Chapter 22
I looked down at my email, reading the latest business proposal from Morgan as I stood in line at the local sandwich shop, grabbing the sandwich that provided the most calories for the best price.
Hey, a deal was a deal. If I was going to make this work, I couldn’t be eating steak every night. I couldn’t be eating at fancy restaurants. I couldn’t be ordering delivery and paying the extra fees.
The funny thing was, while Morgan had made it sound like some sort of impossible, difficult task, it was relatively easy for me.
It felt far more natural to be poor—or at least eat poor—than it had to live the wealthy lifestyle the Hunts so enjoyed.
I had come from poverty, even if I could barely remember it, and those memories were imprinted hard on me.
In some ways… well, I wasn’t going to say it was easier than being rich, that would be disingenuous. I certainly didn’t have to think about it as much.
Two days had passed since Morgan had given me the offer.
In the moment, we had agreed with a handshake, if not a full contract.
Then, bless his heart, a trade happened—Morgan walked out the door, let Stephanie and the other girl whose name I couldn’t remember walk back in, and sexy times ensued.
Oh, let me tell you, that may have been the best deal Morgan ever gave me.
It was one thing to wake up next to a beautiful woman, not remember anything from the night before, and take some satisfaction in what had happened. It was another to be sober, see two walk in, and be able to enjoy it to the fullest.
We did just about everything and anything, including sex against the hotel window, one of my favorites after Layla and I had done it. There was just something about presenting the girl to the world of New York that felt so primal—as if saying “she is mine, I have her, and none of you can.”
When I finished, though, I felt a strange feeling that I had not expected.
Yearning.
Even though a large part of me hated Layla for what she had done and wanted to not just never forgive her but to enact revenge, a small voice in my head missed the company.
Wild sex like I had just had was fun, but part of me remembered us cuddling up for Netflix and eating tacos.
Part of me missed those baby wipe jokes, those looks we’d give each other in the office, the smiles we traded.
Part of me wanted…
No, I couldn’t quite say I wanted Layla back.
Well, there was a part of me that did, but it took no heavy thinking to push that away. Even if my mind stupidly wanted Layla back, an ounce of common sense said she wasn’t worth it.
I think, instead, I just missed having that emotional connection that I had with Layla. Time had proved that connection fake, but it sure as hell felt real in the moment. It sure felt like something that I needed to go back to.
And as fun as a threesome with two busty brunettes was, as much as it seemed like a fantasy out of a porn movie, it just didn’t provide as much satisfaction as being close to a single person.
Not to say I didn’t enjoy the hell out of what had transpired.
The only reason we left was because we had to check out of the hotel and the girls had to be somewhere.
I didn’t pretend I would ever see them again, which was fine with me.
Morgan obviously knew them well enough to contact them for me if need be, and they didn’t pretend to have fallen for me in some mad fashion. It was a mutually pleasurable exchange.
But thinking about Layla had fucked with me.
Nevertheless, as Sunday night approached, I managed to get her out of my mind well enough.
I instead was able to consider the deal in more detail, now that I didn’t have the salesmanship of sober Morgan against hungover me.
It still felt like a good deal. I appreciated that Morgan was honest about the degree of work I’d have—that alone told me he wasn’t like his father, Mr. Hunt, who never would have uttered a word that might have made someone hesitant.
But there was the reality that if I did this, I was still tied to the Hunts. It was a much better proposition than being tied to Mr. Hunt, but being tied to Morgan meant I could never be Chance Givens. I would always be Chance Hunt, brother of Morgan.
Of all the possibilities, I guess that worked, but…
Then again, what did I really want to be distinct from—did I want to move away from the last name Hunt, or the businessman Edwin Hunt?
Mrs. Melanie Hunt had never steered me wrong.
Sure, she had her quirks and her lack of life energy upset me, but she was not a bad person like her husband that she didn’t really love.
Morgan was, in many ways, the only true friend I had in this world.
They had the last name Hunt, but that was far different than the name Hunt from Edwin.
Just like someone could have a last name associated with an evil world ruler, that did not automatically make them the evil person.
It wasn’t something that I had figured out in my head yet, but it was something that I was getting closer to solving, at least.
I went through the particulars of the deal.
We each had a 50-50 split, which also told me Morgan was being honest. We would both be fully vested after two years, with 25 percent becoming available after every six months.
