Chapter 35
35
Theo
I fucked up. Cat won’t look at me or speak to me, and I trail her helplessly into the house. She’s not helpless. No, she’s ice and cool disregard.
“Cat,” I say, as she drops her bag in the living room. “Please. Let’s talk.”
She rounds on me. “Why? So you can tell me how shallow I am? How much I’ll like Monaco?” Her eyes flash, but she sits on the edge of the couch, and I take the seat opposite.
Irritation flares. Cat will always think the worst of me.
I open my mouth to tell her that, and then I notice how tightly her hands are clasped, how straight her spine is. Her chin is lifted, but her skin is white across the bones of her knuckles. I recognize this pose. It’s the one she used to adopt with her father. I’d see her sometimes, in the living room, sitting like a doll, waiting. For what, I never knew, but now I think she might have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And haven’t I always thought the worst of her too ?
The thought lodges in my chest, makes the words die on my tongue.
Perhaps it’s time to lay down our weapons.
“I have an idea,” I say carefully, pulling my phone from my pocket. “Why don’t I sign the bar over to you?”
She sucks in a breath. “I don’t need charity, Theo. You’ve done enough for me.”
She’s right. I have. But this ? I didn’t know how badly it would hurt her, and I want to make it right.
“It’s not charity. It’s an apology.”
I can’t read her. She’s tense, and her face is blank. “I want Blair to have half,” she says. “I’ll take the bar, but Blair needs to be the co-owner.”
“Isn’t she a Broadway performer?”
She shakes her head. “Her job isn’t stable. That’s my condition. I’ll do everything you want if you give her half.”
“Okay,” I say. I tap out an email to my lawyer. “I’m sorry.” I look up at her, her eyes unreadable. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You shouldn’t have,” she agrees. “You’re way too used to getting what you want.”
She narrows her eyes, but I can tell this is her usual brand of annoyance, not actual anger.
“I am,” I agree.
“Don’t agree with me. I want to be mad at you.”
I laugh, because I can’t help it. “I’m sure I’ll find a way to annoy you on this trip.”
“ If I agree to go,” she says.
I sigh. “The fact of the matter is, I really need you to go.”
“What happened?”
“Arnold.” I scrub a hand over my face. “He said something to Lorenzo.”
“Fucker,” she mutters.
“Yeah. He’s claiming the marriage is fake.”
She curses under her breath before she looks at me with steel in her eyes. “I’ll go. It’s my fault you’re caught up in this. Arnold wants us to divorce because he loses everything if I take over the company. The little prick. I never thought he’d follow through with this stuff. As if being disowned weren’t enough.”
She says the words casually, like she’s ordering brunch or discussing the weather, but I can’t fathom what disowning means. Surely, her parents would still give her a place to live or money? But what if they wouldn’t?
“What exactly does disowning involve? Is it permanent?” I ask. “I thought the inheritance matter was settled by our marriage.”
“It’s not a technical term,” she says. “If you’re asking whether I’m going to go running back to Daddy, no.” She shakes her head. “He cut me out of his will. He told every one of my friends to stop speaking to me. He called everyone he knows to tell them not to give me an internship.” She snorts a disbelieving sound, like this is amusing instead of infuriating.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Your father is a dick. And you can intern at Kings Lane.”
“It’s fine,” she says dismissively. “He is a dick. It’s for the best.” She pauses. “But I will take you up on that internship, if that’s okay. I really do need it.”
“Of course,” I say.
Maybe it’s for the best that Cat and her parents cut ties, but it’s starting to look like Cat has nothing, and the only one willing to help her is me.
The thought makes me uncomfortable. I won’t always be there to protect Cat. It’s already late April. By the time we go to Monaco, we’ll have been married for two months. That’s ten more months before Cat is out on her own.
“What are you going to do when we divorce?” I ask.
We never talk about the divorce, almost like we’re both pretending it isn’t coming.
Her eyes flare. “I don’t know. I have the savings I mentioned.”
My chest pinches. Several thousand dollars. It’s not enough to get an apartment.
“I’m the part owner of a dirty sports bar,” she says dryly. “I’m sure things will be fine. I’ve survived worse. Besides, I can room with Blair if I need to.”
“And then?”
“Why are you pressing me about this?”
I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about why. “Answer the question.”
“Fine. I don’t have concrete plans. I have a year left of my MBA. I’ll finish my degree and then take over Peterson International. I started emailing the board members last week.”
“And?”
She shakes her head ruefully. “Nothing. Not even a single response.”
“What did you send them? Show me.”
“What is with you today?” she mutters, pulling out her phone and flicking through it before passing it to me.
In it, I see a simple email to one of the board members, claiming she’s the better choice over her father. “This isn’t enough,” I say.
She snatches the phone out of my hand. “Well, obviously. God, you sound like my professor.”
She shoves off the couch, and I grab her hand. She freezes. Cat and I don’t touch casually. Her walls are always up, and while Cole calls me a hugger, I frequently feel like Cat is a wild animal—on edge and ready to bolt.
