Chapter 43
JANE
Ibarely made it down the hall before I heard my name. “Jane, wait.”
I didn’t because I couldn’t stop moving. My heels were clicking too fast on the polished tile, my chest too tight and my mind urging to me toward my office door like it was a life raft. I got it open and put one foot inside, but Alex was right behind me.
He slipped in after me, shut the door, and before I could say a word, he locked it. I couldn’t even meet his eyes as I strode to my desk, bracing my palms on the wood top and lowering my head. “Alex—”
“It’s going to be fine,” he said, like it was a wish that might come true if he didn’t let me protest before he said it. “Jane, look at me. It’s going to be fine. I’m going to fix it.”
I laughed, but the sound came out all wrong. I closed my eyes, my breaths coming too fast as I stood over my desk and willed myself not to hurl. “You can’t fix this.”
“I can,” he said confidently. “What’s more is that I will.”
My head was shaking before he’d even finished the sentence, the hard wood under my palms the only thing keeping me from completely spiraling or maybe even fainting right now. “My mother just voted to sell my company out from under me to—”
“Mallory,” he said immediately.
At the sound of her name, I had a brief flash of that picture in the article, but that just made my blood run even colder.
Alex didn’t wait for me to bring it up, though.
He didn’t wait for me to ask just what the fuck he meant.
He just went for it, telling the truth I so desperately needed to hear.
“She’s here to mess things up,” he said. “She’s been circling this for weeks. I told her to stay away from you. I warned her, but obviously, she didn’t listen.”
My mouth opened, then closed again. “The article…”
“I know.” He let out a soft sigh and I heard him take a step closer.
“I’ve already had my lawyers draw up the paperwork to sue the editor.
She cornered me when I was at the club with Nate and my dad.
I suspect she wanted to talk to you about her husband buying Thayer, and when you didn’t contact her, she came to me instead.
Neither of us gave her the attention she wanted, though. ”
“So the picture?” I asked quietly. “It doesn’t look like you weren’t giving her the attention she wanted, Alex.”
“I know. I realize it looks bad, but it was taken after I’d warned her to stay away from you and she’d told me that they’d come back for her husband to look into the company. She leaned in out of nowhere and told me good luck in that fake, I-wish-you-would-die way, then she left.”
“Do you think she knew the photographer was there?” I asked after taking a moment to think about it. “You said she leaned in out of nowhere, so…”
“I’ve thought about it and it’s possible.” He drew in a breath loud enough that I heard it. “I don’t see what she would gain from it, other than knowing it would get to you.”
Finally finding the strength to straighten up, I turned around and studied his face, looking for cracks or hesitation, but I found none. All I saw was anger, fear, and something raw underneath it all that made my chest ache.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” he said. “I just didn’t want to do that until I knew more.
She mentioned that her husband was taking a look at Thayer, but I wanted to be sure that he was a real player before I added to your stress.
That was a mistake, but I wasn’t keeping it from you for any other reason. ”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “It was a mistake, Alex.”
He flinched but didn’t argue. “Don’t worry about the sale, okay? I’ll undo it.”
I frowned at him. “You can’t just undo a board vote.”
“No, but I can buy it.”
I blinked hard. “What?”
“All of it,” he said, like he was talking about picking up milk on the way home. “Thayer. Every share. I don’t care how much it costs. I’ll sell my condo. My cars. My watches. Hell, I’ll live in a shoebox if I have to, but I will fix this.”
My head shook on its own. “Why?”
It was the question that scared me most, but he didn’t even try to dodge it. His deep green eyes were intent on mine and the words came out so easily, it was like he thought it was obvious. “Because I’m in love with you.”
My heart skipped, tripping over itself repeatedly while my eyelids went on the fritz. He… Wait, what now?
“I married you for votes,” he went on as if he hadn’t already turned my world upside down, his voice steady and those eyes still locked firmly on mine.
“That was the plan, but I fell in love with you the day we met and I’ve been the luckiest man alive ever since.
This isn’t about business anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. Not for me.”
My throat closed and I glanced to the side, swearing the walls were moving toward me. Everything felt too big. Too loud. Too fast. Too completely out of control.
And none of it felt real.
“I can’t.” I pressed a hand to my forehead, my head spinning faster and faster with every breath I tried to take. “Alex, I—”
A knock sounded at the door, the knob wiggling a moment before Colin’s voice filtered through it. “Jane? Can I come in? Why is your door locked?”
I didn’t look away from Alex. “I have to go. I need to talk to my mother.”
The corners of Alex’s mouth tightened. “Killer.”
“I can’t fix this with you right now,” I said, hating how true it was. “I’m being pulled in too many directions.”
Another knock. Harder this time. I unlocked the door before Alex could stop me and came face to face with my brother, his expression thunderous. “What the hell just happened in there?”
“Where the fuck is Mom?” I asked.
He hesitated. “She left, muttering something about a headache. The best bet is that she went home.”
Of course. Of course, she fucking went home. She came in here, blew the life I’ve been trying to build for myself, to rebuild for us all, to smithereens, and then went home to take a nap.
I grabbed my bag. Alex reached for me, his fingers brushing my wrist. “Jane. Please. Let me handle this.”
I looked at him, and for one terrifying moment, I almost stayed, but that wasn’t who I was. Sure, handing over the reins to him in the bedroom was hot. Letting him deal with things on my behalf from time to time had been liberating, but this was my mother we were talking about.
My family’s company. My grandfather’s legacy.
“I can’t,” I said, my voice coming out strangled, but my mind was made up. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk later. All of us.”
