Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GREYSON
Sin. Of course she’s Sin. Who else would it have been? Ace was always playing puppet master with our futures when he was alive, why wouldn’t he do it from the grave as well?
I remove the coin he gave me eight years ago. I didn’t understand what it meant back then, but maybe I’m starting to now.
“Grey, you okay?” Braxton asks. I’m standing in one of our conference rooms because the second Savvy went into my private bathroom, I needed space. Space to think, to breathe, to make a fucking plan.
“Did you know?” I ask.
Braxton read my letter from Ace’s will, just as I read his.
He slowly lowers himself into a chair opposite me. “No, but I had my suspicions, as I’m sure you did.”
Yeah, I had them. But no one in their right mind would ever think Savvy and I could be… Jesus, I’m trying to protect her, yet she challenges me as though I’m the enemy.
“This is so fucked-up, Brax.”
“I don’t believe the DeVanes made any connection to us until Ace showed up to get her,” he says. “And the Ashfords are known to be patient vipers. I’m sure they’ve been lying in wait for a moment to strike, so the instant a romantic connection between the two of you was leaked, they struck.”
Braxton frowns, tugging at the back of his neck with an aggressive grip.
“They’ve probably been secretly watching her since the moment Ace rescued her, if not even before then.
Moving Omni-Reyes to Georgia probably piqued their interest even more, but the gossip sites were definitely the catalyst for this attack.
There’s no denying they were behind the photos being released, and I doubt they would even try.
They want everyone to know they’re coming for her. ”
My skin crawls, and I want to peel it off layer by layer until I’m no longer coated in the sins of assholes.
“You’re right,” I say. “But they have no idea who her family is now.”
“Greyson.” Quinn steps into the conference room and shuts the door. She visibly stiffens when she spots Brax in the chair.
“What?” I’ve lost the ability to control my emotions, and my lethal tone is the only warning I give.
Braxton watches us both closely, too closely. Does he see something in Quinn that I’ve missed?
Quinn smooths down her skirt. “I have the press release you asked for, but Kristen is suggesting I implore one more time that you truly think about this, and she is the only crisis PR specialist here. You have a company depending on you, and this is the kind of scandal that won’t go away anytime soon.
After the mess with…” She waves an indifferent hand in Braxton’s direction.
“After the mess with my father, and our grandfather’s company, you mean?” Braxton’s cool demeanor is a shock. The guy goes around doing daily good deeds for strangers, for fuck’s sake. Unlike me, he doesn’t have an assholish bone in his body.
“Well, yes. We’re still trying to recover from all the…
changes, and to be frank, Grey has been forced to handle a lot on his own.
I believe another scandal will push us to a point of no return.
Ace built this company on honor and integrity.
Marrying a goddamn stripper is just reinforcing the narrative that all the gossip columns and competitors are perpetuating about you. ”
The way I suddenly want to fire this woman has me clenching my jaw so tightly I might crack a molar. If I open my mouth, a lawsuit will undoubtedly follow.
It’s my own fault, perhaps. Over the years, I’ve given Quinn more responsibilities and freedoms than most. When I ran back to California, she’s one of the only reasons I didn’t fail.
She stepped in when I was at my lowest with no one to turn to.
She’s essentially become my executive assistant at the office and the COO of my messy family life.
That’s why I’m surprised when Braxton stands slowly and with purpose, making him seem even bigger than his six feet four inches.
“Let me explain something to you, Quinn, about our grandfather’s company.” Braxton’s voice is rough, as though he’s containing a terrarium full of venom beneath his words. This is not the Braxton she’s ever met before. Hell, I’ve only seen him come out a handful of times.
Braxton’s methodical as he rounds the table to stand at my side, a visual representation that we’re on the same team.
“It doesn’t matter that Grey isn’t related to Ace by blood. Family is family, and our great-grandfather, our grandfather, and now we have built this company to be what it is for one reason and one reason only. Do you know what that is?”
Quinn visibly swallows even as her posture screams her displeasure.
“No?” Braxton’s tone is mocking, and again, I wonder what I’m missing between these two.
