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He probably wishes we kept up the ‘it never happened’ charade.
I wonder if we’ll have another tattoo session or if he’ll hire somebody else to complete it.
This was so much less complicated when it was a crush and it existed only in my imagination.
Driving through the city, I drum my fingers against the steering wheel, wondering if there’s a chance for us.
Or if there’s anusat all.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Silas
I pace back and forth in the elevator as much as it allows.
Julian stands pressed against one wall, and even as the rage boils through me, I think about what it means for Lauren and me.
Pushing Julian aside, taking what we want. Taking each other.
Maybe the argument was a good thing.
“Since when do you pace?” Julian says with a grin.
I flash one back at him, all ironic. “This is a last-minute play for what little power they can get. But they must know I’ll never screw over my customers. I refuse. I’d rather be homeless than that. I’d rather be in a goddamn cage.”
There’s too much energy boiling out of me, fueled by the argument, by Vanessa’s name, all of it coming back.
And Dad’s gravestone is starting to take shape on my skin, stinging. Dad and Vanessa are bouncing around in my head.
With Lauren there, staring, waiting for me to be a decent man and make her mine. To be the man she deserves.
“I know,” Julian says. “They think we’re going to let our shareholders knock us off balance.”
“A scare tactic.”
I nod savagely, doing my best to thrust Lauren into an ignored corner of my mind. But I could never ignore her.
Even after showering, I can still feel her on my body, the shame and the desire.
What if she felt the same, and Julian somehow understood?
“We’re the largest shareholders. And we’re private for a reason. We make our own decisions.”
Julian nods.
“I’ll nuke their whole business model if that’s what they want. Strip the company down to the bare bones. Or totally gut it. They don’t understand how hard we had to work, turning a clothing brand into a skate park franchise, bike shops, ski wear and, and….”
My fists are clenched. “The weeks without sleep, me and you. Making it all work.”
Julian grins, clapping me on the shoulder the way he has countless times before. “I remember. This could’ve been a moderate, successful company. But you always pushed at the edges, looking for the next thing.”
“And you were there to stop me from killing myself in the process.”
He chuckles. And I hate myself, disgusted I’ve corrupted this moment between us, made it about something it never had to include—intimacy with his daughter, an obsession to do it again.
The elevator doors open, leading to a large conference room.
A man and a woman stand from the far end, walking over. The woman is Andrea Coleman, representative of Jargon, the multimedia company we’re acquiring.
