Chapter Sixteen. Rowan
SIXTEEN
Rowan
I should expect the knock on the door, but it startles me anyway when it happens. Winnie barks like a loon but I just sit and stare at the slab of wood and try to process how I feel about any of this.
It’s more than I wanted or was promised. It’s the board seat he offered and then a new, elevated title that I don’t particularly understand at this point.
“Open up, Rowan. I know you’re in there.”
If I don’t talk, he’ll go away eventually, right? But … do I want him to?
“If you weren’t, Winnie would be in her crate and not standing at the door.”
Shit.
“We need to talk. I … I was always going to fulfill my promise to you,” he says as I rise to my feet.
“I knew Rhett wouldn’t sign the deal if I presented it to him with you having a board seat and voting shares.
So we closed our deal, signed it per our original agreement, and then I had my legal team draw up documents to make these adjustments after.
” I move to the door. “To create a new position so I could offer you a board seat.” I press my hands to it.
“I was just waiting for it all to be completed.”
“I…”
“I know about Chad. Why you agreed to marry him.” My body stiffens.
“It took me longer than it should have to figure it out, but I know all about the shares and the board seat that come with it. You don’t need that, you don’t need to go through with it because those are the same things I gave you today. ”
I don’t respond. Can’t.
“I know you can hear me,” he says.
“I want to believe you, Holden, but … how can I trust you this time? How can I…” My voice breaks and I hate how weak I sound. I hate how much I want to hope but fear to.
“How can you trust me?” His voice rises in pitch with each word, disbelief peppered in every syllable. He barks out a self-deprecating laugh that borders on hysteria. “How about because I had those documents drawn up over a month ago. I never once balked on my promise to you.”
A month ago? I hate that those three words have hope bubbling up in a way I never knew I needed.
“I have proof of it, Rowan. Page after page of proof.”
I stare at my hand on the handle and will myself to walk away. Is it so wrong that I want to believe him? That I want to think the one person who I thought backed me actually did?
“C’mon, Sunshine. Open the door.” There’s a thud against the door and I swear he is resting his forehead there.
I follow suit. “I’m going to assume you went to put the cuff links in my top drawer and saw the contract there.
That you … that you thought I betrayed you.
That you left and went to Georgia thinking I had and … whatever happened with Chad happened.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and draw in a sharp breath.
“I printed the emails out. The ones I sent to my lawyer before we closed the deal. They’re date stamped. They show I was planning this new position, the offering of a board seat to you weeks before the deal closed. C’mon, Row. Open up and let me prove it to you.”
I turn the handle without thinking, needing this to be true—not only for my sanity and my heart but for my faith in my own judgment. And when I open the door, there he is. He stands on my porch like a puppy dog with eyes begging and lips turned up in the slightest of hopeful smiles.
It’s a look I’m not used to on him and it does things to my insides that I don’t want it to do. I hold my hand out to see the proof in his.
And once he hands it over, I shut the door in his face.
“Rowan?” He laughs my name out in disbelief, but I don’t answer as I take a few steps backward until my ass is resting against a console table in my entry.
I shuffle through the papers, one after another. I take note of the dates on each email and Holden’s requests detailed beneath them.
“Please review the company bylaws I’ve attached to see what I can and can’t do given you know my end goal.”
“Please advise. What is the best way to create a new board seat and adhere to the bylaws I sent last week?”
“Get the contract drawn up ASAP for Miss Rothschild. Include the newly created position as we discussed, a board seat, and a transfer of 1 percent of my shares to her.”
“I’d like you to work on getting that contract for Rowan completed on an expedited timeline. The last thing I need is this deal going south and losing her. She’s a valuable asset to my team.”
“As you know, the deal for TinSpirits was finalized today. Thank you for taking the trip here to make sure everything ran smoothly. I don’t see the contract for Rowan though. Please forward as that is my next matter of business.”
With a heavy sigh, I lower the stack of papers and shake my head. “You could have told me,” I say through the door.
He’s silent for a beat. “I’d much rather speak to your face than the door,” he says.
I go to the door, yank it open, and hold the papers up. “Okay. Fine. These all state you were asking about it all beforehand, but you didn’t say a word to me. You didn’t even warn me. Instead, you closed the deal, you shut me out, and you treated me like—”
“What’s the first thing you would have done had I shown you the legal documents? Huh?” He takes a step closer. “Call up your lawyer or a friend to ask for her advice whether you should sign the contract or not? How fast do you think that would have been leaked out for all of Westmore to know?”
