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“Axel, I’m so sorry.” She sounded like she’d been crying.
I forced myself to look up at her. She clasped my face in her cool hands and pressed soft kisses to my lips, my cheeks, my forehead.
“Me too.” I didn’t even have the energy to kiss her back. “Can this be over now? Oh wait. It won’t be over for a long time. And then, it might only end when they throw me into prison.”
She covered her mouth with a hand, pinning me with her watery gaze.
“Whatever headway we made with our press conference last week is completely demolished,” I said. “Our reputations are tanked. I won’t be surprised when our clients start lining up to say adios.”
“Axel,” she murmured, squeezing my arm. “There’s a way out of this. I know there is.” She sniffed, and that’s when I noticed her eyes were rimmed with red. Shehadbeen crying.
“Why are you crying? Is it because I’m going to prison?”
“Axel, this is all my fault.”
“I don’t follow.”
She ran an index finger below each of her eyelids, mopping up tears. “Eli threatened to make things worse for you. I thought he was bluffing.”
I blinked slowly, struggling to fit her words into the mess of neurons and despair I called my brain. “What?”
“I met him for lunch after the most recent board meeting. He acted like he wanted to discuss the divorce papers, but of course he didn’t agree to anything. He made a comment about how things were going to get worse for you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this then?”
“It was right after the sex trafficking article hit. It didn’t seem like the time.” She wrung her hands together, looking at me with concern etched into her face. “I never imagined he’d dothis.” She swallowed. “He said if I went back to him, he’d make all the drama with you go away.”
My head sank into my hands. Her words inspired a very distinct type of misery. Because not only was someone actively invested in my demise, the woman I loved was attached to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me this then?” I repeated, feeling the first zip of anger. At least I could still feel something beyond despair.
“I told you,” she said, scooping up one of my hands in hers. “You were devastated. It got lost in the swirl. I thought he was bluffing, because I showed him the evidence that Damian dug up.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say anymore. I was just so tired. I needed to sleep for a year. And even then, I’d probably need a nap afterward.
“Please, Axel,” she said, maneuvering so that she stood in front of me, between the chair and the desk. She grasped my face again, forcing me to look up at her. “Say something.”
I closed my eyes in response. I didn’t have it in me. I’d never felt this low. Not in my adult life, at least.
“Everything is going to be fine,” she insisted.
“Maybe for you,” I said with a bitter laugh. “No matter what, you’ll have all your savings and investments. The SEC won’t leave us shit. You ever thought about how you’d lay off a hundred loyal employees from behind bars?”
“That time is not now,” she said, searching out my gaze. “You do not get to flagellate yourself with the worst-case scenarios. Do you hear me?”
“I’ll remember your advice when I’m in prison,” I muttered.
She covered her face with her hands. “You’re not going to prison.”
“You don’t know that. But you did know someone was coming after me. Thanks for the heads up, by the way.”
Cora crossed her arms, lips pursed as she studied me. “Don’t be like that.”
“How else should I fucking be, Cora?” I hissed. “My entire world is falling apart. Right now. Everything is crumbling, and you want to sit here and tell me to not be like that.”
“I’m trying to help,” she said, placing her hands on my shoulders. I shrugged them off, pushing to standing.
“Well, it’s not fucking working,” I snapped, heading to the windows. Everything swirled inside me, a painful, nauseous jumble. I knew snapping at her like this wasn’t the answer, but hell if I could control anything right now. “Maybe you should go.”