I directed the last sentence to my brother, then strode past both of them, leaving them alone in my office to do whatever the hell men did when all their plans had gone up in flames. Golf, probably. God, does Alex even play golf? How do I not know something like that about my very own husband?
Nora was in the kitchen when I got home, humming softly as she rearranged flowers in a vase. She looked up when I walked in, a disturbingly serene smile on her lips. “You’re home early.”
“You voted yes,” I said, my feet refusing to carry me any further into the room than the doorway.
The slightest frown creased her brow, as if she truly didn’t understand my curt tone. “Well, yes, honey.”
“You. Voted. Yes,” I repeated, punctuating each word without meaning to. “Why?”
She sighed. “The money is good for the family, Janey. We’ll be rid of your father once and for all and we can finally move on.”
“Do you know who’s buying Thayer?” I asked.
She frowned. “Some overseas group. Why does that matter?”
“It’s Mallory,” I said. “Mallory Foundry. Her new husband.”
Mom’s face fell before her expression went blank, but that just fueled my rage, my voice shaking as I felt my features contort. “She convinced Dad to funnel money. To commit fraud. She ran when it all fell apart and now she’s back and you just handed her everything.”
Mom’s mouth opened, but no sound came out for a long moment. “Jane, that’s not—”
“It’s over,” I said. “You sold it. To her. Thayer Steelworks is going to be taken apart like an old car and sold off in pieces. Because of you.”
The words felt ugly in my mouth, metallic and sharp, but they were true. My hands shook at my sides while my mother stared at me like I’d just spoken in another language.
“That’s dramatic,” she said finally. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I snapped. “I know exactly that. Everyone does, except for you. They’ll strip it for parts. Patents, real estate, equipment. They’ll sell off anything that isn’t nailed down, and then they’ll close what’s left and you helped Mallory do it.”
She crossed her arms, defensive in that familiar way that always made me feel twelve years old instead of thirty. “It’s not fair for you to be mad at me.”
A broken laugh shot out of me. “Not fair?”
“Baby, the money—”
“No, let’s talk about what’s not fair. Running that company was my dream,” I said, cutting her off. My voice rose despite my best efforts to keep my temper from flaring. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I was in college for ten years, Mom. Ten. Years.”
I was panting now, memories speeding through my brain of everything I’d done to keep precisely this from happening. “I got a doctorate because I thought that if I worked hard enough, if I proved myself, it would be mine. That I’d be worthy of it.”
Her lips trembled. “I never said—”
“You didn’t have to,” I shot back. “I did it anyway because I knew I didn’t stand a chance otherwise.”
I took a step toward her, my chest tight. “I kept this family afloat. With my money. Money that could have paid off my student loans. Do you know how much debt I’m carrying because I chose everyone else over myself?”
She looked away, but I was far from done.
“I put my brothers through college on my own dime. I kept the lights on and the fridge full. I made sure Wyatt had rides, help with his homework, and someone at his events. I made sure you didn’t fall apart when Dad went to prison.
I made time for you when you couldn’t get out of bed. ”
My throat burned. “No one took care of me. No one. Not once did anyone ask if I was okay. Even when I wasn’t, I still kept going because I had to. Because no one else would if I didn’t.”
Until now. The thought of Alex slid into my chest without warning, warm and painful all at once.
From the beginning, that was all he’d done.
Cared for me. Fed me when I forgot to eat.
Gave me space when I needed it and attention when I didn’t even know how much I’d been craving it.
He saw the cracks and didn’t try to fill them with platitudes.
He was just there, standing solidly behind me when I’d needed him the most, holding me together.
Now he was willing to buy the entire company to save my place in the world. Not because he had to, but because it was what I wanted.
The contrast nearly broke me.
“That godforsaken company isn’t everything, Jane. You still have a family,” Mom said. “You still have me.”
I looked back at her then, and something inside me finally tripped, like a switch I hadn’t even known was there. “No, I don’t. Not like this.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you—”
“This is it,” I said, too many lights coming on in my brain at once. “No more money. No more fixing things. And honestly? No more contact. At least for a while. I can’t do this anymore.”
I was breathing hard. It felt like my brain was finally making sense of things that were long overdue. Meanwhile, Mom’s lips had curled into that pout they always did when she was sulking and I could see it coming, the whimpering guilt trip she was about to lay on me.
For five long years, I’d buckled whenever she’d looked at me like that, but today, I finally saw it for what it was—pure, unbridled manipulation.
“You’re a grownup, Mom. A mother, not that you really know what it means to be one, but you still have one more child counting on you. If only for a few more months. Pull yourself together and act like a fucking adult for once in your life.”
I turned away from her and froze when I saw Wyatt standing at the edge of the hallway, his muscles locked, his face pale, and the expression in his eyes suddenly too old for seventeen. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he’d heard everything.
My breath caught. He just looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, not saying anything or even looking like he was breathing. I couldn’t handle it. Seeing my brother looking at me like I was a stranger was the last straw.
I ran upstairs. Into my room that looked the same as it always had, childhood trophies and old books lining the shelves, the bed I’d slept in since high school, and suddenly, it felt like a museum to a life I didn’t live in anymore.
I yanked my suitcase out of the closet and started throwing things into it.
Clothes. Shoes. My laptop. I didn’t think. I just moved.
By the time I went back downstairs, dragging the suitcases behind me, the house was eerily quiet. The kitchen was empty, but on the counter was a thin, stapled pile of paper, folded in half, but with my name at the top.
I swept it up with trembling hands, shoving it into my purse without knowing what it was. I would read it later. For now, I had to get out of here. This house was like a poison, and for the first time, I could feel it creeping into my bones.
I had to leave, and this time, I was going without knowing when I would ever be back.