Hayes
twenty-five
Istand at the large factory-style windows of the Elysium Garden overlooking Savannah at The Abyss, nursing a glass of Underworld Spirits bourbon.
Paige is off somewhere down there having her bridal portraits taken in preparation for the giant wedding her mother is insistent on throwing, and I’m here wondering how the last month could have changed me so irrevocably.
A month ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about what a gorgeous twenty-one-year-old woman was doing somewhere in this city.
A month ago, I wouldn’t have been anxious to get home—to an actual home here in Savannah rather than the small flat I have here in the nightclub—so I can hear about her day.
A month ago, all I cared about was getting my hands on the hotel chain of a prominent family here in town. A family that I now belong to, for better or for worse.
A month ago, I wasn’t planning to get married—let alone do it again—two days from now.
A month ago, I hadn’t met the sweetest woman who would irreparably turn my life upside down and have me begging for more.
I must be feeling particularly sentimental to be having these thoughts, and a part of me wants to shut it all down and feel less.
Yet, I’m willingly recounting each of the weeks since I met Paige right here in this garden, thinking about what it will be like to see her walk through it again when she’s coming to recite wedding vows to me, in front of our closest friends and family members this time.
I take a sip of bourbon and let the fiery liquor roll over my tongue before swallowing.
I turn to the tree next to me and reach into the boughs, finding the leathery skin of a ripe pomegranate and plucking it from the branch.
I’ll take this home and feed it to Paige, aril by aril, until she’s coated in the sticky sweet-tart juice, then I’ll lick it off her skin and turn her into the same burning need that I have become because of her.
I am infatuated with the woman. She haunts every thought, bewitches me with every word, beguiles me with a single look.
I am obsessed with her, and my desire is fathomless.
I want to wrap myself around her, worship her body, and claim her soul.
I want her to know every aching need I have for her, and for her to make me feel even more in turn.
I have an unhealthy fixation with my wife, and I’m damn pleased about it.
Heavy, pulsing beats of music reverberate against my feet, letting me know that the club has opened for the evening, and it’s time to leave The Abyss in order to find my wife.
As I turn toward the private door to my office and flat, I hear the main door to the garden open, and I pause. For a moment, I wonder if it’s Paige come to find me, but that thought is quickly doused and my smile slips from my lips when I hear a masculine voice call out.
“I know you’re up here. Where are you hiding, Hayes?”
Tavi. No, Tavi was your friend. This is Rex, your rival in all things, I correct myself.
I step out onto the path that winds through the greenhouse and slowly walk toward Octavius Rex, who stands at the French doors separating the greenhouse from the elevator vestibule that leads to the main floors of the club.
“What do you want now?”
“I heard you own this place and thought we could have a chat. I saw your pretty little wife was busy having photos taken at The Mansion, so you had to be available.”
I tighten my grip on the tumbler in my hand. I have to remind myself to keep a loose grip on the pomegranate in the other so as not to crush it, despite wanting to do just that.
“I told you to stop following my wife, Rex.” The growl in my words carries a warning. I’m one wrong word away from carrying out the threat.
“I’m staying at The Mansion, so technically she came to me,” he says, hands in his pockets and shoulders scrunching up in a shrug.
“I just happened to see her walking the property with a photographer and knew she was busy. Can’t fault me for taking the opportunity when it was handed to me like that. ”
I can and I will. I don’t like him anywhere near Paige. I don’t trust his motives, and know he has plenty of reason to want to hurt me. Obviously, Paige is my soft spot, and someone like him, with an axe to grind, would want to hit me right where he knows it would hurt most.
“Stay away from her. If she shows up somewhere you are, turn the other fucking way and get the hell out.”
Rex tsks and shakes his head. “See, you can’t dictate what others do in real life, Hayes.
That’s some weird billionaire bullshit you’ve got going on there.
” He takes a hand out of his pocket and gestures around the greenhouse garden.
“Speaking of which, this is some place you got here. Never took you for a plant lover, but I can certainly see the appeal.” Rex changes tack and I grit my teeth.
“What are you doing here? I assume you have a reason, so out with it.”
“What, I couldn’t stop by the most prestigious nightclub in town looking to talk to an old friend?”
“We both know your motives aren’t that pure. You want something.” We’re certainly not friends anymore.
“Actually, I have a proposition for you. Something that may make your life easier. I know it can’t be fun watching your good name and the business you’ve built get dragged through the mud.”
I don’t trust Rex as far as I can throw him, and having him clocking in at an inch taller than me, it wouldn’t be far at all.
There is a catch in whatever game he is playing right now, and it’ll likely fuck me over in some fashion.
He’s a cunning devil. I would know; we were forged into the men we are now through the same gauntlets of our youth.
“What will this proposition of yours cost me?” I lazily take a sip of the remaining bourbon in my tumbler, my eyes not leaving him.
“Certainly not your soul, you don’t have one to bargain with.” He smiles, and it actually reaches his eyes, something I haven’t seen from him in years.
“You’re stalling,” I drawl. I smell weakness. I feel my lips curling up into my own smile, though it likely will just make my eyes appear hungry instead of happy. “You actually need something from me.”
Rex stretches his arms to his sides and shrugs in a you got me way. “I happen to know who's behind the lawsuit you’re facing, and I have exactly the leverage to make them drop it. Think that’s enough of a bargaining chip?”
It certainly is, though I doubt he’d give that information to me without demanding far more in return.
I still think he has something to do with the lawsuit, and this could be his way of setting me up for more hurt.
I tilt my head and study him, seeing the friend he used to be and feeling a pang of loss that my actions and ambitions changed forever.
