Chapter 33
RYAN
Isat at my desk in the middle of a Zoom meeting with Colin, Jane, and half a dozen of the higher-ups in the Chicago office of Thayer Steelworks, pretending to be paying attention, but I had no clue what they were talking about anymore.
For all I knew, they could’ve pivoted to the emotional state of goldfish in Guatemala and I was still nodding like it was the most important conversation I’d ever been part of. I’d been trying to focus. Really.
My brain was simply entirely uninterested in the update they were providing. Instead, it was stuck on Maggie like it’d been crazy-glued to thoughts of my golden-haired goddess. Aw, shit. Since when do I even think stuff like that? This is insane.
It’d been three long days since I’d last seen her, and while that was probably for the best, I couldn’t stop wondering when I’d see her again. I wanted her something scary. There was no point even trying to deny that anymore, but as for what Maggie wanted, well, I wasn’t sure even she knew.
I sure as hell didn’t know where her head was at, which was why I’d needed some time to cool off after being in Massachusetts with her again. Some days, it felt like she was determined to marry Daniel purely to have this wedding—and maybe even to get the puppy.
But other days, she looked at me like she was in the process of making a completely different decision.
Like maybe she’d kiss her inheritance goodbye as long as it meant she could keep kissing me.
Unfortunately, she bounced between those two things so often that I was starting to wonder if maybe I’d gotten sucked into the game she was playing with her parents.
“We need to make sure the revised projections account for the second-quarter acquisition costs,” Colin was saying when I briefly tuned back in again. “Can you check that for us, Ryan?”
I nodded, but Jane gave me a curious glance through the screen. I could feel those knowing, Thayer blue eyes searching for any sign of what was really going through my head, but I met her gaze steadily, a smirk curving on my lips when she rolled her eyes at me and dove into the next topic instead.
My phone buzzed before I could even begin to figure out what that was.
Then I forgot I was even in a meeting when I saw a text from Maggie on my screen.
I held my phone on my lap out of eyesight and leaned back in my chair, fully aware that I was going to be the death of myself if I kept jumping whenever this girl was involved, but that wasn’t about to stop me.
Maggie: What are you doing?
Me: Working.
Maggie: That sounds boring.
Me: It is. What are you doing?
Maggie: Distracting you with my charm.
Me: That sounds dangerous. I’m in a meeting, but what did you have in mind?
Maggie: You like a little danger, don’t you? Besides, you said the meeting is boring. That has to mean you smiled when I distracted you. I’m saving you from boredom. I’m basically a superhero.
I let out a soft chuckle, forgetting, unfortunately, that my microphone was still on and the entire meeting had just heard me. Shit.
“Ryan?” Colin frowned. “Do you have something you’d like to share?”
“No. It was just, uh, a funny meme that came through on my phone.”
Jane covered a smile with her hand, but Colin sighed. “Okay, well, now that you’ve seen it, would you mind rejoining the meeting so we can finish up?”
“Of course.” I put my phone face down on the desk, ignoring it for a full four seconds when it buzzed again.
Colin was watching me too closely to check the actual message that had come through, but I still bit back a smile when I saw it was another from Maggie.
When the meeting finally ended, everyone disappeared from the screen in a wave of goodbyes and muted microphones, and as soon as I’d closed out the window, I reached for my phone.
Maggie: Just how boring is this meeting? I have a few ideas for distractions you might enjoy…
Maggie: Crap. You’re not reading my messages anymore. Did you get in trouble?
Maggie: Let me know when you’re done. X
Damn it. Now I really want to know what those ideas were.
I stared at the message thread for only a beat, trying to decide if we were past the point where getting a little flirty was a bad thing. Maggie sure seemed to think it was okay, and honestly, after everything else we’d done, I doubted—
My thoughts got cut off when my phone started buzzing in my hand with an incoming call. Only it wasn’t Maggie this time. It was Holden.
Saved by the brother, I guess.
“What’s up?” I said as I answered and hit speaker, holding the phone in front of me and turning my chair to face the view of Manhattan stretching out in all directions. “Did Colin tell you to call?”
“No.” I heard the frown in Holden’s voice. “Why would he? What have you done now?”
I shrugged. “I might’ve zoned out a bit in a meeting. He seemed concerned.”
“Colin is always concerned, but I’m actually calling to find out if you’re free tonight. I’m back in the city and in desperate need of a drinking buddy.”
“Don’t you have many of those still hanging around after graduation?”
He made a gagging noise. “They’re all working already.”
“Imagine that,” I said dryly. “Getting a job after graduating with a degree from a prestigious university. Speaking of which, what are you doing back here?”
“Just some registration stuff,” he said vaguely. “What’s wrong with wanting to have to drink with my brother? I’m sure some of my friends would be keen, but I honestly haven’t even checked. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, man.”
“Yeah, okay.” Three days without Maggie had done absolutely nothing to cure me of being stupid where she was concerned.
I could use a distraction that hadn’t been engineered by the person I needed to stop thinking about.
“I’ll meet you when I’m done at the office. Make it somewhere with decent whiskey.”
“Your standards are becoming unreasonable.” Holden sighed. “I’ve only just graduated, remember? I can’t afford decent whiskey.”
“Well, I can, and if you’d just get a job already, you would also be able to, but since I’m in an enabling mood, it’s on me.”
