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Chapter Seventeen
Vicky
Two days after the kiss, April calls to inform me that Smuckers and I are scheduled to come to a groundbreaking ceremony for a brain disorders research facility on Staten Island.
I put on my favorite outfit, a maroon pencil skirt with a dusky gray sweater. I pause over the pearly buttons, remembering the way his fingers worked them, trembling just a little, as if he really wanted me. It was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced.
The hottest thing I’d ever experienced was a man undoing my sweater as if he wanted me.
I sink to the bed. Despair and resentment twist through me, bright and sharp. Smuckers watches me alertly from his nest of blankets.
It seemed so real for a while, but he’s one of the best. One word from him and buildings shoot up to the sky and women fall to their knees. There’s a reason for that.
What am I doing?
Wearing that exact same sweater style for him again, that’s what.
I flop back on the bed and scroll to Henry’s griffin text, like I have a dozen times before. Like that’s proof he was thinking about me.
He was really thinking about his company, wasn’t he? He tried a few underhanded things and now he’s going with seduction.
He wants the company back, and why not? It should’ve been his. He deserves it back. He’s not like Denny.
I put the phone to my chest and stare at the water-stained ceiling.
And I make a decision. This thing has to end.
Carly wanders in and shakes her head at my outfit. “That’s what you’re wearing?”
“I have something to tell you,” I say. “I’m signing the company over to Henry.”
“Ex-cuuuuuse?” she says, outraged and dramatic.
“It’s not mine. It’s not right.”
“It belongs to poor Smuckers.”
“Come on,” I say. “It’s Henry’s birthright. I’m going to have Smuckers sign it over.”
“But…all the money!”
“It’s not ours.”
“He tried to trick you,” Carly says. “He tried to bully you. He had you detained!”
“And now all that ends.”
“So a rich, entitled asshole who thinks he can get his way all the time gets his way?”
The memory of the kiss washes over me. I would’ve given him anything. It’s dangerous. How far would he have gone? Seducing me out of sheer duty? “Decision made,” I say.
Carly narrows her eyes. “Hooooold on. This is a pretty major financial decision.”
I smile bitterly. “A multi-billion-dollar decision.”
“Well, are you forgetting something, perhaps? A certain cooling off period that we promised each other to honor?”
“This is different.”
