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His faint laugh vibrates against my shoulder.
“I don’t know how to fix this.”
“Neither do I. Not yet, anyway.”
“Surprising. You usually claim to know everything.”
“I know everything in principle. Details are occasionally troublesome.” I sigh. “Call it a work in progress.”
I hold him tight, sit with him until his breathing finally calms.
“Let’s get you to bed, Bryce. You need it.”
He doesn’t fight the move, letting me guide him through to the bathroom to get ready for sleep, stripping off to his boxers and brushing his teeth in sync with me before we head on through to the bedroom.
I pull back the sheets for him and slip inside after him, and we lie together. Wrapped in each other’s arms without words, until sleep finally overtakes him.
But it doesn’t overtake me.
Bryce curls closer in his sleep, but my mind keeps on racing, planning, strategising. Still, I keep my arm around him, unwilling to let him go.
Tonight I’ll give Bryce what he needs from me.
Tomorrow, I’ll get to work on setting Soul Girl free.
Time to step up a level, since the players are lining up around the table. Lucky for me, they don’t know who they’re up against.
Fuck you, Christopher Otley, you conniving cunt. I’m coming for you.
We’re a triptych now, and I’m going to fight for it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
BRYCE
Every single day, Christopher Otley’s presence in the boardroom grows bigger. Just like his smug grin.
By the end of his first week at Parker Capital, he has a permanent seat next to Bill on the other side of the table, and apparently he knows everything. By the second week, it’s plain to see he believes he’s the future lord of London banking.
He’s got a far bigger ego than Jack’s, and that’s saying something.
Today, he’s wading in with useless input on Landia Capital’s debts. Their shareholders. The private intentions of their CEO, Adrian Whitmore, despite having never met the guy.
Most impressively, Christopher knows all this without reading any of the reports I’ve spent the past fourteen months producing. He’s half arsed scanned through them at best.
Today I sit in my usual spot while he stands beside the presentation screen, one hand in his pocket, explaining my own partnership plan as though he flew it back with him from Chicago in his hand luggage. But he’s changed it, the sneaky bastard. It’s a lot harsher than mine ever was. The freshly inputted figures are a lot more jagged, as though we’re going in for military invasion, rather than forming a successful business partnership with another company.
“Landia’s position is weaker than it seems,” he says. “They expanded too quickly and left themselves exposed. Great news for us.”
Us.
He’s one of us now, seemingly, while the actual team around the meeting table just nod along.
Of course they do.
Christopher is now William Parker’s intended heir. The returned prince could announce that Landia’s accounts were written in scribbled out biro and people would smile and buy in to it.
He clicks to the next slide. My slide. But amended. Just like the others.