Paige is in my head even now, demanding empathy from me when I need to be more calculating than ever.
“Come with me.” I gesture for him to follow and turn, walking to the hidden door to my office.
I hear his steps following on the gravel path and know I’ve won, despite not knowing what he needs in return.
I’ll figure it out and I’ll make him pay to get it.
If he thinks I don’t have a soul now, it’ll be him leaving his behind tonight.
I open the metal door and lead Rex through the short hallway to my office, letting him follow me in, and close the door. I settle myself at the large mahogany desk and gesture for him to take one of the leather chairs facing me across it.
I plant my elbows on the desk and steeple my fingers. “What do you want from me?” I feel a giddiness that only surfaces when something of value is at stake. When it’s mine to own if I play my hand well. The risk makes it more enjoyable.
Rex crosses an ankle over his knee and leans back, looking far too comfortable despite what this may cost him. “I have a line on another mine that would replace your holdings in South Africa and make you even more filthy rich.”
“We just acquired a handful of mines a month ago. Why would I need more, even if South Africa isn’t panning out?”
“You were intentionally sabotaged with South Africa. You need to bring the culprit to justice and cut your losses.”
“And what makes you so keen to provide this information, if it’s even true?”
“I want a seat on the board.” Rex leans forward, elbows on his knees, and levels a calculating look on me. He is deadly serious and thinks whatever information he has is worth putting a fox in the hen house to get it.
I let my hands drop and flatten against the desk, holding Rex’s gaze as he seriously asks to be made a part of Olympus, and not just in any old VP or C-suite role, but on the board—the supreme governing body where our company is concerned, and the only thing that could stop me or my brothers from doing as we please with the direction of the company.
“What sort of delusional mindset would have you think we would ever consider adding you to the board of any of our holdings?“ I ask, pushing the request off onto a subsidiary rather than Olympus, hoping that’s the extent of his reach.
Rex leans back and scoffs at me. “Not just on the board of one of your paltry holdings. I want on the Olympus International board.”
I scowl at him. The current board of Olympus International is made up of my brothers, me, my father, and two of his colleagues who were given their places when my brothers and I took over the company.
It was a way for the older generation of my father’s mining operations to still be a part of the company as we charged forward into diversifying and making a name for ourselves on the global stage.
They have kept us conservative in certain situations and allowed us to go all out when it benefited the company most. Adding a seventh member to the board could more than disrupt the trajectory of Olympus, and Rex would have more opportunities to stand in our way.
“You can’t possibly be that delusional. Why are you asking now?”
“There are plenty of reasons I can give you, but the most important one is that you took the only path I had away from me when you bought Rex, Inc., and you owe me something in return. That, and I can make your current legal issues disappear and make things right in your world again.”
“From where I’m sitting it looks like I did you a favor and made your worries disappear when we took over Rex, Inc.
I’m sure your father is enjoying a comfortable retirement, and you’ve learned how to build an empire of your own off the ruins of something that would have sunk you had you stepped into the role you were slated for.
” Though I speak with conviction, I have a nagging sense of guilt for the situation I caused and hope I can make him see it the way I’ve painted it now.
Rex casually waves away my reasoning. “Hayes, Hayes, Hayes. Always looking to be the savior despite your ulterior motives. You didn’t actually think you were helping me when you forced your way in and made my father sell.
You did it because you were greedy and wanted the company that was built on the back of my family.
It wasn’t to make my life easier, that’s for damn sure, and it’s in spite of your actions that I made something of it rather than because of it. ”
I stand and walk to the bar by the window overlooking a slice of the Savannah River, grabbing the bourbon and pouring two fingers worth into a couple of cut-glass tumblers.
I hand one to Rex and lean against my desk in front of him before taking a sip.
The fire is clarifying, stinging away the guilt I feel, and the absurdity of what Rex is asking.
I need to know his motives, know what’s making him reach for this like Icarus for the sun.
Would I do anything differently in his position? The thought surprises me, and it sounds a lot like Paige. I shake my head and huff out a quiet laugh. My wife isn’t just my obsession, she’s becoming my conscience as well.
“What you’re offering still wouldn’t make me let you anywhere near Olympus, let alone give you a seat on the board, but I am sorry I let my ambition ruin our friendship.” The words are like broken glass in my mouth, hard to swallow but good to get out after all this time.
Rex tilts his head, studying me. “I might actually believe that you are, but it doesn’t change what happened.”
And this is why apologies are just for the one doing the apologizing. The mere fact that I’m contrite and admit fault can’t make him accept the apology or make anything right between us. That’s a lesson I’ve learned only too recently with what I did to Paige.
“No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change my motivations in the moment either, despite what I know now. Still, I’m sorry.”
“Tell me something, would you still make that move knowing how your ambition fucked up a friendship?” Rex sips the bourbon. “Damn, that’s good,” he says quietly, holding the glass up to the light and studying the amber liquor while giving me a moment to ponder the question.
Would I? Paige once asked me why Rex’s legacy, and not another transportation company. I knew the intimate details of Rex, Inc. because of my friendship with Rex and hearing from him what their struggles were.
I used my insider knowledge to lead the deal, striking where it hurt and making our offer the only option my friend’s father, Balthazar, could take.
I could very well have targeted another company with similar gains, yet I didn’t.
Rex is right, I was trying to be a savior, because I went after his company with the mindset that I was doing something for him, despite quite the opposite.
“I possibly would do things differently now,” I admit quietly, looking into my own glass of bourbon like it’s an oracle that will reveal the perfect response, when it doesn’t, I continue. “Why do you want on the board at Olympus?”
He gives me a wry, knowing look. “Hayes, you know why. It’s the only thing either of us really wants. Power.”