Page 105 of Threaded Lies

I stare at her, curious and turned on by this newfound defiance but not understanding it all at the same time. “I can’t do that,” I say.

She nods. “Neither can I, then.”

We wage a visual war as the words just uttered sink in, as the gauntlet she’s thrown down settles, and I wonder if I just lost her.

The pounding on the door makes us both jump.

“Sweetie. I’m worried. She’s getting me the key just in case you’re not okay,” her mom says.

“I guess we’re in that gray area then, aren’t we,” I say and press one more chaste kiss to her lips before heading out the door I came in.

The door shuts behind me and blocks the devastating vision of Rowan in a wedding dress with her body still humming from my touch.

She can’t marry the prick.

I’ll make sure of it.

FORTY

Rowan

“Only if you walk away from TinSpirits?” Sloane’s eyes grow wide and the pour in her wineglass grows bigger. She sits across from me in my living room and crosses her legs beneath her. “Please tell me you really said that.”

“I did.” I relive the shock on Holden’s face when I did.

“Oh my god. He must have gone feral.”

“Well, considering I was standing in a wedding dress with the feeling of his hands still burned into my skin, yeah, he did.”

“What possessed you to say that?”

“I don’t know. It was like … isn’t that the endgame? Wasn’t it originally for me? It’s like, I’ve gotten so caught up in manipulating my shares and my votes and trying to get my inheritance that my original goal got lost.”

“And so you asked for it.”

I nod and take a sip. “He’s asking me to give up my inheritance. Why can’t I ask him to give up what he wants?”

“To be fair, he doesn’t know that’s why you’ve agreed to marry Chad. The inheritance part.”

I thought you were doing this to buy time. Time for what though? Is this about your inheritance? About something you gain through marriage? Whatever it is isn’t worth going through this fucking charade.

“I think he has an inkling that it does though.”

“He’s a smart man.”

“He is.” And now I await the pressure from him to explain otherwise.

“Then tell him to be the one to marry you. To help you get your inheritance,” she deadpans.

My heart stops momentarily at the suggestion. Is it sad that I’d consider it? A man who set out to take so much from me, and I’d consider it ten times quicker than I ever did with Chad?

“Funny.” I play off the comment. I try to forget it, but hell if it didn’t stop me in my tracks momentarily.

“So what was his answer, then, when you told him that?” she asks as Winnie climbs up on the couch beside her to take advantage of Sloane’s long fingernails.

“That he couldn’t do it.”

She twists her lips and studies me. “He’s a bazillionaire. He could have picked a million other companies. He picked yours. Why, Rowan? There has to be something more there.”