him think courting me matters.”
“That can get ugly.” Her eyes lift to mine, and I don’t need her to say it. It’s already ugly. “He may touch you.”
The words come out flatter than I intend, but the question underneath them is obvious, and it is none of my fucking business. We both know it.
“The gates of hell could open up tomorrow and swallow me whole, and I still wouldn’t sleep with him again if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
Relief hits so fast it feels almost physical.
“I’m going home tonight,” she says, picking up her coffee again.
Her voice is steady now, the softness from the phone gone.
“I’m going to cry where he can see me. I’m going to tell him I don’t know whether our marriage can survive this.
I’m going to let him apologize. Let him convince himself I’m still trying to save us.
” She takes a sip, then sets the cup down.
“I’ll let him believe Sloane was the bomb and everything else is debris. ”
Her gaze comes back to mine. “Meanwhile, Evelyn files the catalogue challenge. The audit keeps digging. You make the offer. I talk to the outside shareholders one at a time, and when we know exactly what he did with my money, my work, and the company, he finds out I was never deciding whether to save the marriage.”
I stare at her for a long moment, and whatever attraction I felt years ago becomes something else entirely. Watching Laurel rebuild the spine Grant spent years convincing her she didn’t need is doing things to my judgment I intend to examine at a much safer date.
“I’ll make the offer.”
“Today?”
“By close of business. Catalogue first. Leave the shares out.” She starts to object, but I raise one hand. “If I bid on your equity now, Grant knows control is in play. We make him produce chain of title on the music and let him spend his week worrying I want the songs.”
Understanding lights her face. “While I go after votes.”
“Now you’re getting greedy.”
“You say that like it’s contagious.”
“Around me, probably. One more thing.” I open a drawer, take out the photograph Tessa’s contact forwarded yesterday, and slide it across the desk.
The one Laurel asked me to end. She’s laughing outside Vale House, her head tipped toward me as I carry her guitar.
“Grant’s team bought an exclusive hold after we passed. ”
Her eyebrows draw together. “So?”
“So nobody else can buy or license the photograph for the next seventy-two hours.”
Laurel’s attention drops to the photograph. “He was scared of it.”
“Very.”
The beginning of a smile touches her mouth. “Can he bury it?”
“Yes.”
“Can he also choose to release it?”
“Yes.”
“Would jealousy make him stupid enough?”
“You know your ex-husband better than I do.”
She taps one finger against the photograph, considering it, then slides it back across the desk. “Let him keep it. If Grant wants to believe Beckett Vale is the threat to his marriage, I’d hate to deprive him of the distraction.”
I throw my head back and laugh, ignoring the way my full name sounds in her mouth. Every time she says it, something in me gets a little too fucking addicted to the sound, and if I’m not careful, I’m going to get high on it.
Laurel picks up her purse. “Make the offer mouthwatering.”
I name a number, and her blue eyes widen so comically that I grin, unable to help myself.
“Beckett, oh my f—”
“Your catalogue is undervalued.”
“By that much?”
“By more, if your unreleased work is as good as I remember.”
“You remember it?”
“Laurel, I remember every song you played me.”
And a lot more than I probably should.
Laurel rolls her lower lip between her teeth and nods, excitement flickering across her face as she gathers the rest of her things. “Send the offer to Evelyn.”
“I will.”
“And, Beckett?” She gives her signature pause at the door. “When this is over, remind me to ask why you remember everything.”
She leaves before I can tell her the answer has been inconvenient for seven fucking years.