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Her first thought was that she liked the fact that her brother kind of liked Lukas. Her second was that it shouldn’t matter what her big brother thought.
‘I thought he was a decent bloke. So why did Woods marry you? What did he get out of the deal?’
She didn’t want to tell him, but at the same time she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him.
‘Father sold him a controlling interest in Sedeshire International.’
For a moment Edward dropped his head down and her heart suddenly lurched. His hair would once have fallen in his eyes when he did that, and he’d had this habit of thrusting his fingers into it to rake it back. It was a mannerism that she’d never really paid attention to before. But now he couldn’t even lift his arm to do that. And his hair was so short that it didn’t move a single millimetre when his head moved.
God, how she missed such a simple gesture.
‘Well, if my company had to go, better it’s in Woods’s hands than in Father’s.’
‘Or Andrew Rockman’s,’ she told him quietly.
‘Christ, is that who else was interested?’
She nodded slowly.
‘Then yeah.’ He sounded resigned. ‘Definitely better with Lukas Woods. But you shouldn’t have married him. He might be a decent bloke to another bloke, but he isn’t who I would want my baby sister marrying. Why did you do it, Oats?’
‘Because it was either him or Louis Rockman. Can we discuss that later?’ She tried to smooth things over. ‘I just want to focus on you right now.’
‘Forget it, Oti.’ Edward blew out a breath and her heart ached that he was thinking of her even as he must be seeing his own chance—however slim—at some degree of recovery slipping away.
She reached forward, catching herself as she was about to put her hand over his—he wouldn’t even feel her—and moving it to his cheek instead.
‘Too late, Edward.’ Her voice was soft. ‘I already married him. The deed is done. So unless you want a bully like Father to be the only one to win, then you might as well accept it.’
‘No, Oti.’
‘You have to.’ Frustration, and an old sense of guilt, bubbled up inside her, leaving her helpless to control her outburst. ‘You wouldn’t be in this state if it hadn’t been for me.’
He blew out a sharp breath. ‘For pity’s sake, you weren’t driving. I was. You weren’t even in the car with me.’
‘But if you hadn’t been racing to collect me...’ She splayed her hands. ‘If I hadn’t called you, panicking, because he was at that party...’
‘Stop it, Oats. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It was my fault.’ Oti let her head drop, her throat tight and clogged. ‘If I’d never called you...’
‘So what happens if I have a lower motor neuron intact?’ he asked abruptly.
‘What?’ She jerked her head up, confused.
‘Tell me about the procedure,’ Edward ground out.
He was making an effort again. Pulling himself together despite everything. And she needed to do the same.
Oti smiled a watery smile. This was precisely why it didn’t matter what she’d had to promise to Lukas, or her father.
Edward was worth it.
‘Then the peripheral nerve transfer procedure can work to reroute expendable donors to non-functional nerves.’
For the next hour or so they talked through options and procedures. And it felt promising that Edward was listening to her, and they weren’t fighting any more.
All that was left to do now was to call her father and get the funds he’d agreed to give her. She would do it as soon as she left Edward.