“My lawyer, my friend, would never share anything. She’s a total professional and she’s loyal to me.”
“I’m sure she is but her receptionist or paralegal might not be.
What about the guy who cleans the office at night after everyone leaves for the evening?
One of them might mention something to someone and before you know it, the game of telephone has happened in this stupid fucking town where everybody is desperate to get a leg up on someone else.
Next thing you know, Rhett is calling the deal off or putting it on hold and rewriting the bylaws to prevent me from being able to give you what I promised. ”
“He wouldn’t…” Do that. But I don’t finish the sentence because he would, and the look on Holden’s face says he knows he would.
It’s amazing how even after all this time, my first instinct is to protect and defend my brother.
“He would, Rowan.” Holden steps inside my door and shuts it at his back. “You should have heard him whining after you left today. How you’re going to set the company back, cramp his style, cause delays and problems because you’ll be on a power trip…”
“He was just pissed because you hung the picture up to remind him that was the second time you one-upped him.”
“Power move.”
I study him, my smile soft and this silly playfulness so welcome after all the heaviness between us the past two weeks. “I thought the flex was buying the painting and then cutting it up and destroying it?”
“Ah, yes. Maybe I’m reserving that for when I need to make an even bigger power move.” He reaches out to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear.
My breath hitches and I fight every urge I have to lean into it.
The sudden shift in the air between us is palpable.
I take a step back, needing the clarity I think the space will afford me, and gesture to the papers as I set them down on the table beside me. “These don’t fix everything. They don’t erase the hurt or the confusion or the massive lack of communication on your end.”
“You’re right. They don’t.” He steps toward me again. “But I’m a man of my word and I have the contract for you to sign at the office. I was thinking that might help fix it a little bit.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He chuckles. “Are you forgetting that you played a role in this too? You’re not absolved from not confronting me over seeing it.”
“Yeah. Right.” I roll my eyes. “Hey, Holden. You’re intensely secretive and have plans for world domination, but are you fine with the fact that I went in your top drawer and saw some contracts I wasn’t supposed to see?” I snort. “Because that would have gone over well.”
He struggles with an answer and rightfully so, because he knows I’m right. He knows the gut-check reaction from a man as intensely private as he is would have been explosive.
“I’m a reasonable man, Rowan,” he says softly. “For you at least.”
“What if I say no?” I whisper as my eyes dart down to his lips and then back up to his eyes.
“You won’t.” His fingers trail down my bare arm, tickling my skin, and causing me to swallow forcibly.
“What if I need more than that?”
His groan is a seductive sound that ghosts over my skin. “I’m sorry, Rowan—”
“I don’t want your apologies.” The warmth of his breath hits my lips. “You’re not forgiven.”
His eyes are locked on mine, and I see the edges crinkle as he smiles. “You didn’t let me finish. What I was going to say was, I’m sorry, but I did nothing wrong other than protect you.”
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” I murmur as my body hums with an anticipation I’ve never felt before.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” His lips are a whisper away from mine.
“You are but you broke my trust, Holden. That’s a hard thing for me to give away.”
“What will it take to earn it back?” His warm breath feathers over my lips.
“A lot more than a contract and some printed emails.”
“Noted.” He brushes his lips ever so slightly against mine. “How about we start with this, then?” Another kiss. I fight the urge to lean into him and the comfort he alone provides me. My reason tells me I need to resist. That I need to make him work harder for me. That he needs to fucking grovel.
My desire, on the other hand, screams a whole different story. It says touch me, take me, fuck me.
He cups the side of my neck with his hand so that his thumb can rub absently back and forth over the dip in my collarbone.
“Do you think that’s all it takes to win me back?” I tease.
“Sunshine, it takes a lot more than that. No man is foolish enough to think otherwise.”
Another brush of his lips. Another drip of gas on smoldering embers.
“You should know that I have a list of complaints to lodge with the new owner.”
A hand sliding down my back and yanking me so that I land squarely against him.
“Complaints, hmm?”
I run my hands up his chest and welcome the feel of the corded muscles contracting beneath. “Yes,” I murmur and scrape my nails up his neck and then thread them through his hair. “You kept this from me.”
“Can’t fault a man for wanting to make sure all his i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed.”
“You could have saved us a lot of … everything … if you’d just told me.”
“I prefer to be thorough,” he says.
I reach down and pull my dress over my head so I’m standing before him in my bra, panties, and strappy heels. “Thorough, huh?”
“Good god,” he mumbles.
“Then prove it.”
So much for holding out.
Holden chuckles. “I do believe that was the plan.”