Page 114 of Backlash

“I wasn’t sure you knew.”

“You didn’t put up a fight,” I say. I can’t bring myself to let go of her.

“You had the element of surprise working in your favor.” She studies me for a moment, her eyes scanning my disheveled appearance. “What happened…?”

“It’s a long story.” I loosen my hold on her a little. Then, I notice the mess in her living room. “What the hell happened here, Lucky?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly, pulling free from me. “I picked up some things from Windfall. I’ve been going through them.” She starts scooping things off the floor and dumping them into open cardboard boxes.

My eyebrow curves into a question mark. It doesn’t look as much like organization as it does the aftermath of a hurricane. “Looking for something?”

“Yeah,” she says absently before shaking her head. “I mean, not really. Malcolm… you know what? It’s a long story, too.” She stops her harried cleaning and turns on me. “Did you offer to sell Malcolm your shares of MacLaine Media?”

This wasn’t how I planned to have this conversation with her, but judging from her tone, she already knows. “I told him to make an offer.”

Adair closes her eyes, her hands gripping the back of a nearby chair. “Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t say I would accept his offer.” I cross to her, carefully stepping over the papers, books, and photographs strewn across the navy carpet. “In fact, I planned to reach out to another potential investor.”

Her eyes snap open. “Who?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You.”

Adair continues to stare at me, jaw unhinged as she processes this. “Me?”

“It’s what you’ve always wanted: control.”

“Over my life. Not the company.”

“You might not like it, Lucky, but you’re a MacLaine. That company belongs to you as much as it belongs to him. You want control? Take it. Refuse it. I’m putting it in your hands,” I say. “You get to choose what to do with it. You’re every bit as much a MacLaine as Malcolm is. Your father shouldn’t have made you feel otherwise.”

A battle wages in her green eyes. It’s not an easy choice. I knew it wouldn’t be. But she has to be the one to make it. Maybe she will never trust me again. Maybe we’re still doomed. But I can give her this, if nothing else.

“I already drew up the papers,” I say to her.

“I don’t have the money to buy it,” she says softly. “You must know that.”

“Lucky, it’s yours. Your birthright. I’m not selling it to you. I’m giving it to you.” I pause, realizing there are some other things she ought to know. “I don’t hold all the shares, though. Jack and Luca do as well.”

“I suspected.” She does a fair job of looking put out by this. “I can’t take the shares. They belong to you.”

“That’s what you don’t get.” I hook a finger in the waistband of her pants and draw her closer to me. “Everything I have—everything I am—is yours.”

“Does the bank know that?” She laughs nervously. It fades when she sees that I’m serious.

“They’re just waiting on your signatures.”

Adair pushes away, her eyes widening. “What are you saying?”

“I’m all in,” I tell her. “I meant it when I wrote it on that card. I always will be. Maybe this is a shitty way of showing you, but what’s mine is yours. All of it. You can help me build more or ruin me, but I can’t deny you belong with me, at my side. Equals. I know that compared to your family, it’s nothing, but it’s yours.”

“It’s everything,” she whispers.

“I never thought a MacLaine would settle for so little,” I tease.

“Sterling.” She bites her bottom lip, her lashes fluttering as she gazes into my eyes. “What if I don’t want to be a MacLaine anymore?”

My cock stiffens at the implication of her words. “What are you saying, Lucky?”