Page 17 of Violent Little Thing

We would never share anything. I wouldn’t allow myself to have anything more than what we already shared.

“No,” he grumbled. “She hasn’t. But that’s the thing. He thought that we’d just go back to how it was, letting her get away with everything while living off of our dime. But Mom, Lysander and I are done. We don’t want to deal with it anymore. So I had an idea.”

“And that idea is to sell it to Courtland, once named Emory Fox, and force their hand.”

I looked over at Charleigh.

I hadn’t been aware that she knew my real name.

Not that it was really that hard to find out.

I mean, I’d been a famous soccer player once. My face had been plastered everywhere. Not to mention, my ex-in-laws played a commercial about drunk driving featuring my face once every four years when the World Cup was played.

I’d had billboards featuring my mug in Times Square.

Needless to say, I wasn’t a secret.

I hadn’t tried to hide my identity, per se. I’d just wanted to start over. New name. New location. New everything.

I knew what would happen, though, if I agreed to buy Beau’s and his family’s shares.

I’d be in the limelight again, and that would mean the Cottonwoods would once again come after me.

I mean, them seeing me was a given.

They owned a football team of their own, the Carolina Red Raiders. We’d be in direct competition with each other.

The media would have a fucking heyday when they found out.

Was I ready for that kind of attention?

“Beau.”

I looked at Beau after Charleigh had said his name in such a devastating tone.

“Yeah?” Beau croaked.

“I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do,” she said. “I don’t mind dealing with your sister, and you know it. After Sonja…”

That was the reason I’d agreed.

Not because, by doing this, I would be spending time with the woman that I craved.

No, it was because Beau looked like he was about to break.

My new friend had gone through a lot. He kept going through it, too, because his father couldn’t open his eyes and see how toxic the snake he called a daughter was.

Beau needed a break, and I could offer him one.

I mean, it wasn’t like I was really doing anything with my life.

I’d spent the last six months running a mechanic shop because…what else could I do?

I’d also started driving big rigs because again, what else was there to do?

But the mechanic shop ran itself, the employees were fully competent and able to run the show without me.

The bull hauling gig I’d started to do, though it paid a hell of a lot of money, gave me way too much time to think.