Chapter 21 #2
Laurel’s expression remains composed. “Grant should remain in his current role while the investigation continues, subject to the financial controls already recommended. Removing him today gives the board an excuse to spend the next six months arguing about whether this review is personal retaliation arising from our marriage. I don’t want that argument available. ”
Harlan studies her. “And if additional irregularities are identified?”
“Then Grant should be sitting in this chair when they’re presented.
” The cold fingers around my throat tighten.
“Every authorization attributed to him should be put in front of him. Every payment. Every amendment. Every representation to a lender. He should have the opportunity to explain each one in the same room as the people who relied on it.”
Nobody speaks.
I search her face for a tell, but there’s nothing. Not even a twitch.
What the hell is she thinking?
“I don’t want anyone saying later that Grant Mercer lost control of his company because his wife was angry. If he loses anything, I want the record to show exactly why.”
The board votes seven to four against immediate suspension, with one abstention. Financial controls remain. I retain my title, my office, and enough authority to convince a reporter nothing has changed if the reporter is stupid.
Harlan adjourns. People begin collecting binders. Laurel stands and slips her laptop into her bag.
“Thank you,” I say when we’re finally close enough to speak without attorneys leaning in.
She looks at me. “For what?”
“You know.”
“I did what I thought was best for the company.”
“You could’ve buried me today.”
The corner of her mouth moves. “Could I?”
“You had the votes leaning your way.”
“Maybe.”
“But you didn’t.” I lower my voice into the tone she says I always use when I want her to forgive me. “That means something.”
Laurel loves me too much not to be affected by it, but her face remains blank. At this point, she’s trying too hard to stay mad.
She gives a little dip of her head in acknowledgment and walks out of the room to meet Beckett. He takes her laptop bag when she hands it over without asking.
One of these days, I’m going to tell that bastard to keep his hands off anything that belongs to my wife.
When I walk out of the room, I can finally breathe properly. My first reaction is relief because she just kept me in my chair. The second arrives slower: she kept me in the chair because she wants an audience, but I don’t care right now.
All I know is she saved my ass this time.
∞∞∞
It’s midnight, and I’m sitting at the bar at the Four Seasons with a bourbon I haven’t taken a sip from while Tessa, Camille, and two attorneys argue across the room about tomorrow’s press strategy.
They’ve been at it for nearly an hour, going back and forth over statements, timing, liability, and whether we can get ahead of the next round of headlines without giving Sloane another excuse to put a camera in front of her face.
By the time the attorneys finally gather their files and leave, I’m too fucking tired to care which version of the truth they plan to release in the morning.
Camille slides onto the stool beside me as soon as I’m alone.
She’s changed out of the black suit she wore this morning and into jeans and a thin, sparkly pink top that does absolutely nothing to hide her pert tits.
If anything, it makes them harder to ignore, the oil on her skin glistening beneath the low bar lights.
My cock gets hard instantly. Fuck, she’s smoking hot.
“You okay?”
I laugh into my glass, one hand dipping to stroke my fucking dick to take a chill pill. “Define okay.”
“Still upright.”
“Then I’m thriving.”
She smiles, and I notice her pink mouth again, the intoxicating perfume radiating from her, the way she looks at me with those doe eyes, without anger, disappointment, legal suspicion, or years of history weighing down her stare. It feels easy.
Jesus Christ.
Easy has always been my drug.
Sloane was easy. Hotel rooms were easy. Women who wanted Grant Mercer instead of needing anything from Grant were easy. Laurel asks for the part of me that exists after the applause dies, and that part is fucking defective.
Camille’s fingers brush my wrist when she reaches for the cocktail menu. Maybe accidental. Probably not.
My body reacts anyway because the hand stroking my cock increases its pace.
Nine fucking days. I’ve fucked my fist every night just to loosen the tension enough to sleep, and I never considered myself an addict, but that’s the problem with trying something new after being stuck with the same old sloppy shit, the new taste becomes a fucking craving before you realize you’re hooked.
Sloane is radioactive. I’m married to a woman who barely lets me breathe the same air as her, just told a board she wants me present for my own execution, and is currently letting Beckett Vale accompany her everywhere.
Some filthy little voice in my head says I’m already being punished, already losing my wife, already sleeping alone, and it asks what exactly celibacy is supposed to prove now.
Licking my dry lips, I turn to Camille, adjusting in my seat just enough to see what that sparkly little top is doing to me. She smiles and bites down on her lower lip, her gaze drifting from my hard-on to my eyes.
“My room has better bourbon.”
I should say no because I love my wife, my marriage is hanging by dental floss, Tessa will bury my body in Percy Warner Park if another scandal surfaces, but every reason I can think of has failed me before.
“What floor?” I ask.
Camille smiles, rising from the stool and deliberately leaning into my line of sight, giving me a full view of what that oil is doing to her tits. My mouth waters.
“Let’s go.”
I follow her lead.
A quick fuck wouldn’t hurt.
Laurel isn’t going anywhere. The fact that she hasn’t pulled the divorce card says everything I need to know. She’s angry. She’s hurt. She wants me to suffer for it. Fine, I can take that. But does she really need to know every damn thing I do while she’s busy punishing me?
The sixteen-year-old boy who once called his father a piece of shit finally has the decency to shut the fuck up.