If someone left early, the unvested ownership would go to the other person.
Morgan had put up $100,000 to help us research, meet, and engage clients; if we gained a client we needed to invest in, he could easily put up the money but swore he would not tilt the investment percentage in his favor. He swore as much in his contract.
We would try not to take outside money, because why the hell would we when we could just slip some of Mrs. Hunt’s allowance in there?
If we did, however, we would take the hit equally, and we would discuss it for a period of at least seven days before coming to a mutual conclusion, the better to avoid rash, stupid decisions.
Although we were listed as co-owners and co-CEOs, the job duties made me more of a COO and Morgan more as a CEO.
That was fine—I really couldn’t be picky at this point about job titles.
Just having something to do besides watch Netflix and sit there depressed until I picked myself up beat that alternative.
If nothing else, it would keep me so busy I wouldn’t be able to think of Layla.
Maybe in the future I’d ask for more duties, but if that happened, it was a problem of luxury. I wouldn’t have to fight for scraps on the table—then we’d be asking who had a right to the juicy part of the steak and who got the tender part of the steak.
I got to the section about what would happen if one of us perished when I got a notification on my phone.
Layla.
I had not yet deleted her number… why, I don’t know. Maybe the voice in my head begging to forgive her had some sort of clutch on me.
I sure as hell wasn’t responding here, though.
“Sir!”
I shook out of my slumber in staring at my cell phone to realize I had committed the ultimate faux paus in New York—I had delayed the efficiency of the line.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Footlong ham sandwich and a cookie, please.”
I said yes to all of the vegetables and dressings that they had, in part because as much as I hated to admit it, I was curious to see what Layla had said. I hadn’t spoken to her since that Thursday night humiliation, and I had not had any intentions on reaching to her for anything.
As soon as I got the sandwich, which I paid for using some of the cash Morgan had given me, I checked my phone. To my surprise, it was not a particularly short message.
“Chance, I need to start by saying how sorry I am. If you read nothing else, know that what I did was inexcusable. I am sorry.”
Well, it’s a start. I don’t know why she’s so sorry if she felt she had no choice to it.
“There is so much more to me than I ever told you, and I couldn’t tell it to you at the time.
There’s so much more to my uncle and me than what I let on.
I should have never let you get close. To do so was a disservice to you, but now it’s an even greater disservice because I can’t tell you what’s going on. ”
I rolled my eyes. It was a petty reaction, even though Layla wasn’t there. I knew I had to give her a chance to speak and discuss whatever she wanted to, but boy was it hard not to feel toyed with.
“I put myself in this spot and as a result, I fucked you over. If you’re still reading, you should know that I really did care for you.
I still care for you. I did what I did because I literally had no choice.
The only choice was to do what I did or have everything in my life end.
I’m sorry you got caught in the crossfire. I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
I found myself staring at that text for a far longer time than even I had anticipated if I had been overly sappy and sentimental. Perhaps she was being serious. Perhaps there was something to it.
Or maybe this was another trick, another lie, another game she was playing to try and fuck with me some more.
But then again, if she wanted to fuck with me, what would she gain?
Her uncle had gotten the best investment deal possible.
If she wanted money, she knew I was a Hunt.
She just had to go after Morgan. She knew I was adopted.
She knew I didn’t have access to a pipeline of money, especially now that I was unemployed and getting supporting income from the Hunts would require more deception and appearances.
Maybe she was genuine… maybe…
But even if she was, for the kind of situation that she was hinting at, did I really want to get involved? Did I really want to stay connected to something that fraught with apparent peril and drama?
I hovered my fingers over the keyboard on my phone, deciding whether or not to respond. More than once, my fingers hit some letters, and I could only hope Layla didn’t see me writing and assume I was going to respond.
By the same token, I multiple times considered just deleting the message entirely and using this as an excuse to end my fraught and unnecessarily dramatic relationship with her. It would suck; it would mean the girl I thought I would fall in love with would be no more.
Instead, in the end, once I had finally finished my sandwich, I did nothing.
If I responded, I didn’t trust myself to stay out of her hair for good and to not say anything hurtful.
If I deleted it, that was closing the door on something that I truly did not want to shut out forever.
So I just said nothing, even though I thought of everything.