Sneak Peek of Book 2 #2
The image of her gripping my hand from her hospital bed, whispering that she was proud of me was still fresh. I'd squeezed her frail fingers back, swallowing every drop of resentment I felt toward her son.
His jaw feathered. "I care about her."
"Keep telling yourself that." I scoffed. "Maybe one day you'll believe it."
"The tumor is benign for now," he pushed on. "But I have to get my affairs in order."
"If you came all this way fishing for pity, you've got the wrong pond."
"I don't need pity." He squared his shoulders, radiating corporate command from that little stool. "I came because we need to plan the future of my company."
Henry Ty had built his empire on firearms, locking down lucrative contracts with ghost-tier private clients and major public institutions.
The business paid staggeringly well. His personal stationery carried embossed government seals, and high-ranking military attachés were regulars at our dinner table.
Hard men in sharp suits delivered classified files in sealed briefcases and called him sir.
I'd spent my whole childhood watching the gravity of a room tilt the second he walked in, every head swiveling a degree or two toward him. Powerful people shrank in his presence, and I figured out early that I wanted nothing to do with his world.
"You're my sole heir, Sloane," he said. "That isn't up for debate.
But you don't have the background for the operational side.
And without a firm hand, the company will fall apart under you.
" He looked at me stiffly. "I need you to marry a man who understands the industry.
Someone built to handle the warfare you can't."
I shot to my feet.
"Excuse me?" I snapped, glaring at him so hard I could feel my temples throb.
"You took the one thing that made me happy after deciding it wasn't up to your standards.
You stripped my choices away and called it fatherly love.
And now you've got the nerve to order me to marry a stranger so you can die with your corporate ledger balanced? "
"The candidate I've selected is a formidable man—"
"I don't give a damn who he is!" I cut him off.
"He's brilliant. He understands the cutthroat nature of the business. I trust—"
"For years, you told me the man I loved wasn't right for me!
You mapped out my failure like it was a sure thing.
And you were wrong! It cost me something I can't get back.
" My chest heaved, but I kept my voice sharp and steady.
"It didn't just wreck me. An innocent person got caught in the fallout, someone who deserved so much better.
I couldn't give him what he needed, because I didn't know better!
" I fisted my hands until my fingernails dug to my skin.
"And now you want me to trust your supreme judgment about who I tie my whole life to? "
He held my glare. The skin under his left eye twitched once, then he smoothed it back into place.
"Just think about it," he said. He stood, adjusted his lapels, and slid the stool back against the brick.
"Think about it," he repeated, then turned on his heel and walked out.
The studio dropped into a ringing quiet.
I walked to the front window and pressed my bare palm flat to the cold glass. The chill from the outside air bled straight through the pane.
He'd already broken a part of me once.
I'd loved a man and walked away because my courage ran dry. He'd become collateral damage I still dragged around like a ball and chain. My father's booming voice had played prophet to our doom, calling the relationship a failure before it had a fighting chance.
When my heart finally broke, he never offered a shred of comfort. He never said, I'm sorry you're hurting. He just walked away, back to his embossed stationery and his sealed briefcases, and left me alone to sort through the wreckage.
Drawing in a series of deep breaths to calm my nerves, I stayed cemented there until the cold from the window numbed my hand. I let it linger, holding on to the grounding sting, then stepped back when my phone rang again.
Violet's name flashed across the screen, and I swiped to answer.
"Hey," she murmured. "You holding up okay?"
"I'm fine. What's the emergency?"
She hesitated, chewing on her words. "I need you to come over. The fancy wedding planner I hired is a disaster. I need you, your ruthless brain, and your willingness to tell me when a centerpiece looks like hot garbage."
I chuckled. "Give me an hour. I'll be there."
"Thank God!" Her voice dropped an octave. "Ah, Sloane... There's one more thing..."
"Is it your parents?" I braced myself. "Are they coming?"
"No." She paused. "I pulled their invitations."
Sympathy tugged hard in my chest.
Violet and I had a thousand things in common, but nothing stitched us together like our disastrous families.
Hers and mine were toxic in the same ways, just set in different fonts.
She'd grown up under parents who physically showed up and still managed to overlook her, always measuring her worth against a shifting metric and calling the abuse concern.
While I had a father who hunted territorial dominance everywhere he went, and a mother who'd decided decades ago that checking out beat clocking in.
We'd both been hauling that generational baggage long before our paths crossed. And somewhere in those first months of friendship, we'd realized we never had to spell it out for each other.
"Good for you."
"Xavier is coming to the wedding," she sputtered.
My stomach dropped.
Continue Reading in Book 2: Waiting For You