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19
“Tyler. You still with us?”
I snap my attention to the lawyers on the tablet. “What’re we waiting for?”
“They’re reviewing your revised terms for the debt restructuring,” our lead attorney says.
“Terms which are more than fair,” I press. “So, what’s to review?”
There’s no answer.
I tug on my hair and rise from the chair, the four walls starting to feel like a prison after twelve hours.
I went to our villa to rest for a few hours last night, holding my fiancée while she slept. I don’t want to shift the burden of my responsibility onto her, but this situation has tested every ounce of my resolve.
“What if we put this on hold until after the wedding?” I ask. My fiancée is getting ready for the rehearsal dinner, and I’m in here arguing over technicalities.
“Exclusivity lapses tomorrow. Which means everything we’ve all been working on for weeks—months—is gone.”
I’m typically the cool head in any conversation. Now, I’m frustrated enough to put a fist through the wall.
I hope it’s worth it. Annie’s words from yesterday come back.
I stretch out my arm, my hand. The place above my knuckle where the ring will rest tomorrow.
Annie and I picked it out together at a jewelry store in New York. Having it on my finger, the weight of it, felt right.
But more than that, I remember her face when she saw it on me. The look of complete and utter devotion. I want to deserve that look. To be the kind of man who takes care of her, not because she needs it, but because I need to do that. To protect her the way I was never protected.
Before I left the villa this morning, I went looking for it in her jewelry box.
I found more than I bargained for.
The necklace she’s worn for five years was in a pile on the bottom, the promise ring glinting dully.
The clasp was mangled, the pendant with the purple rose cracked.
Did she break it out of anger after our argument?
The possibility has my hands clenching and my breath going shallow. The feeling rising up isn’t disbelief but something like panic.
Annie’s always worn her heart on her sleeve. If she’s doing shit like that where I can’t see it, I’ve hurt her worse than I thought.
I check the clock on my phone. “There’s an hour until the rehearsal. We need to wrap this up. I need to get back to Annie.”
Jax rubs his chin. “Haley’s not thrilled with me either.”
The lawyer smirks. “Women don’t understand. Am I right?”
Anger rises in me, but Jax leans in toward the tablet before I can open my mouth. “You’ve never met my wife, have you?”
His tone is mild. Soft.
Terrifying.
The man on the other end of the call frowns as if trying to remember, then he shakes his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Jax leans an elbow on the back of his chair, looking entirely at ease, but his amber eyes smolder. “What about my daughter?”
“Only briefly.”
“You think you’re hot shit with your Rolexes and your Lambos. I bet you congratulate yourself every night for having ‘made it,’ for being top in your Ivy League class or whatever gets you off. But you have no idea what it takes to run an empire that wears your face—one that demands and gives in ways you could never expect. Those ‘women’? They get it. They live it, and they’re the reason we do any of this. Which means they’re the reason you get paid. So, you can stop pretending you know the first thing about women and stick to what we’re paying you for.”
Shock, tinged with a little fear, is plain on his face even through the video call. “Understood.”
Jax exhales heavily before glancing at me.
I turn back to the screen, blood thrumming in my veins with renewed purpose. “Let’s make this happen.”
