Chapter 29
JANE
Alex pulled up in front of my house just after four, the late-afternoon light thin and gray, our frankly magical weekend together already fading away. I lingered with my hand on the door handle for a second, not quite ready to leave the bubble we’d been in.
“Text me when you get inside,” he said.
“I will.” I smiled at him. “Is it weird that I wish you were coming in with me?”
“We’re weird together, then.” He chuckled, then leaned across the console and kissed me.
Unfortunately, it was quick and restrained, but we were back in the real world now. I supposed it had always been inevitable that not every kiss could be the slow, passionate kisses of this weekend.
Reluctantly climbing out of the car, I waved, blew him a kiss, and then turned to head inside. As soon as the front door shut behind me, I fired off a quick text to him. Then I slipped my wedding ring off my finger.
It was muscle memory by now, threading it onto the thin gold chain around my neck and tucking it beneath my sweater, right over my sternum. Hidden but safe.
I felt light as air. Happy. At ease in a way that almost scared me.
“Jane?” Wyatt’s voice came from the kitchen.
I stopped short, spinning toward him and smiling, but it quickly vanished from my lips when I saw the way he was looking at me. He stood by the counter with his arms crossed and his jaw tight, which was almost as strange as the fact that he was home at all.
He should’ve been out. Sunday afternoons were usually reserved for friends, the gym, or anything that wasn’t home. Seeing him here sent a small jolt of unease through me.
“Hey,” I said carefully. “Are you okay?”
His eyes flicked past me to the front window, just in time to catch Alex’s car turning the corner. His mouth twisted. “Who was that?”
“A friend,” I said automatically, still not quite catching up to the tension crackling in the room. “Wyatt, what’s—”
“Why are you sleeping with a married man, Jane?”
The words hit me like a slap. I stared at him, my brain stalling completely. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he snapped. “I saw him out there. Alex. He was wearing a ring when he came to dinner with us. When he watched my meet. He just got married, didn’t he?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. For one awful second, no sound came out and Wyatt took my silence as confirmation.
“Jesus, Jane,” he said, his voice rising. “You’re really doing this? What about his poor wife?”
“It’s not—” I started, but he bulldozed right over me.
“Do you have any idea how messed up that is?” he seethed. “And why are you bringing him around my wrestling matches like you’re a regular couple? Do you have no shame or what?”
“That’s not what’s happening,” I said, finally finding my voice. “You don’t understand—”
“Oh, I understand just fine,” he said bitterly. “You’re just like her.”
My chest tightened. “Like who?”
His eyes narrowed into a cold glare, like he was looking at someone completely different. “Dad’s mistress.”
The accusation lodged deep, a direct hit to a wound inside that I’d spent years trying to heal. Trying to but never quite managing to make it not hurt.
“That’s not fair,” I said hoarsely. “It’s not true, either. I’m not like Mallory, Wyatt. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He shook his head, disgust curling his lips into a sneer. “Unbelievable. All that moral high ground you’re always standing on, and this is what you’re doing?”
“Wyatt, you need to listen to me.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said, already backing toward the door, his eyes bright with anger and hurt. “I don’t want to know.”
Then he turned, and a moment later, he was gone, the door slamming so hard the walls rattled. In his wake, I stood there with my heart pounding in my ears and disbelief making me feel numb.
“Jane?” My mother’s voice floated in from the hallway. “What was all that yelling about?” She appeared from the kitchen doorway, worry etched onto her features. “Is Wyatt okay?”
I swallowed hard, but my throat was still tight, burning with the sting of what he’d accused me of. “He thinks I’m having an affair.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “An affair? With who?”
“Alex,” I said. “He doesn’t know about us. About the marriage.”
She let out a small, relieved breath. “Oh. Well, he’ll come around once he cools off.”
Something in me snapped. “No, you don’t get to say that.”
She blinked, clearly taken aback by the sharp lash of my tone. “Jane, I just mean—”
“You act like he’s a pet.” The words spilled out before I could stop them, my eyes narrowing to slits as years’ worth of pent-up frustration came tearing out of me.
“He’s not going to wag his tail and forgive everything if we just wait long enough.
He’s not a child, Mom. He’s a young man with feelings. ”
Her eyes immediately filled with tears. “I’m just trying to keep the peace.”
“I know,” I said, the anger draining out of me as quickly as it’d flared. Guilt rushed in to take its place. “I know you are.”
Her lips trembled and I hated myself for pushing her. The savior instinct kicked back in, hard and familiar. I stepped forward and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have snapped.”
She nodded, dabbing at her watery eyes as they held mine. “You do so much for this family.”
Too much, I almost said.
Instead, I backed away and grabbed my keys. “I’m going out. I think I just need some time to clear my head.”
“Jane—”
“I’ll be back later,” I promised, already heading for the door.
Revulsion was still churning in my gut, what Wyatt had accused me of burning through my soul like a hot coal had been wedged at the very center of my being. I got into my car with shaking hands and pulled away from the house before I could second-guess myself.
There was only one place I wanted to be right now, and that was Alex’s condo. I drove straight there, praying he was home and that he hadn’t gone to the office after dropping me off.
Thankfully, he was there, opening the door just a few seconds after I’d knocked.
Those green eyes swept across my face and he’d barely tugged me inside before his hands were light on my arms, gently holding me in place.
His eyes were already searching mine like he’d known something was wrong the second I’d walked in.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “What happened?”
I laughed, but it came out thin and brittle. “Have you ever had one of those days where you think you’ve finally got your footing and then the ground just drops right out from underneath you?”
His jaw tightened. “Sit down.”
I let him guide me to the couch and take my coat before I sat down, my heart still racing and that wound inside pulsing now like it’d had a whole handful of salt rubbed into it.
