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But that fantasy is something I gave up wishing for a long time ago. I honestly wish I could restore that kind of idealism in myself. I wish I could let Ace restore it, if that’s the kind of thing he would even want to do.
The sad reality is that it’s been too long for me. Too many years of day-in-day-out struggling. Working. Striving. Not hoping, but doing whatever I have to do to win. Hope was never really part of the equation, so it’s incredibly hard for me to hinge my future on it. The part of my psyche that might be inclined to hope was dented beyond recognition when I was four years old.
I ignore the sting behind my eyes, squaring my shoulders and getting ready to face what promises to be a roller coaster of a day.
Closing the door of the apartment, I take the elevator down to the Sky Walk. I stand there for a few minutes, staring down at the New York traffic and wondering what will become of my life.
Then I call Ace’s number.
28
By the time I get to my office, I’m in a horrendous mood. I’ll get my way—I have to—and see her tonight. But I have an entire shitstorm to wade through before six o’clock rolls around.
It’s barely 7:30 in the morning, so I’m surprised to get to my office and find not just two of my brothers waiting for me, but all three.
They’re in various chairs around my office, Noah and Colton on couches and Alexander helping himself to my ergonomically-correct desk chair like he owns the place. They’re holding mugs of coffee from the machine on the bar.
“To what do I owe the astounding pleasure of being invaded by my entire family?”
“Consider it an intervention,” says Alexander. The oldest of all four of us, Alex exudes a certain stoicism. He’s always shouldered the burden of our father’s expectations as the oldest son like he was groomed from birth to do. Which I know for a fact wasn’t easy. “You’re losing your grip, Cash, that much is obvious. We’re here to find out what the fuck is going on with you and to help you save your company from total annihilation.”
Shit. I need coffee. “Pour me one, would you, Colton?” I never bothered with one of those cost-the-earth espresso machines with all the frothing apparatuses and whatnot. I prefer percolated black coffee straight up and plenty of it.
Noah launches straight into the inquisition. “Where have you been all weekend? Do you know how many times we’ve tried to call you?”
I pull out my phone and check my missed calls. “Thirty-seven?” I scroll through the most recent ones to make sure Tex isn’t one of them before shoving my phone back in my pocket.
I get that I should be taking the concerns of my brothers seriously. I’m the one here with everything to lose. But none of it feels as important as it used to, before Tex burst into my life like a green-eyed wrecking ball, shattering everything. What matters most to me now is her. There’s nothing complicated about my feelings. I want her and I’ll sacrifice anything and everything to have her. I’m not happy about it, but there it fucking is.
Actually, scratch that. I am happy about it. Happy isn’t an emotion I’ve had a lot to do with. Until now. Until that day on the beach when a Texan girl in a tiny little leopard print bikini strolled past my table. Now it’s the only emotion I can feel. That she exists. That she’s mine.
If I can figure out how to keep her and get her to stop running from me.
I take a seat on one of the leather chairs—more heavily than I mean to because I fucking miss her—and Colton puts the mug of coffee down in front of me. “Someone is distracting you at the moment and, as not only your brothers but also your business partners, we’re getting some information out of you whether you like it or not.”
“Who is she?” Alex asks, point blank.
Noah levels me with his blue stare. I already admitted to him I met someone in Hawaii. And despite the fact that I just gushed to Tex that I’m going to shout about us being together from the rooftops, I hesitate before opening this particular can of worms. “Someone I met. Are there any new developments?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Noah this pissed off. He’s usually the easy-going brother who’s practically impossible to rile. But not today. “Which new developments are you referring to? The ones in which you’ve taken a vacation from your life at the exact same time the SEC have officially decided they’re going to launch an investigation into Invested Enterprises? Or the ones in which it’s only a matter of time before the press feasts on that information like vultures around a fresh kill?”
“Shit.” My girl is rubbing off on me. The word almost sounds like it’s got the slightest Texan twang.
All three of them are staring at me like they don’t recognize me. Colton actually laughs. “‘Shit’? That’s all you have to say?”
“Fuck?” I offer. “Is that better?”
My phone vibrates in my pocket with an incoming call and I realize a second too late as I pull it out that the word Tex lights up the screen—and that all three of them can clearly see that. I should be feeling a thousand emotions right now that have to do with what my brothers just told me, like rage, grit, determination, whatever. The only one that registers is relief. She got my message.
“I have to take this.”
“You can take it right here,” Noah suggests.
I answer the call. “Hey.”
If I didn’t already have my brothers’ attention, I sure have it now. And I wish I hadn’t said Hey like I just said it. Gently. Almost hopefully.
She sounds almost breathless. “Ace, I really need to talk to you about something that happened this morning. It’s important.”
