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We ate in agonizing silence. The seconds ticked by, each one feeling like hours. I wished the food wasn’t so good—it was hard to genuinely enjoy it with the tension sitting between us.
I only managed to eat about half before I wiped my chin and watched her finish up. Her long black hair was braided and hanging over one shoulder, her face devoid of any makeup. The hoodie she wore looked strangely familiar, and the more I focused on it and the barely noticeable oil stain on the shoulder, I realized it was mine.
“I spoke to Wesley.” I couldn’t hold the words back any longer. “He showed up in my office unannounced the other day.”
She paused, spoon halfway to her mouth, and stared at me.
“He said Jared’s been working on his own, outside of the Keelings Group.”
She nodded. “That’s not surprising. He’s never been the loyal type.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I said slowly, leaning onto my elbows as I looked across at her. It put us nearly at equal height. “He was acting alone. Wesley said he had a vendetta because of the situation with you.”
Her lips pursed together. “So you believe me now?”
I bit my lip and looked down at my folded hands. I wished I had believed her at the time. “I do. I’m sorry I didn’t before.”
Her spoon clattered in her bowl as she set it down. “I appreciate your apology.” I waited, wondering if she would say anything else, but all she did was stare.
That’s it?
“Congratulations, by the way. I heard you’re the new CEO. Finally got what you wanted.”
“That’s all you have to say?” I challenged.
Her brows furrowed as her glare deepened. “What do you expect me to say? That I forgive you? That you’re going to do amazingly well as the CEO? That I’m happy now and we can go on as we were planning to?”
I pushed myself up to my full height, tugging at the strings of my apron angrily and pulling it off. “I was hoping for an apology as well.”
Her snort set me on edge. “For what, exactly? You’re the one that didn’t believe me. You’re the one who went back on their promise.” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her eyes flicking upward in irritation. “I don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“You could apologize for not telling me the truth sooner, letting it all blow up in our faces on our wedding day,” I snapped. “You could apologize for the way you thought the worst of me when I didn’t respond within two seconds of you asking me if this was real. You could apologize?—”
“I’m not apologizing for any of that when you’ve yet to apologize for going back on your word.”
I placed my hands on the counter, my knuckles cracking as I pushed down on them to relieve some tension. “I’m sorry about that, too, okay? But you kept something really fucking important from me, Lottie.”
“I don’t see how that is in any way on the same level.” Her chair squeaked as she pushed it back away from the island and hopped down. “None of this should matter anyway, Hunter.”
Not this again.
“This,” she said, gesturing between us animatedly, “is a business transaction. You have something that I want, and I got you the thing you wanted. It shouldn’t matter unless you have a problem sticking your cock in the same place Jared has.”
Her words hit me like a knife to the chest. She was more than just a business transaction to me. Didn’t she know that? “I don’t care whose cock has been inside of you, Lottie. I care because there was something there between us and you’re acting as if there wasn’t.”
Her eyes bulged for a split second. “Something there?” she laughed. Her hand pressed to her chest, closing around a fistful of the hoodie and what I could only assume was her horseshoe necklace beneath. “Do you honestly think you’re going to pull me back in with that bullshit?”
I could feel my anger rising, could feel my pulse in my fingertips.
“I meant what I said before the ceremony, Hunter. We’ll have a beautiful, perfect-from-the-outside, loveless marriage until this time next year. And then I want my forty-nine fucking percent and I will divorce you.” She took a step toward me, her small frame seeming to take up so much more space than she did. “Just drop the act.”
“It’s not an act!” Pushing my fingers through my hair, I gripped onto the strands, tugging in frustration. “I don’t want that. I don’t want a loveless marriage, Lottie, I want a beautiful one filled with love. I want us to try.”
She froze, something flickering across her face. “Can you stop, Hunter? Please. I don’t want to do this. I have enough on my plate already. I don’t need you twisting up my gut and heart and throwing me in the goddamn trash.”
“I don’t want to do that to you,” I rasped.
“Then stop.”
