Chapter 62
I couldn’t fall asleep, most especially after the arousing makeout session that Layla and I had just had.
But unlike before, when I’d let my mind wander, for the most part, I just lay there in silence, letting my mind think of nothing and my body relax into the soft fabric of the bed sheets beneath me.
My mind was strangely at peace with what had just happened.
There was nothing to contemplate or meditate.
That told me that either I had made the exact right move, letting myself fall into my emotions just a bit but not all the way, or I had made such a terrible mistake that there was going to be no amount of thinking and reflecting that would get me out of this mess.
Either way, the mind just stayed quiet, a peaceful respite from all the thinking I’d had to have done all day.
About twenty minutes into Layla’s nap, my phone buzzed. Although I might have let such a message go otherwise, given that Layla seemed to be well into the grips of slumber, I decided to check my phone and see what it said.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that none other than Morgan Hunt, my brother—my adopted brother—had texted me.
“Sure you saw the news about Mom and Dad. Let me know if you wanna talk about it. Here for you bud.”
That’s a hell of a thing to send someone whom you just left for dead yesterday, bud.
It’s your brother, Chance. His parents, his real parents, are about to go through a very public divorce; don’t you think he deserves a little bit of sympathy?
He would if he wasn’t such a fucking rat. Asshole sold out our company to the very man going through that divorce. He doesn’t deserve shit from you, Chance.
You’d let a few days of fighting destroy what you’ve built the previous two decades?
Like I thought earlier, takes years to build, just days to destroy. Why should this be any different?
The conflicting thoughts warred in my head, a civil war of sorts that showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon. When one side appeared to dominate, the other took back control with ease. It became a bloody stalemate, with the blood being confusion that seeped into what I would actually do.
In such a spot, with uncertainty king and the king wanting a decision, I decided that I would do nothing at all—which meant I swiped on Morgan’s text, chose to delete it, and put my phone down.
I wasn’t sure if this was really the right move or not, but I could say that it was a move that Morgan wouldn’t know about for some time, if at all; I could brush this off as simply having never received his message or some other excuse.
Not that that sat well with me.
I was preparing to put my phone down when it buzzed again. Damnit, Morgan, stop being so persistent.
But it was not Morgan. It was someone much more important—Andrew from Virtual Realty, by far the most important client I had and the one most likely to some day vault me above whatever Edwin had. That’s not to say absolutely he was, but of all my options, it was definitely the highest probability.
And as such, he demanded my full attention, most especially since he had asked for a phone call as soon as possible.
Leaving Layla to sleep in her bed, I sneaked out of the bedroom, closing the door gently behind me as I did.
I wanted to make sure Layla knew I hadn’t just abandoned her again, so I chose to take the call in the kitchen where she would hear me.
Admittedly, leaving her for business was harder than I expected—she looked so damn cute falling asleep as she did, and that we had reached something of a consensus on where we would go forward made me feel much better about what was going on in my head.
Take the call, and then go back to her.
“Hey, Chance,” Andrew said as soon as I had dialed him, far more assertive and to the point than usual. “I, uh, heard what happened with your father, I’m, uh, sorry to hear that.”
“Far more assertive and to the point than usual,” it seemed, still meant Andrew wasn’t the most direct and upfront speaker, but I could see him putting forth the effort.
I thought of correcting him about Edwin Hunt being my actual father, but such details didn’t seem important to whatever reason he had called.
“It’s all good, it’s amicable right now,” I said, a statement that may have been true only because Edwin hadn’t had the chance to blow up yet at Melanie yet. “What’s up?”
“Well, I got a call yesterday evening pretty late from Mr. Hunt,” Andrew said.
That he referred to Edwin as “Mr. Hunt” just pained me so much; that man didn’t deserve any amount of respect that anyone would dare to give him.
“He said that he had purchased Morgan’s stake in your holding company.
He didn’t say if anything would change, but, umm, I talked to some of my friends who had companies like this, and, uhh, they said I should be worried. What do you think?”
Of course Edwin wouldn’t have said anything about things not changing.
That was how he did things—he would assure the person on the other end of the table that nothing would change, that things would remain the same, and that all would wind up better in the end.
Then, when enough time went by, Edwin would go and make all those changes that he said he never would make, lying through his teeth to get what he wanted and not giving two shits if he burned everything down.
I could not take the same approach, just for the sake of my own ethical values and for what I believed was right. Maybe it would hurt me in the short term, but I had to put my faith into it working out in the long term.
“Honestly, I don’t know yet, Andrew,” I said, somewhat holding my breath.
“Truth be told, the relationship of Edwin and I is… it’s not the greatest, put it that way.
But I can promise you that for me personally, regardless of how this all shakes out, I’m here for you as a consultant and an adviser in whatever way you need.
Don’t let the politics of this sort of thing distract you.
Most of your customers won’t give a damn about who owns the company, they just want a good product.
You focus on making a good product, I’ll focus on advising you as best as I can, and we’ll let whatever happens with ownership play itself out. Does that all make sense?”
An awkward pause came, enough that I said Andrew’s name twice to make sure he was still on the line.
“Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah,” Andrew said.
An outsider might have thought he was hedging himself, trying not to commit, but I knew this was really Andrew being in full agreement with what I had said.
“I really appreciate all of your support, Chance, your advice has been invaluable along the way. I just wish that there, umm, that there was a way to ensure you could remain with us.”
“Well, you’re not gonna hire me as a consultant,” I said laughing. “I don’t need the money.”
But the money can get me a spot.
And that’s when I had an idea that might have been either incredibly stupid or very brilliant. It was going to raise a lot of hell at Hunt Industries, but it might just have given me what I needed to get the ball rolling.
“But I do have some money that I think can help me stay on,” I said, unable to hide my smile. “I want to invest a quarter of a million dollars in your company, Andrew. And I want to be the only individual to do so. Not as part of MCH. But just me.”
“Really?” Andrew said, practically giddy at the surprise money coming his way.
“Yes,” I said. “I will do what I can to spin MCH off to my own half or to make sure it doesn’t die out. Either way, this will give me enough of a voice with you that you won’t have to worry about losing me.”
It’s going to piss off like hell Edwin too. Oh, this is too good. I don’t even care about potential blow back, either. This is too good not to have happen.
“Wow, uhh, Chance, thank you,” Andrew said. “I can’t believe it.”
“Well, believe it,” I said with a smile. “We’ll make it work, OK? I’ll get logistics over to you shortly and we can figure that out, but do we have a deal?”
“Hell yeah, we have a deal!”
I laughed, exchanged some more pleasantries, and then hung up. I looked right to see Layla, her hair half hanging over her face, smiling at me.
“Sounds like some good news just happened,” she said.
“More than that,” I said with a smile. “All will be good with Virtual Realty. It’s a win I need to figuring things out.”
“What does that mean for Edwin?”
The smile grew wider at the prospect.
“It means that our little war is about to get a lot more explosive.”