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“So you have no plans on fixing your fuck up?” Micah was pissed. More pissed than he had been two months ago when I told him what I planned to do. And to be fair, none of this had gone quite according to plan. I’d been so busy falling for her, I’d taken my eyes off the snake in the grass.
An upfront fight I could have handled. There was a reason my father had been removed from his position. But he’d found the chink in my armor and had played it well. It was a killing blow that had left me bleeding for months.
Give up the woman I’d fallen hard for, or he’d release evidence that my mother was a murderer. Damning evidence I’d helped cover up years ago to protect her.
The choice had killed me, but what was my happiness for my mother’s freedom. She’s protected me as best she could my whole life. I’d made the only choice I could.
And I’d been a shadow of myself ever since.
That's because you fucked up.
I’d been up against a wall and made the best decision. Micah hadn’t forgiven me for it. Hell, I hadn’t forgiven myself.
I’d taken extra precautions and moved my mother to the Winston Isles. The King and Queen were friends and had offered her shelter. But I still couldn’t make a move against the old man if he held her secrets over my head.
I’d considered saying fuck it and going to get my wife back. Hell, those first few weeks, I’d watched her obsessively. Borderline stalking, to be honest. I’d almost broken several times. Each time, one of my friends had to remind me why I’d done it.
There was nothing more crazy making than knowing she was hurting, knowing I’d been the one to hurt her, and not being able to comfort her.
I hadn’t been prepared for the pain of being apart from her, not sleeping next to her, while a man who worked for me consoled her.
You know full well that's not what's going on there.
Knowing it and feeling it were two completely different things. I knew about the nightmares. I knew about those dark circles that she tried to cover with makeup. I knew about her pain. I knew how she cried every night. I knew it all.
But knowing that someone else was there to comfort her? The lash of that pain was the worst. Because I had no one but myself to blame for that one.
“Are you finished?” I bit out at my brother.
“Oh no, I'm just getting started,” Micah said. “Because far be it from me to be the one to say I told you so, but maybe if you'd talked to any of us, we'd have helped or told you not to hurt her. I'm not even saying you should have listened to me. I'm just your little brother, and you think I'm an idiot. But if you hadn’t been so reactionary, you wouldn't be in this position. With other more disastrous consequences on the horizon.”
“You think I don't fucking know that?” I growled at him.
Instead of being the one to chase Gwen’s nightmares away, I was stuck watching her on a security monitor.
I’d had the distinct displeasure of watching another asshole who worked for me, Craig McIntyre, ask her out. He claimed it was a team thing, but I knew he was trying to soften her up.
I already had his full workup on my desk. I’d deal with him later.
The real issue was when she went to sleep. Every night I had to watch her toss and turn and eventually get out of bed. She wasn’t sleeping. Hadn’t gotten more than four hours in two months. And every night I watched as fucking Lakewood made popcorn for her and comforted her when I couldn’t.
A million times I’d considered going to get her, telling her why I had to walk away. But she was better off without this danger. I probably should have trusted her with it, but my father was unpredictable and mercurial. I didn’t want him anywhere near her. If he was willing to hurt and expose my mother, and he hated me and Micah, what would he do to Gwen?
So I’d left myself adrift.
And then there was the matter of her father.
Now there was the pesky little problem of my sister-in-law to be. With Becker making noise about the lack of a marriage, despite me paying off his debts, Pierce had told me he’d been entertaining at his house often. Sons of the Fortune 500. Always with Morgan in attendance.
A few times she’d been forced onto dates. Each time I’d had Pierce’s men watch her. I was not going to let what happened to Gwen happen to Morgan. When I said I’d marry Gwen, I’d promised to protect her sister. I planned to keep that promise, which meant no arranged marriages to asshole billionaires like me.
When I’d sent Gwen away, I hadn’t been thinking about what it would mean for Morgan.
Another miscalculation.
And on top of that, my brother and my friends, the people I trusted most in the world, had many opinions on all the places I'd gone wrong.
“You look like shit. Why don’t you just admit you want to get her back?"
