Chapter 28 Dane
Dane
Locked in meetings after meetings when all I want is to be by her side.
My phone vibrates on the table. Her name, like a neon sign, pulls my attention away from a multi-million-dollar merger and to her. The colour of her eyes when the moonlight hits them. Her lips and the way they move when she speaks.
All I want is to keep her. Lock her away and worship her.
“Mr. Sparks, um excuse me Mr. Sparks.” The blonde to my left touches my tailored suit covering my arm and her touch burns through the two-thousand-dollar fabric like acid.
She’s not Penn and her touch alone feels like I’m cheating.
I pull my arm back fast and knock over the glass of water on the table, causing the water to seep over the solid oak and through the stack of files and contracts in from oh me.
“Fuck,” I belt out, pushing myself to my feet.
Her cheeks flame red as the rest of the table looks on in horror, gasping a few scrambles to help with paper towels, blondie’s eyes bleed glassing tears, her embarrassment obvious.
“Never touch me again.” I bite as she offers me a paper towel and tried to pull the wet contracts from my hands.
“I’m ssss-oooo sorry, sir.” Her stutter annoys me.
I’m usually not so rude. What the hell is wrong with me?
“It’s fine, just don’t do it again.” Pulling at my jacket.
“Gentleman if that’s all for the day, I have phone calls to make, questions to answers?
” I question the room as they look at me.
The business manager I have for this merger and also my lawyer looks at me and wonders why I’m calling it when we were so close.
“Um sir well?” my lawyer questions. “We should.” I held my hand up and cut him off.
Addressing the room. “Mr. Thompson, my company will not pay you double what your brother has asked for because to be fair, that’s just fucking ridiculous and you, as a fair business executive, know that.
Your family dynamics, or lack of, have nothing to do with me.
I’ve been dealing with your father right up to his death and for that I am so sorry, but I will not have you, your brother or anyone else pull on my heartstrings.
There is no heart in business, especially one this cutthroat.
” Picking up my phone smiling at the image of Penn sleeping wrapped inside my sheets lights up my screen.
She’s the best wallpaper. Sliding the phone into my breast pocket and sliding the slightly wet papers over towards my lawyer and Mr. Thompson.
They can finish the rest without me. I have already signed what I’ve needed to do.
These contracts are all in my favor with minor changes that can be made without me here.
“But what I will do as a friendly gesture because I respected your father is add in 10% shares for the next five years for you to continue without me this evening. I will keep all your staff on, and I will also continue with the scholarship program your mother had set out for young women to be seen and given the same work in a male-dominant world, because that is rather important to me.” He stands, walks over to me, pressing out my shoulders and taking a deep breath, I place my hand in front of me.
“Deal?” Thompson looks down at my hand and back up to me.
“I just want this whole shit show with my brother and his greed to be over with, so deal.” He shakes my hand and with that I leave the room that for the last four hours I have sat in and listened to negations and unrealistic expectations.
I didn’t become this rich and powerful overnight like most of the men in there.
No, I worked my ass off to get to where I am today.
“Mr. Sparks my driver opens the car door waiting for me outside the building that in a few weeks, I will call my own and it will sit inside Stark’s Shipping Co portfolio.
“John” I nod towards him. “Beautiful evening isn’t.
” His eyes followed mine towards the stars.
“That it is sir.” A small smile moves the corners of his tired eyes.
“Where to, sir?” he asks me as I lower my body into the luxurious backseat of this matte black Audi.
“Back to my apartment, John.” He nods, closing my door.
I follow the lights, and they blur past me as John waves us through the busy streets of Sydney, taking me to my penthouse suite of residence at Barangaroo.
I stare at my cellphone as I slip from my suit inside the privacy of the penthouse. Sitting high above the harbour. Sipping a glass of scotch with shards of cold ice. How do I explain this to her? How do I tell her I loved her long before I had the right to do so.
I’ve always been a risk-taker. I’ve had to. To get here at this moment now. To be successful, I’ve had to take risks and be cutthroat. But this one question is giving me anxiety, and that’s a feeling I’m not used to.
How long have you watched me?
Opening the saved Word note in my phone, my eyes skim over the words, the words I have typed and retyped, knowing they would need to be said.
Penn, how long have I watched you? I’ve watched you forever.
You’ve been in my eyes since kindergarten.
I had promised you that first day when Blake and his mate pushed you over in the mud.
When I reached my hand out for your tiny one that I would always hold you tight and protect you.
I whispered to you I would have your back forever.
And then helped you up. You smiled the smallest smile up at me, whipped your hands down your now muddy dress with the forget-me-not flowers on it, and walked inside.
I watched you and I fell in love with you. I’ve been watching you ever since.
So that’s what I sent back to her. I sent her just that one word.
Forever.
Waiting for her reply, I know I should have given her the above statement. I knew this day would come, but I just hoped that she would remember me before now.
Forever huh….
I smile at her reply. She is so locked inside herself that she can’t get out of her head.
Afraid of the reactions of others, she locks herself away.
She is a brilliant writer. She has the most exquisite way with words, yet she locks herself away inside Carrie’s ivy tower, the tower I own, and allows others to reap the brilliance that her words weave. Biting my lip, I typed back to her.
Yes, forever from that day, forget-me-nots have always been my favourite.
Trying hard to pull her out of herself to drag thoughts of us from forever ago to the front of her mind to shadow over his lies. The lies he feeds her to keep her. Break her. Silence her.
My mind runs over the message Carrie sent me after that night.
I pulled her shaking body from the waves crashing over her soul, taking more of her to the sea out into the darkness to never return the same.
She loves the way the world lies to her.
She holds onto it all like it’s her own truth.
Blames the heartache and sadness on herself and finds mistakes inside empty truths that aren’t hers to own.
She wades in the dark depths of water looking for something, anything to help her imagine that there is something in this world for her, not just the sadness of people leaving and knowing that she is worth something.
That she doesn’t have to be the one who has to always give things up and fix all that is breaking.
I have forever wanted to help her know her worth and allow her to wonder and dream on the stars that she is worth it all; she is worth all the gold and forget-me-not bouquets.
Dane, let’s get serious for a moment. I remember you. I know it was you who helped her up that day. She spoke about you after that. But you see, she was blinded by Blake even way back then.
But it wasn’t until high school… I cut her off, and she held her hand up.
I know it wasn’t but still destined to be.
The beautiful writer, quite geeky with glasses and the brute, the rugby player with family money and good looks.
It was a romance story for the pages, even way back then.
We both saw what would happen. Both knew it deep down.
No matter how much you and I wished it wouldn’t, they still crashed and look at it all now fucking burning around her, and where is he?
Doing what he does best… Run… Hide… fuck her over and up because he knows he can because she loves him, and I’m sorry has always worked for him…