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Coming out of this in one piece isn’t a matter of dealing with a bruised ego from an unrequited crush. It’s something else.
Because Ryder Sinclair isn’t just a fuck boy with a pretty face and a mouth that can kiss. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s fun. He’s deeper and way more complex than I’d ever given him credit for.
I’m lost and I don’t know anything.
Except for one thing.
Oh boy, am I in major trouble.
Chapter Fifteen
Ryder
The first big meeting with the board went well and things are good. I’ve been busy, but not too busy to lose track of my goals. Everything I want is there, just in reach. All I need is to get through the next three weeks.
Get through them and a little time after, because I’m not stupid, and I’ll be golden. I know my mother, and my father, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have built in some weird clause as each step for me and my brothers keeps getting more intricate with more at stake; and my mother because she’s a sneaky woman and is not only carrying out dear old father’s ghostly orders but has her own agenda.
The stakes keep climbing and I don’t know why. But what I want keeps me grounded, focused.
I just need to behave for the next handful of weeks.
It’s why I have Elliot.
After the meeting I head home and work from there because I have fewer distractions there.
I don’t even realize I’m running late to Mag’s place for drinks—the one thing he and Zoey haven’t yet worked out is where they’re living, so they split time between his place and hers above her store, which makes me laugh, thinking of my ruthless brother in such small digs.
Then again, there’s nothing to laugh about, not really. They’re disgustingly happy, just like Scarlett and Hud.
My phone rings and something lights up in me when I see Elliot’s name. “You’re late,” I say, closing down my computer and pushing back my chair.
She laughs softly, that low sexy voice with the smoky depths washes through me. Without her there I can immerse in it. The woman should make recordings. “Nice greeting, Sinclair.”
“I try.”
But the laughter stops.
“Ryder, I’m sorry, I can’t make it. I’ve some work and—”
“With what I’m paying, how the hell do you fit anyone else in?”
“For you, idiot,” she says, “but I have an unexpected family thing I can’t get out of.”
The light sinks. “Not a problem.”
We ring off and I don’t know why it leaves me feeling a little empty. Probably because my cager is also a crutch. I can trust Elliot to keep me on the straight and narrow. Not that I’ve had time for anything else. And tonight’s it’s drinks with my brothers. They want to know how the meeting went.
So I head on out.
I’m a grown man. I can do this myself.
I have drinks with my brothers and their significant others, and we discuss the meeting. There’s nothing much, no giant signs about what’s going on, but the word on the street, or boardroom as it were, is they’re happy.
The board and my brothers? They’re just intrigued and King wants the money. He’s got plans but he won’t really discuss them as he has to head out early to take care of shit in his business life, and me? I’m fucking tired. So I make my goodbyes.
“You all right?” Magnus asks as he walks me to his door. “It’s not the bet is it?”
I give him a filthy look. “You guys are still doing that?”
