Chapter Fifty-Seven. Holden
FIFTY-SEVEN
Holden
“Eat,” Audrey says as she slides a plate of chicken salad onto my desk.
I look up at her and lift my eyebrows.
“She’s working remotely. Again. She can be reached via email if you need something for the company.
The proposal will be completed on time. And Rupert Rothschild continues to improve steadily.
” She dusts her hands. “That about covers all the questions you’re asking me daily. Do you need anything further?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Yep.” She moves to open the blinds on the far side of the wall. “Also, you look like shit.”
“Charming, as usual.” I clear my throat. “And the updates aren’t needed.”
She stops and levels me with a glare. “No?”
Rowan won’t come into work. But I know she’s working because I see the contracts come across. I’m cc’d on emails she sends other people.
Just not ones I send her.
She’s a goddamn ghost. Stubborn and defiant and literally emotionally fucking me up further with each and every goddamn day that passes.
“No. No updates are needed.”
“Noted,” she says curtly and stops when she reaches the door.
“I’m not going to tell you I told you so.
I’m not even going to go as far as saying I kind of like the Holden Knight she brought out in you, but I am going to say this.
She deserves more than I think you can give her.
More than you’re willing to. And for that, for her, I’m glad whatever happened, happened. Take it for whatever you fucking will.”
“I didn’t think you liked her,” I murmur.
She looks at me and smiles. “I don’t like anyone, except you, of course.”
It’s the first real smile I’ve given in days. Leave it to Audrey to know what to say and do to snap me out of my funk.
Because she’s right. Rowan deserves better than this. Than me. And I can’t give that to her. I can’t bend on who I am and what I’ve set out to accomplish.
She stood there and begged me to have a heart, to show her my heart, and I showed her who I am at heart instead.
A man with a goal she doesn’t understand.
A big brother fulfilling a promise to his little brother and mother.
A person who needs to carry out his own definition of justice since no one thought his brother mattered.
A man willing to torture himself and his own scarred heart to carry all this out.
Even to his own detriment.
Chad’s excited chatter snaps me from my thoughts. From the never-ending circle of regret over hurting Rowan and then realization that this is how it has to be.
I got too close.
I let my guard down.
I fell in fucking love with one of my marks.
That’s all on me.
I’d like to think her absence is because she’s plotting how to stab a knife in my back. That’s very Rowan.
And yet, all I can think of is the look in her eyes when she stormed out of my apartment. The hurt. The betrayal. The everything that floated through her eyes that I put there.
Complications.
You said no to them and walked head-fucking-first into them, didn’t you, Knight?
But the show must go fucking on.
I rise from my chair and move toward the conference room where I’ve watched Chad and Rhett come and go over the last few hours.
They are negotiating with Bob over the WillowBend details.
Little do they know I’m Bob and I’m literally sitting fifty feet from them making their lives miserable.
Good.
They deserve it, and right now, of all times, I more than enjoy having someone to toy with to keep me preoccupied.
“Gentlemen,” I say when I walk into the conference room. I rather enjoy watching them inconspicuously try to cover up the paperwork scattered on the table. The WillowBend offer.
I’m met with steely glares just as I expected. Rhett is still livid with me and Chad is still humiliated by me.
Fucking perfect.
The saddest part of this whole thing is that Rhett is more upset with me because his sister hurt his best friend. He doesn’t give a fuck about his sister. Not in the least.
“We’re busy,” Rhett says.
I rest my ass against the console table and fold my arms anyway.
“What seems to have the two of you so busy? Work stuff? Scheming again on how to gain more kickbacks? Or is it election stuff? Have the palms you greased not stayed slippery enough, because from what I’ve overheard you guys talk about, you were a shoo-in to win? ”
“We don’t have time for your bullshit right now, Knight,” Rhett says.
“We’re in the middle of something. Do you mind?” Chad chimes in.
Funny how all those years ago, I never expected him to turn out to be the pussy in all of this.
“Must be awesome to be Rhett’s little bitch, huh? But then again.” I shrug as the tendons in their necks grow taut. “You probably know where the other has buried the bodies so, little bitch, big bitch—neither matters so long as no one spills the other’s secrets, right?”
“What’s your fucking point?” Rhett barks.
“Nothing really. Just cruising around my company to get a feel for what everyone is working on.” I offer a smug smile. “So what are we in the middle of? Plotting my demise so soon? And I thought we were all getting along so well.”
“We’re on a deadline here. We don’t have time for this,” Chad says.
“We. We. We. Such a cute couple.” I purse my lips.
“I’ll have you know I don’t look too highly on employees using company time to do their own business.
Shit, Rhett. You need to up your game. You’re on shaky fucking ground considering all the new suppliers your sister has brought in.
She’s running circles around you. I can understand why that might make you feel a tad bit inferior. ”
“You’d be the one to know what she is and isn’t doing, right? Since she jumped in the sack with—”
“Careful.” My voice is a low, charged warning. “That’s a line I wouldn’t dare fucking cross if I were you.”
“No. That’s a line you weren’t supposed to cross,” Chad says.
I hold his glare, can even appreciate the fact that he grew a pair and said it, but now, I’m going to fuck with them even further. Drumroll, please. “Check your watchdog, Rhett. You wouldn’t want him scaring away your number-one campaign contributor.”
“No thanks,” Rhett says arrogantly.
“You’re going to turn down my $1 million donation?” That got your fucking attention, didn’t it? “I figure you might need a little help pushing you over that threshold to win.”
“Blood money, huh?” Rhett asks.
“Spoken like a true entitled prick.” My smile is lethal. “I offer you a million dollars and you look a gift horse in the mouth. Didn’t your parents teach you anything?”
“Don’t talk about my parents.”
I laugh and hold my hands up. “Fine. Don’t take the donation. No fucking skin off my back.”
But you’re going to need it, Rhett. You and pretty boy Chad are going to need it.
The question is, what are you going to do with it?
“You fuck my sister. You steal my company. And now you’re offering me a million-dollar donation because you realized neither of those things got you where you needed to be.
So now you’re trying to kiss my ass because you need me.
Because you’ll need me to help you when I’m on the city council.
You’ll know what it feels like when the tables are turned. ”
I plant both hands on the conference table so that I’m up close and fucking personal to the prick.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Rothschild.
You gave your company away. You gave it away because you’ve fucked up so many other things in your and your family’s lives that you don’t have a fucking choice.
” His eyes widen. Yeah. Ask me what I know, fucker, because you’ll be shocked.
I lean in closer. “I had a thing with your sister. It’s over.
And rest assured, I don’t want anything from you that I don’t already have.
If I did, I’d take it, and there’s not a goddamn thing you’d be able to do to stop me. ”