Holden cheered before promising to let me know where we were going.
We hung up and I glanced at Maggie’s last texts again.
I really needed to get my mind off her, so I went to meet Holden at some bougie bar he’d found not far from the office, but once again, knowing I had to stop thinking about her and managing to actually do it were two very different things.
Holden and I had been at the bar for less than twenty minutes before he finally looked at me over the rim of his glass and sighed. “Alright, spill. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. What makes you think there’s something going on?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you’ve checked your phone at least a dozen times since you sat down.”
“I’m expecting an email.”
His eyebrows inched up. “No one looks that excited when they’re anticipating an email. You’re waiting for something else. Something that’s not work. So spill.”
I took a sip of my drink, but that wouldn’t get me out of this.
Holden had always been the worst person to lie to.
Probably because he’d been handed a particularly vicious education in bullshit from a younger age than me.
When our family had fallen apart, Holden had taken the hit almost as badly as Jane.
Overnight, his entire future had shifted.
Everything he had thought he would have in life disappeared overnight, the money, the connections, and the doors opening simply because of our name.
He’d never forgiven the world for it, now moving through life with no patience for old-money families who pretended their traditions were anything other than elaborate scams.
“Let me guess,” he finally said. “You’re still dealing with that whole Pembroke-Hawthorne circus.”
“I’m helping the Pembrokes plan the wedding.”
“Okay, but you’re not a wedding planner and it’s not like they can’t afford one of those,” he said slowly. “Plus, I’ve been to parties you’ve planned. You’re not very good at it.”
“Hey, I got a keg that one time you and your friends came over.”
“I had the keg delivered literally to your door,” he pointed out. “You forgot to buy plastic cups.”
I groaned. “You guys broke almost every glass I owned that night.”
“That’s why I told you to buy the plastic ones,” he said emphatically, then leaned back against the chair and searched my face. “If you ask me, Daniel and Maggie deserve each other. I’m honestly not sure why you’re so invested in this.”
“Why would you even say that? You don’t know either of them.”
He shrugged. “I don’t need to. They’re both rich, trapped in that ridiculous ecosystem that forces people to marry someone exclusively because their parents think it’s a good idea.”
“That’s how arranged marriages work, Holden. They’re not exactly given a choice.”
He snorted. “No, there’s always a choice. They just refuse to make the difficult one because it’s too…”
“Difficult?”
“Exactly.” He smirked. “What’s a poor trust fund baby without their trust fund? Oh, that’s right. Just poor. Like us.”
I sighed. “We didn’t have a choice in what happened to us, but Maggie and Daniel? They do. They don’t have to lose everything and rebuild from scratch.”
“See? I told you they have choices.” He took a long sip of his drink before regarding me with a strange look in his eyes. “So do you, though. You have choices too, Ryan. Why are you choosing to waste your time on a wedding that has to happen, no matter who plans it or what it looks like?”
“Mom—”
“Will be fine,” he finished for me. “Stop trying to pretend this is about her. It’s not. She might’ve pulled you into it initially, but you wouldn’t still be chasing Maggie around just to give Mom a chance to get invited to a party.”
“I love Mom.”
“Sure, so do I, but let’s be serious about this. You helping with the wedding doesn’t get her a ticket back in and you know that. So what is this really about?”
Fuck.
When I didn’t answer, Holden’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, hell. You have a thing for her again, don’t you?”
“No.” I scoffed, looking down at the ripples in the amber surface of my drink as I lifted it back to my lips. “It’s not like that. She’s a nightmare. She locked me out of the cottage when it was raining and then she locked me out of my own damn apartment.”
“That sounds like foreplay for you.” I glared at him, but he just grinned like he had it all figured out. “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”
“Keep your voice down,” I hissed, leaning across the table and narrowing my eyes. “Holy fuck, Holden. We’re in Manhattan. Everyone here knows who these people are.”
“I know. So what the hell are you thinking?”
I swiped my hand across my face and dropped my forehead to the table. “I’m not. Okay, is that what you wanted to hear? I’m not fucking thinking.”
“Yeah, that much is obvious. You’re smarter than this, Ry.”
“She has me in a total tailspin,” I admitted, finally lifting my head to look back up at him. “Seriously, I feel like she’s turned my brain into soup. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Holden stared at me for a long beat. “Does she?”
“No.”
“Does Daniel know?”
I grimaced. “Of course not.”
He swore under his breath. “This is bad, Ryan. It’s really fucking bad. You’re getting in the way of a marriage arranged between two pretty freaking powerful families and you’re fucking the bride.”
“They’re not engaged anymore.” It was weak, but it was also the only defense I had. “Look, I know it’s stupid. Trust me, I know, but it’s like I can’t help myself when I’m with her.”
He let out another snort. “Nice. You’re blaming your body? What, do you just keep tripping and falling with your dick inside her?”
“Obviously not, and I’m not blaming anything. I’m just saying it’s…” I trailed off and shook my head. “It’s different, okay? I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just different.”
He blanched, doing a slow double take as he looked back at me. “Oh my God. Do you love her?”
My heart jerked in my chest and my palms went clammy, but I didn’t answer because, as he’d asked the inevitable question I should’ve seen coming, two familiar faces walked through the door, and suddenly, my answer didn’t seem to matter anymore.
The only thing that mattered was shutting Holden up before either of those two heard a single word of what we’d been saying.