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His eyes flash.
“I was helping you. I’ve always been helping.”
“That’s what I believed, yes. That’s what I’ve wanted to believe since night one.”
Jack’s eyes narrow.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m no longer entirely sure whether tonight was about helping Alice, or proving you could beat Bill in a confrontation.”
Jack recoils as though I’ve hit him. A vicious part of me is glad.
“The paintings sold,” Jack says. “For one point two five million. Does that not say something? Alice has a way out now.”
“If she chooses it, yes. If SHE chooses it!”
“She has to.” He scoffs. “This whole fucking Otley situation is ridiculous.”
“No.” I shake my head. “She doesn’t have to do anything simply because you built a strategy around it. That’s treating her just the same as they do.”
He tenses up.
“Fuck off, BT. I risked everything tonight, for her sake. I was the one holding the paddle.”
“And Alice was the one whose career would have been dismissed if Mercer stopped bidding. It was close, Jack. Way too close.”
Something flickers across Jack’s face. Hurt.
I press on.
“We agreed a limit which you ignored. You then didn’t just poke the hornet’s nest, you fucking drop-ball kicked it out of the bastard stadium. Arrogance, Jack. Pure fucking arrogance. And now I’m the one who has to face Bill at work. And Alice is the one getting into his car knowing there are going to be some damn shitty consequences.”
Jack looks towards her.
Alice can’t hold his gaze. Eyes streaming fresh as the room finally empties around us. Hell knows what rumours are flying around outside in the bar.
“I did this for both of you,” Jack says, but his voice has lost its swagger.
The lack of swagger should stop me, but it doesn’t. All I have to picture is the boardroom. Bill’s loathing expression.
“Then you should have remembered we exist outside your game. Our lives aren’t just a game. Not like yours.”
“Oh fuck off, Bryce. I know this isn’t a fucking game.”
I fold my arms. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because somebody had to stand up to Bill?” I ask.
“Someone does. YES.”
“But that person should never have been YOU!”
My words hurt Jack. I see it.
It gives me a horrible churn in my guts along with the rest of it.
