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“Nope.” I gave her a salute and turned toward the door. “Call me when the paperwork is ready. Hopefully we can do all the signatures online. No need to see each other again.”
“Judah Ronald Dailey!”
“Bye!” I called over my shoulder.
“What should we do?” Hilton asked, making me stop.
Ellis shot Mom a nasty look.
“You two still have internships.” I shrugged.
“You can take that one with you,” Mom said, pointing at Ellis. “Of course, Hilton Bloomberg still has a spot here.” She smiled at him.
My heart dropped to my toes. “You’re for real with this shit?”
Mom’s lips twitched. “Entirely.”
“Yeah, we’re out of here. Come on, Ellis. I’ll just call my uncle and get you a spot at the Divine Conglomerate. He’s wanted me to do that forever, so if I say I’ll go with you, he’ll do it.” Hilton rolled his eyes so hard that I worried they might get stuck.
Ellis looked like he wanted to stick out his tongue at my mom as he let Hilton drag him through the boardroom door into the safety of the hallway.
As we followed them, panic finally set in.
Part of me had known this would happen, but the rest had been convinced that Mom wouldn’t do this to me. I didn’t know why I’d hallucinated some bizarre fantasy that in the eleventh hour she might discover some long-buried maternal instincts and declare her undying delight at my choice of partner, but—there’d been a strand of hope. I’d thought maybe Dad could talk her into it.
“Shit, what should I do?” I whispered.
“Speak to your father?” Tav asked as he got into the elevator with me.
Hilton and Ellis followed us, and I watched Tav push the button like he was behind glass, a movie that wasn’t real. The sensation that slammed through me was bizarre, and I realized I’d been holding my breath and sucked in a deep lungful of air. I was glad I’d had the foresight to clean out my office already, yet I felt sick at the possibility that I’d never see it again.
I shrugged. “He can’t fix this. Either he didn’t know it was happening or he already tried and failed to make her see reason.”
“Do you want to go back up to talk to her?” Hilton asked.
I swung around to look at him.
He tucked his hands into his pockets.
“Why would he do that?” Ellis asked, nose wrinkled.
“Usually just giving my family small victories keeps them from cutting me off completely.” Hilton tweaked Ellis’s nose, which had him swatting at Hilton.
I shook my head. “It won’t work that way.”
Hilton pouted. “Maybe Uncle Mason could get you a job at the Divine Conglomerate?”
I sighed as the elevator door opened. “Nah, I’ll either get this company back somehow or I’ll start something new. I’m a doer, not a follower.”
The ride home seemed to be endless, and as soon as I was inside, I took the stairs to my home office two at a time and went inside to the wall safe. I removed a gun case out of the safe and went to my desk to unlock it with my pulse pounding in my ears.
“Jesus, what are you planning?” Tav asked as he finally made it into the room. His eyes widened.
I snorted and set my keys beside the locked gun case. “I thought the shooting range might be some nice stress relief.”
Tav opened his arms, and I dove into them. I’d forgotten how wonderful it was to have someone to comfort you when the world was going to shit. It had been so long since I’d had this. I buried my face against his neck and breathed in his clean scent.
“You’re certain this is worth it?” Tav asked.