The woman my brother had accused me of being the same as had been responsible for everything bad that had ever happened to my family.
She was the reason we’d lost everything, the reason my father was in prison, and the reason the Thayer name was in tatters.
And my little brother, the boy I’d practically raised and the reason why I hadn’t wanted to move in here with my husband, thought that I was just like her.
I didn’t know what hurt more, the fact he thought I would do anything Mallory had or that he had so little faith in me that he wouldn’t even hear me out.
Alex slung my coat across the back of the couch, then walked around it and sat down beside me. Without any hesitation at all, he slid an arm around my shoulders and pulled me firmly into his side, just holding me as he rested his head on top of mine.
“Whenever you’re ready, you can tell me what’s going on, but until then, we can just sit here, okay?”
“Wyatt thinks I’m having an affair,” I blurted out, the words tumbling out now that I’d started. “With you, to be clear. He saw your ring when you met and your car when you dropped me off earlier. He didn’t let me explain. He just unloaded on me and took off.”
Alex went still, but he didn’t interrupt. My voice was shaking now, my hands trembling as I stared at them in my lap. “He said I was just like Mallory, my father’s mistress, then told me he wouldn’t hear me out because he didn’t want to know.”
“That’s not okay,” Alex said flatly.
“I know, but I don’t know what to do,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t listen and my mom just keeps pretending he’s a kid. She told me he would come around once he’s cooled down, but he won’t. Sometimes, it’s like she doesn’t even know him at all. He’s not just going to let this go. Not after…”
“Your father,” Alex finished for me, proving once again that even though we hadn’t known each other all that long, he understood me better than even my own family. “You’re worried that your brother is going to do something stupid because he thinks you’re like the woman who nuked your lives.”
“Exactly.”
He leaned forward with his forearms on his knees and his eyes locked on mine. For a second, I thought he was going to soften. Pull me closer. Kiss me and tell me it would all be okay, but I knew it wouldn’t happen even before the thought was even fully formed.
“You need to move in,” he said with no hesitation and no softening the blow. “I’ve had enough of this. You’ve had enough of it.”
My breath caught. “Alex—”
“No,” he said gently but firmly. “I’m serious. This isn’t sustainable, Killer. You’re married. You shouldn’t be sneaking around like you’re doing something wrong.”
I pressed my lips together. “Wyatt needs me.”
He held my gaze, one big hand coming up to cup my jaw. “You can still be there for him, but you don’t need to set yourself on fire to do it.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“I know,” he admitted without skipping a beat. “My siblings are older. They don’t need me the way Wyatt needs you, but that doesn’t make what I said any less true.”
I stood and started pacing, that old familiar restlessness creeping back in. “Things have always been this way. I hold things together. I smooth the edges. If I leave, everything changes.”
“And if you don’t?” he asked. “What happens to you?”
I stopped pacing. I didn’t have the answer. Frankly, I was torn between keeping things exactly as they had always been, and my marriage to Alex. Moving forward with my life.
Logically, I knew I was entitled to that, having my own life. Wyatt had a mother and a father, and I was neither of those things. But at the same time, I’d always been his stability. His solid ground. Sure, he was acting like an idiot right then, but that was what teenagers did.
“Our marriage is still new, Alex,” I said finally, my voice quieter now. “It’s fragile and let’s be honest, the way we started—”
“Is not where we are now.” He stood, stepping into my space and taking my hands. “What we have is real, Jane. It might be new, but it’s real, and sure, it is still fragile, but it’s not going to grow if we don’t put in the time and the effort to strengthen it.”
Both our phones chimed at the same time and we froze, then looked down almost in sync. Zach’s name flashed on the screen of Alex’s phone when he pulled it out of his pocket, turning it so I could see the email as he read out loud.
“Those two board members are officially out. Working on a third. Will update.”
My pulse spiked. “That was fast.”
“That’s Zach,” Alex said with a hint of pride in his tone. “He’s a pretty damn good closer. Second only to our cousin, Sterling, as far as I’m concerned. He has a tendency to get things done.”
I exhaled slowly, my heart suddenly fluttering in my chest. “A third, though?”
Alex’s eyes were sharp now, his mind already moving. “Boards hate instability. With the first two gone, the rest will panic.”
I sank back down onto the couch. “So what does that mean?”
“It means that right now, Zach has made it possible for your mother and me to hold the majority votes.”
My stomach flipped. “Alex…”
“It also means that this isn’t theoretical anymore.”
The word CEO hovered between us, unspoken, but heavy and inevitable. My phone buzzed again with another email in the same thread. Zach elaborated a little more this time, sending dates, names, and pressure points.
“It’s really happening,” I whispered, blinking fast and reeling at the implications of the information Zach was passing along.
Alex watched me carefully. “How hard would it be to get all your brothers back in town next weekend?”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because I need to set a few things straight, and because you need to start thinking about how you want the new Thayer board to look.”
I laughed weakly. “Already?”
“Zach is making his moves,” he explained. “It’s likely the whole board is going to resign, which is good. It’s what we wanted, but we have to be ready.”
I looked at him then, at this man who made plans like they were scaffolding, not cages. Who stepped in when I hesitated. “Ready for what?”
“It’s a matter of weeks now, if not days before you’re the CEO, Killer. You have to be ready to hit the ground running.”
My chest tightened, but reality settled in as I held those deep green eyes and saw how serious he was about this. Alex was going to keep the biggest promise he’d made me so far and give me back my dad’s company.
The knowledge wedged itself into the very center of my being, heavy and terrifying, but right. In perhaps a matter of days, I was going to be the CEO of Thayer Steelworks, and no matter what, I would have to be ready.
Even if I didn’t know yet exactly what I had to be ready for when I finally took that office as my own.