She doesn’t pull her hand away. I run my thumb over her wrist, feathering over the silky skin and her erratic pulse.
“Let me help you, Cat.” I smile at her, hoping she’ll see my intentions are good. “I know a lot about this stuff.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, as if she’s weighing my sincerity. “Fine,” she sighs. “Let me get my laptop.”
We settle at the kitchen counter after she’s changed out of her work clothes. She sets her laptop up, and I pull beers out of the fridge.
“Did you eat?” I ask.
“Hmm?” She’s already deep in her work, tapping at the keyboard. No one works like this woman does .
“Hey, princess.” I sit at the counter, slide her a drink. She doesn’t notice. “Did you eat?”
She finally looks at me, blinking those chocolate eyes slowly, her sooty lashes making shadows on her cheeks in the kitchen lighting.
I want to kiss her.
For real. Not for show. And not because I want her in my bed, though I do, with a fierceness that surprises me.
She definitely doesn’t want that, though.
“I didn’t,” she admits. “Class was bad today, and then the stuff with the bar happened. I lost track of time.”
“Cat,” I say warningly.
“Theo,” she responds.
“You have to eat.”
“Sorry, Mom,” she says, sticking out her tongue.
I lean in. Her eyes widen. “Do that again, and you won’t like what happens next.”
“Promise?” she asks, but her voice is higher than usual. I stand and start pulling ingredients from the fridge.
“Come on, show me what you’ve prepared on the company. I’ll make you dinner. I remember you liking pasta with vodka sauce, right?” A flash of memory comes to me—Cat helping my mom make sauce, and then me squeezing a tomato down her shirt.
“I do,” she says. “Good memory.”
I flash her a grin. “I’ll try to keep the tomatoes to myself this time.”
Her eyes fly wide, and she laughs. She covers her mouth.
“Why do you do that?” I ask.
Her hand lowers. “Do what?”
“Cover your mouth when you laugh.”
She stills. “I never noticed. It’s instinctual, I guess. A holdover from my prior life.”
Suddenly, I want to break something. “Well, don’t do it around me anymore. I’m adding it to the list.”
She looks like she wants to argue for a second, but instead, she says, “Okay, Theo.”
“You need graphs,” I say, pointing at her laptop with my fork.
“Graphs,” she says flatly.
She finished her dinner quickly, and I notice with no small amount of pride that she scooped up every bite of sauce. And now I’m talking her through a presentation that will be far better than the emails she just sent to the board.
“People like graphs.”
She squints. “Is this how you got so rich? Because honestly, I don’t see it.”
I laugh, letting my fork clatter into the bowl. “No, you brat. Stop mocking me while I help you.”
“Is that what you call this? I’m sure the graphs will win them over. You’re right.”
I growl under my breath at her. “Stand up. Time to practice.”
“Honestly,” she grumbles, but she stands. “This is totally the wrong outfit.”
My gaze rakes over the silk camisole and the sleep shorts. Her nipples are pebbled against the silk. Her bare legs make me think about how they felt wrapped around my waist, her weight pressing into my cock, her sighs in my ears.
“It’s fine,” I say shortly, shifting in my seat before I can get too turned on. “When you enter the room, you need to own it. The presentation we’re preparing will get you the meetings, and they’ll take place at Kings Lane, which means your turf, but the guests will be in the conference room when you arrive. You need to project as soon as you step through the door.”
“The meetings will take place at Kings Lane?”
“Of course they will.” I frown. “Unless you have a fiftieth-floor conference room with views of the Hudson that you’ve been keeping from me?”
“I hate you,” she says, but a smile is pulling at her lips.
“Right back at you,” I say, grinning at her. “Okay. Control the room. Start with the hard facts. Profit is down. Retention is down. That sort of the thing. Hit them with the numbers, not opinions.”
She blows out a breath and squares her shoulders. “Peterson International has been in decline since Gregory Peterson took over. Free cash flow represents only 20 percent of what it was the year before he became CEO.” Her voice strengthens as she continues.
I nod encouragingly.
“The expansion plans to Hong Kong were scrapped as a result. There’s no capital for new projects. Year over year, distributions to shareholders have decreased only 1 percent, but during Gregory Peterson’s tenure, that represents a decline of over 25 percent in the aggregate. That’s over a hundred million dollars.”
Heat rushes through me at her words. She’s commanding. She’s selling this. And she looks so fucking hot standing there and fighting for herself.
“What do you think?” she asks as the fire drains out of her. She seats herself back at the counter, looking soft and uncertain again. Rare for her in front of me.
“If they’re able to turn you away, they don’t deserve their positions,” I say quietly.
A smile blooms on her face before she pushes out of the chair and wraps her arms around me. A soft sound escapes as I take her weight, my arms coming around her back. “Thank you, Theo.” Her lips form the words against my neck, and goose bumps follow. My face is buried in her hair, and I breathe her in. She pulls away, and my eyes drop helplessly to her lips.
I want her.
I’ve always wanted her.
Good thing I’m doing such a good job preparing her to leave me.
Idiot.