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Gage had a significant number of zeroes padding his bank account, which wouldn’t be hard to figure out, even for a casual observer. This could still be an elaborate ploy for a seven-or eight-figure check. But he didn’t think so.
She nodded once. “Can it be in the next couple of days? Briana didn’t have much, but her estate needs to be settled. Robbie’s future being the most critical part, of course.”
Settled. Yeah, all of this needed to be settled, but unfortunately, this was the least settled he’d ever been. What an impossible situation. And he didn’t have the luxury of shrugging it off like he normally did.
Grimly, Gage showed Lauren out and sat on the couch, head in his hands. And he didn’t even think twice about his next move. He pulled out his phone and dialed Cass.
When he’d left her in Dallas, it was with a terse goodbye and a promise to call her, but he’d never imagined he actually would, at least not for personal reasons. It should have been a good place for them to break things off and only focus on the business of Fyra’s formula. He’d planned for it to be the end, but nothing with Cass felt finished.
Besides, he needed someone with a level head who knew him personally to stand by his side as he met his son for the first time. Someone who wouldn’t let emotions get the best of her. Someone he hoped cared enough about him to help him make the right decision. Someone like Cass.
Too late, he realized none of that actually mattered. He wanted Cass because she mattered. Yeah, it scared him, but he couldn’t deny the truth. The formula had ceased to be the most important thing between him and Cass.
Cass answered on the first ring and he didn’t even bother to try and interpret that. Too much had shifted since they’d last talked for petty mind games like guessing whether she’d missed him like he’d missed her. Or whether she’d realize the fact that he’d called her had earth-shattering significance. It did. She could do what she wanted with that.
“I need you,” he said shortly. “It’s important. Can you come to Austin?”
Eleven
Cass went to Austin.
There really wasn’t a choice. Gage had said he needed her and that was enough. For now. Later, she’d examine the real reason she’d hopped in the car ten minutes after ending his call. Much later. Because there was so much wrapped up inside it, she could hardly make sense of it all.
When his name had come up on her caller ID, she’d answered out of sheer curiosity. You didn’t drop something on a woman like a surprise baby and then jet off. Of course, she’d also been prepared for some elaborate plot designed to see her again so he could coerce her into either giving him the formula or getting naked, at least until he got tired of her again. She’d planned to say no and spend the weekend crossing the finish line on the leak’s name.
She had to be close. The list of potentials wasn’t that long.
But instead she’d found herself saying yes to the surprising request to accompany Gage as he met his son for the first time. He wanted her to be by his side as he navigated this unprecedented situation. The sheer emotion in his voice had decided it. What if Gage wasn’t involved in the leak and she missed her chance to find out what might happen between them?
Cass held Gage’s hand as they mounted Lauren Miles’s front steps and wondered not for the first time if he’d literally come apart under her grip. The new, hard lines around his mouth scared her, but the fragility—that was ten times worse. As if the news he’d fathered a child had replaced his bones with dust. One wrong move and he’d blow away in a strong wind if she didn’t hold on tight enough.
Just this morning, they’d been drinking coffee on her back porch and she’d been desperate to work him out of her system. So she could let him go and move on. Clearly that wasn’t happening. But what was?
Less than four hours had passed since she received Gage’s troubling and cryptic phone call and their arrival on this quiet suburban street. The slam of a car door down the way cracked the silence. It felt as if there should be something more momentous to mark the occasion of entering the next phase of your life. Because no matter what, Gage would never be the same. His rigid spine and disturbed aura announced that far better than any words ever could.
“I admire what you’re doing,” she told him quietly before he rang the doorbell. “This is a tough thing, meeting your son for the first time. I think you’d regret signing the papers if you didn’t do this first.”
