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“Yes.” Clint had already gone over this. Whatever was going on in his boss’s wonderful brain, it was not focussed on their client’s imminent divorce proceedings. “This is the last chance to reach a settlement before going to court.” How did one accuse their boss of not being up to a task? Especially when the boss in question was as magnificently well-regarded as Hendrix Forrester? The wunderkind of the legal scene, he was renowned for his genius.
“I am aware of that.”
Clint winced. Yes. A brilliant mind, Hendrix had read through the thinly-veiled query. “Do you mind if I ask what your tactic is?”
Hendrix expelled a long, slow breath. His tactic? Did he have one? His fingers gripped the arms of his chair. “I’m going to get rid of William Ansell-Johns.”
Clint frowned. “Yes, sir, but how?”
Hendrix didn’t respond. “Let me know when he arrives.”
The dismissal was obvious. Clint stood, lingering for a moment, before shaking his head and leaving the office altogether. He waited in the foyer with Maria and Grace, Hendrix’s two assistants. There were definitely some perks to coming up to the boss’s floor of the building.
William Ansell-Johns and his attorney arrived right on time. Clint saw them coming off the elevator and took his queue. He moved straight into Hendrix’s office. “He’s here.”
Hendrix stood. His suit was jet black; it matched his eyes and lashes perfectly. “Excellent.”
His adrenalin had done its job. He was confident and calm. After all, he had justice on his side. “And Mrs Ansell-Johns?” He used her surname to put distance between them. He needed to remember to whom he was loyal. And what he owed to his sister.
Clint checked his phone. “She’s in the building.”
“Good. It’s time.”
The culmination of months of waiting had finally arrived.
With each step he took towards the conference room, he hardened his resolve. He ignored the doubt. The softening of his hatred and rage. He pushed thoughts of Ellie from his mind, and refused to remember how good it had felt to wake up beside Chloe each morning. He put her cooking out of his head. He refused to think about the way she hummed as she baked, or the way she left little vases of freshly picked flowers through his apartment. Or the way she always smelled like lavender or vanilla or jasmine – some kind of sweet flower that made him want to fall to his knees and grab hold of her.
He pushed the door inwards, his expression blanked of any emotion. The lawyer – Ian – he’d met once or twice. He was inconsequential. A power broker at one time who’d ended up a figurehead only. No doubt he was there today because of his name, and the prestige that came with it. Hendrix bared his teeth in a wolf-like smile. His eyes glared briefly at William, and then moved to Chloe.
His heart squeezed tight in his chest, and for the smallest moment, his certainty fell. Her eyes were fearful. Her hands were fumbling in her lap, like she had done that first day she’d come to him.
The day he had promised to help her.
He turned his attention back to William. “William,” he said, the hatred impossible to miss.
“Good God.” William was as white as a sheet, and his small eyes flitted to Chloe. “It’s you.”
Chloe’s frown showed her confusion. Hendrix couldn’t look at her. He was going to free her from this pig of a man – that was what he’d promised her. And so why should he feel bad that his means were less than ethical?
If he was killing two birds using the one stone, then didn’t that make him clever? Resourceful even?
He strode across the room and took the seat next to Chloe. William faced her from the other side. Her face was angled towards him. Her eyes were boring into him. Hendrix ignored her.
“Yes. It’s me.” Everyone in the room ceased to exist, except William and Hendrix.
Chloe was reeling. How did they know one another? Hendrix had never said? And William had certainly never mentioned Hendrix. She’d gone to great lengths to choose a firm that was completely unconnected to the powerful Ansell-Johns family. Her body was filled with ice; her heart was hurting. “How do you know him?” She whispered.
But her words were easily lost in the swirling animosity that crackled through the boardroom.
The two men stared at one another long and hard. The strength of emotion was impossible to ignore. “Clint?” She turned to the junior associate she’d been dealing with. But it was apparent he was as clueless as she. Chloe slapped her palm against the timber table, drawing everyone’s attention to her pale face. “Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
Hendrix blinked, and felt as though Chloe was trying to rouse him from a dream. Or nightmare. Whatever it was, he didn’t intend to wake up from it until he was through. He lifted a finger and put it on her shoulder.
“Trust me,” he implored quietly, calling on her memories of everything they’d shared. Of what they’d come to mean to one another.
And though she had the feeling the building was crumbling beneath them, she had to believe. She had to believe that Hendrix had a plan. That she had misunderstood something. They’d talked about trust. They’d talked about it, and he’d made her feel so safe in him, that she did trust him. Even then. When nothing made sense. Later that day, she would wonder at her stupidity, but at that moment, she had blind faith and love on her side. And so she smiled up at him, and visibly relaxed.
William’s eyes were drawn to the intimate contact. Hendrix’s hand was still on Chloe’s shoulder. His thumb was brushing the soft fabric of her dress possessively. His lips sucked so tightly against his teeth that they were the same shade of white.