“This company was built on and thrived because of the love we have for the women in our lives. Great-grandad started Omni-Reyes so his wife could publish whatever she wanted in a time when women weren’t supposed to have a voice.
Ace transformed the company so his wife could direct film and television projects before society thought women should be in control. And us?”
“We’re evolving again to build Sunshine Studios into the platform best suited to help our wives succeed,” I finish for him. And nothing has ever felt more right. Savvy Monroe may not want to be my wife yet, but sometimes destiny is more powerful than our own stubborn minds.
“That may be true, but your grandparents were acting on love. Love makes you go to unimaginable lengths. What happens when this—this farce implodes, and the world feels betrayed by your lies?”
“Fortunately for you, that irrational fear is above your pay grade.” The jab hits exactly as Braxton intended.
“As you’ve said a number of times, this is a family business, and you are not family.
Your job is to assist Grey in whatever he deems appropriate.
Are you able to do that, or should we reassign you? ”
“I’m excellent at my job, Braxton, and I’ve more than proved that every time you shirked your responsibilities.”
“Hmm,” he hums. “We might need to agree to disagree here. But perhaps it’s time that some lines were rebuilt. Mr. Reyes seems appropriate here from now on.” He turns to me with a raised brow. “For both of us.”
It feels as though he’s daring me to contradict him, but I’ll never go against my brother, and I will find out what the hell’s going on sooner rather than later.
“While the engagement may be sudden,” I say, needing to defuse the situation, “I assure you, there’s nothing fake about my impending marriage. Savvy and I have been in a relationship almost as long as Brax and Madi have.”
It feels like the most honest statement I’ve shared in a long time, and if there weren’t already such a shitstorm waiting for us, I might have dug deeper into the hidden meaning behind it. But for now, all she needs to know is that I mean it with my whole fucking chest.
It’s not Quinn’s business that the relationship I speak of has mostly consisted of sex and verbal sparring. If I can make her believe it, then we’ll have no problem convincing the world too.
Quinn raises a skeptical brow, but Braxton chuckles. “I told Madi it wasn’t a coincidence at Christmas when Savvy went into the kitchen put together and came out with her pants on inside out.”
His words seem to irritate her more, and she pales.
“That’s all for now, Quinn.” My tone is dismissive and unyielding. “Please leave the press release on the table, and I’ll call if I require anything else today.”
She opens her mouth to speak, then appears to think better of it because she tosses the folder onto the table and walks out without a word.
I follow her to the door and quietly shut it.
“Care to tell me what the hell that was about?” I ask. My voice isn’t raised—Braxton and I will always be a team, but he has some explaining to do.
“Madi has always gotten a weird vibe from Quinn. Then when you went back to California, she started lashing out at me with little barbs, like she did today about not being there for you. Almost as though she took it as a personal affront that I didn’t chase after you.
But after all of today’s revelations, I realized something. ”
“What?”
“Well, for starters, the photos of Savvy didn’t circulate until after someone announced that you were stranded during a hurricane with a mystery woman.
The moment Savvy was exposed—all her secrets leaked—almost as if someone had an entire press kit ready to go.
” He tugs on his earlobe, and it’s so close to what Sage does when he’s thinking that it makes my chest ache with memories that will never again be a reality.
It’s another reminder that we’re all drifting apart and I’m not always going to be part of their day-to-day. Then a flash of Savvy’s face enters my mind, and the void I’ve been attempting to fill suddenly feels less like a black hole and more like a pinprick.
Jesus. I rub at my heart with my knuckles. It’s racing as though I just ran a marathon. Just thinking about Savvy gives me heartburn.
“True,” I say. “But wasn’t it Betty at the diner who outed Savvy?”
“But how many people knew you canceled your meetings with Quinn at the last minute? The rest of the executive team had already been sent home, and as far as they knew, you were heading to the inn to be with your family, so who else knew you were at home and not at the inn with the rest of us? The story that you’d ‘gone missing’ was out there before anything was released about Savvy.
And what better way to spread that particular gossip than by stopping in the diner and letting it slip? ”
He’s right. I had planned to ride out the storm at the inn with him and Sage, but it hit so suddenly, I’d decided to stay home right before Savvy turned up.