18. Alex #4
I glance at the car waiting for me, then back at Edward. I came here for Riverside Falls, for Mom, for enough distance to clear my head. Getting into a car with him is probably the worst possible detour.
I do it anyway.
He waits until we leave the airport.
“You have spent your adult life building something extraordinary.”
“Here we go.”
“I will not watch you burn it because of an ancient clause in a legal document.”
“You were very fond of that ancient clause yesterday.”
“I am fond of results.”
That, at least, is true.
“I made an arrangement with the Shaws.”
I turn toward him. “You sound like a broken record.”
“It is not what you think.”
“I told you not to interfere.”
“Shaw understands the terms,” Edward says. “There would be no pretense that this is romantic or an actual marriage.”
I stare at him.
“Five years. You satisfy the succession requirement. An heir within the agreed period. Once the requirement is secured, the marriage can be renegotiated, dissolved, or continued if both parties prefer.”
“No.”
“Talk to Shaw yourself. She knows the score. She wants no fairy tale from you.”
“Good for her.”
“She understands discretion, public obligations and what would be expected privately. You both enter it knowing exactly what it is.”
My stomach turns. “You’re describing livestock.”
“I’m describing a legal arrangement between adults with compatible interests.”
“I don’t have compatible interests.”
“You want to keep the company.”
“I was prepared to lose it.”
Edward looks at me. “Were?”
I hate that I used the past tense. I look toward the window. Rain starts lightly against the glass.
Belle’s voice returns.
I want out.
Polanski.
Belle Mitchell’s name is on the authorization.
I told Edward yesterday that Belle was worth losing the company for.
I believed it.
Part of me still does.
That is the worst part.
Because I no longer know whether I can trust her, and somehow that has not made me need her less. If anything, the thought of returning to Dallas and finding her gone makes it difficult to breathe.
Edward continues.
“This arrangement does not require you to reorganize every other part of your life.”
My eyes return to him. He sees it.
“You understand what I’m saying.”
Unfortunately, I do. The idea takes shape before I can stop it.
Cold.
Ugly.
Convenient.
Shaw gets the arrangement she agreed to. The board gets its succession plan. Edward gets the heir he has been demanding, and I keep the company.
Belle—
My jaw locks.
She wants me. Whatever else she refuses to tell me, I know that much. She reaches for me in her sleep. Comes apart in my hands. Looks for me when she thinks I am not there. And whether she admits it or not, she is safer with my protection around her.
Maybe I have been asking for too much beyond that.
I tried to make this honest. Tried to drag trust out of something built on sex, anger, and ten years of wanting each other. Tried to find the people we were at twenty and somehow make them fit the lives we have now.
It is not working.
So I stop asking questions she will not answer. She stops promising me a truth she cannot give me. I give her the apartment, security, money, whatever she needs. If she wants me, she has me. But I stop handing her the parts of myself she could take with her if she disappears again.
Shaw gives the board its heir.
Belle stays exactly what she is to me now. The thought is vicious.
And I get to keep her without making the mistake of believing she can be my future.
It is a cruel solution.
It is also the first one that feels simple.
Edward watches me for a moment. “You’re considering it.”
“No.”
“You are.”
I look away.
Why does anything need to change? Belle already knows we have never called what happens between us a relationship.
She is the one hiding things. She is the one asking for more time. She is the one telling someone else she wants out.
Maybe this is the only version of us that has a chance. No promises I cannot trust. No questions she cannot answer. Nothing left for either of us to break that has not already been broken once.
I think of Mom waiting at the ranch and know exactly what will happen if I go. She will take one look at me and see straight through every excuse before I have finished making it. Right now, I do not want anyone talking me out of this.
I pull out my phone. “Cancel the car.”
Edward looks over. “You’re not going to Riverside Falls?”
“No.”
For once, he leaves the silence alone.
“Where are you going?”
I look out at the rain streaking the window. “Your place.”
That earns me another glance before he nods.
My phone stays dark in my hand. Belle cannot call me while it is off, and I do not have to see whatever she has sent since the plane landed. For once, she is the one who does not know where I am or when I am coming back.
The thought should bother me more than it does.
I need one night without her voice pulling me in one direction and ten years of doubt dragging me in the other. One night to decide what I can live with, what I cannot, and how much of the truth I am willing to stop waiting for.
The car turns toward Edward’s house.
I leave the phone off.