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“You have got to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t even try to play dumb. You are far from it. Tell me what happened after you were blacklisted.”
“I agreed that I would take over but only when my father died.”
Okay, I was not expecting that answer. I look at the side of his face and see him squeezing the steering wheel.
“I had my own reasons for agreeing to it but the truth is, I thought he’d live forever. He died a few months later. And I took over. The problem for dear old Dad was that he forgot who he was dealing with. He was so happy that he’d gotten his own way that he didn’t read the small print of the contract I had drawn up. As soon as the ink was dry on my father’s death certificate, I fired the board and half of the employees that were loyal to him. I combined both companies into one and rebranded. I made it mine.”
“GhostWard,” I say softly as we pull up outside my house.
“Exactly.”
I look around, and see that there are no reporters.
“He died of a massive heart attack, and though I never wanted his company for the same reasons that he did, I can’t deny I’m a very rich man because of it. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to mourn him or celebrate.”
I shrug. “If there’s one thing this has taught me, it’s that you get to feel what you feel. Everything else can be wiped away inan instant.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and open the door as he contemplates my words. “Text me later?”
He winks as I close the door. Though he didn’t answer, I know he will. He drives away once I reach the top step. As I pull the key from my purse, I hear a car door slam, and I turn around, expecting to see Valen, assuming he forgot something. But it’s not, it’s Nathan. The look on his face instantly has my blood running cold.
“What’s wrong?”
“What the fuck are you doing with Valen Ward?”
His sharp words make me stagger back. “What? He said we were dating.”
He snorts and runs his hands through his hair. “Valen Ward doesn’t date. He fucks supermodels and sends them on their way with something from Tiffany’s.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve had multiple run-ins with the guy before. He’s dangerous, Rue.”
I shake my head. Nathan seems too angry about this. Is he jealous? “He knows me. He knows how I take my coffee, where I live?—”
He grabs my arms, holding me tightly but not hard enough to hurt. “His company also holds the patent and trademark for Sono-d. They’re the company behind it.”
My mouth drops open as his words sink in.
“He’s also our main suspect.”
Chapter Eleven
Then
No matter how our days went, we always spent the nights the same way.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, we moved from the floor to the bed.
She spent her days falling apart, and I spent my nights holding her together.
She needed me, but it wasn’t one-sided, despite how it might have looked from the outside. I needed her just as much, if not more. I loved her. I don’t know when things changed and she became my entire reason for breathing, or if it was like that from day one and it just took me a while to recognize it for what it was.
I knew nobody else would understand, though. We were both broken and far too damaged to have a healthy relationship. I knew what I felt went beyond love, beyond obsession, maybe even beyond madness.
She held my sanity in her hands and kept a little more of it each day.
