Chapter 28 Bro-mancing Mister Wilde
Bro-mancing Mister Wilde
August
The Vancouver cityscape shrinks beneath us, each building dimming out of focus like a chandelier flickering its last bulbs.
The city blurs into black glass, throwing my face back at me—stubble, tired, older than I feel.
A furrow etched deep between my brows, a testament to a week spent wrestling with time and obligation.
My body is taut, a coiled spring from too many espressos, too much adrenaline, and a relentless tide of responsibilities.
Shoulders knotted, jaw clenched tight against the weight of it all.
The leather seat presses into my back like it expects better posture than I’ve got in me right now, but all I can think about is the fatigue that nestles behind my eyes.
Victory should feel like something lifting off my chest. Instead, it sits there.
Heavy. The engines hum a monotonous tune, a backdrop to the unsaid words that linger in the air between us.
I clear my throat, a subtle attempt to break the silence that wraps around us like a thick fog.
Noelle leans over Kelley, offering another bourbon, her voice soft yet tinged with the politeness that feels more like armor than warmth.
Kelley meets her gaze, his limbs sprawled in lazy confidence, arrogance cloaked in an easy smile. “Don’t mind if I do.” His voice glides over me smooth as whiskey, but there’s an undercurrent—a flicker of something darker lurking beneath that polished surface.
He mutters something just low enough for Noelle to giggle, and that sound strikes a jarring chord within me.
It's not that I’m offended; I’m simply drained.
The last three days have been a whirlwind of sharp suits and sharper negotiations, and I still taste the stale air of the boardroom—thick with cigar smoke and unspoken threats—on my tongue.
Once again, I clear my throat, just enough to reclaim the air in the cabin.
Noelle straightens, color rushing to her cheeks before she retreats to the galley as if my expression is a warning siren.
Kelley mutters again—“Hypocrite”—and I refuse to look at him yet.
Instead, I fix my gaze on the darkening glass, the city’s reflection flickering behind my eyes like a bad film stuck on repeat.
“What was that?” I ask, voice flat, coated in fatigue.
“You heard me,” Kelley replies, his tone sharpening. He leans back, arms crossing with a deliberate nonchalance. “Hypocrite.” The word slices through the air, challenging me as if he’s daring me to respond.
I drag my palm down my face, feeling the roughness of stubble and the weight of sleepless hours bearing down on me. “Yeah,” I say, flat as a Sunday morning. “Sure.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy with every word we’ve avoided saying.
The deal closed this afternoon—Doyle Media sealed tight—like a surgical procedure gone flawlessly right.
It should elevate us beyond mere regional players into the realm of real expansion—Canada first, then the West Coast. The board is watching.
Crane is watching. Everything we’ve been building toward is so close I can almost taste it, but all I taste is exhaustion.
I turn to Kelley, the tension coiling tighter in my chest. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”
He swirls his bourbon slowly, savoring the moment like it’s a fine vintage. “Funny,” he mutters, “that’s usually my line.”
I straighten, narrowing my eyes at him. “We just closed the biggest acquisition in this company’s history. Together. And you’ve been acting like that didn’t happen.”
His gaze finally meets mine—no amusement flickering there now, just a glint of something sharper. “Team,” he says slowly, as if each syllable is a carefully chosen weapon. “That’s the word you want?”
“Yes,” I snap back. “That’s the word.”
He nods once, sharp and controlled. “Then explain why you decided to move like you don’t have one.”
There it is—the boiling point we’ve been skirting around all week. I lean forward in my seat, feeling the tight coil of tension ready to snap. “This again?”
“Yes,” he insists, his tone flat and unwavering. “This.”
I exhale through my nose, feeling the weight of it all pressing down on my chest. “"Are you seriously still on this shit, Kelley?
I thought we were over this. Cypress was bleeding us dry—a quarter million.
We caught it. And you're more worried about some fucking moral compass you all of a sudden developed? "”
“Because you gave someone on payroll access to sensitive financials—without looping me in,” he fires back, his voice cold and precise.
“She’s an analyst,” I interject quickly, deliberately avoiding specifics. The truth is, I don’t want to be caught in the heat of details; I just want to stick to what matters.
“That’s not the point,” Kelley counters. “The point is timing. The point is optics. And while we’re trying to land Crane and expand west, you decided to stack risk.”
“I mitigated risk,” I reply evenly, trying to keep my voice steady.
“You unilaterally decided what risk was acceptable,” he shoots back, his calm cracking just enough for me to catch the rising tide of frustration.
That hits harder than I anticipated, but I hold my ground. “I was protecting the company.”
His laugh is short—devoid of humor. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”
Heat floods my spine. “You’re acting like I sabotaged us.”
“No,” he says firmly. “I’m acting like you forgot you have a partner.” The words settle like a verdict, heavy and final. “And the worst part?” he adds quietly, gaze fixed somewhere beyond me. “You didn’t even hesitate.”
Silence stretches. Thick. Loaded. The engines hum steadily on, indifferent to our standoff. The cabin lights flicker as we begin our descent.
Kelley doesn’t meet my eyes when he asks it, voice tight. “How long?”
His jaw tightens—a single, sharp movement that speaks volumes.
I swallow hard and shake my head. “Long before I knew how deep I was in it.”
Kelley exhales through his nose, gaze shifting to the window as if he can find clarity in the darkness outside.
“That’s what I thought.”
When the wheels finally hit the runway, he unbuckles first—the soft click echoing like a gunshot in our shared silence. He’s already filing this away—shelving it—like something he knows better than to try and fix mid-flight.
But I remain seated, watching the city’s reflection ripple across the glass, the ache in my shoulders and pulse behind my eyes throbbing with an intensity that refuses to fade. Victory? Perhaps. But right now, it feels like a distant echo—a shimmer of something just out of reach.
As the frigid Chicago air rushes in when the doors open, it cuts through me like a cold blade—sharp and real. Noelle hands me my coat, and I thank her absentmindedly as I step out into the biting chill.
Kelley is already halfway down the stairs, phone in hand, mask slipping easily back into place. “Successful trip,” he declares with an ease that’s too practiced. “We should celebrate.”
I study him closely, searching for any sign of weakness—a crack in his facade. But there’s nothing. He stands firm. Not a crack.
He’s already buried it.
And some part of me takes that as a win.
“What did you have in mind?” I ask, keeping my tone casual.
“Feel like crashing a party?” he replies casually. “Halloween thing. We show face, stay an hour, bounce.”
An hour—controlled and public. This isn’t reconciliation; it’s logistics.
“Fine,” I say with a resigned sigh. “But if this goes sideways—”
“—you’ll blame me,” he finishes smoothly, his grin returning like a practiced performance.
As we climb into the car, he launches into a monologue about traffic patterns and potential clients who might be there—anything to avoid mentioning our earlier confrontation.
I recognize the maneuver; Kelley doesn’t dwell, he shelves.
Despite myself, I pull out my phone.
Me: I’ve got a surprise for you.
The city streaks past the window—flashes of neon and glass bathed in noise and chaos. Kelley watches his reflection rather than me.
“You good?” he asks without looking away from his own image.
“Yeah,” I reply, but it’s a lie we both accept.
The car veers toward downtown—music and lights beckoning us into an illusion of normalcy.
Whatever semblance of victory I grasped on that plane doesn’t hold. And whatever I just lost? It’s still here—patiently waiting in the shadows for its moment to strike.