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In the doorway, she turns around and looks at me with fire in her eyes, like she’s ready to scold me, but in an instant, her expression softens, and she simply nods.
Fuck, I must look bad if she’s not giving me lip.
I slide my hands into my pockets to keep myself from throwing something and take in the view of the ocean. “Fuck,” I scream as I finally let the last hour replay in my mind. Cat’s soft moans as she came. Her teeth digging into Frank’s shoulder, her body going limp for him. My own personal nightmare come to life. Witnessing Cat moving on. Seeing her with someone else. Until that moment, I truly believed we had a shot. That her grandfather had talked to her, and I’d waltz in there and get my girl back. But once again, fate isn’t on my side. He clearly had the fucking stroke before he could talk to her. Though that doesn’t even matter, because she’s already moved on. She wouldn’t be fooling around with her brother’s best friend unless it was serious.
And what the hell did I expect? It’s been thirteen fucking years.
I slam my fist against the glass and wince when it doesn’t give. When I look down, I’m not surprised in the least to see blood already seeping from my knuckles.
Elyse walks in with my whiskey. “Your brother is on line one,” she says as she steps up to my desk. When I turn at the sound of her voice, she sucks in a breath. “Mr. Hanson! You’re bleeding!”
I close my eyes in defeat. “I’m fine, Elyse.”
“You most certainly are not. Sit down.” She points to my office chair, then hands the rocks glass to me. “I’ll get something to get that cleaned up.”
I throw back the drink in one go and focus on how the whiskey burns on the way down, then slump in my chair. My hand throbs, and I feel the slight pulse of the blood seeping out, but aside from that, nothing. Physically, I’m numb. Broken. Like I’ve been since I walked away from Cat thirteen years ago. It’s like ice filled my veins and froze me in time, protecting me from the anguish of losing the most important person in my life. And while that detachment is what’s allowed me to survive these last several years, right now, I want to feel what I just experienced. I need to know that Icanstill feel.
When the memory of Cat writhing against Frank enters my mind, my blood burns hot, and a stabbing pain slices through my chest.
“Your brother,” Elyse reminds me, pointing to the phone while she takes an antiseptic wipe to my cuts.
I curse at the sting and pick up the phone to distract myself.
“Hi,” I say. That’s all I’ve got. Unless I count the defeat and depression and desperation threatening to drown me.
“Shit, I take it things didn’t go well?” Hayden asks.
Growing up, I was never close with my brothers. I considered them the competition for my father’s affection and for control of this company. But when my father died and I was beaten to within an inch of my life, Hayden and Garreth stayed by my side. For a long time, I still believed it was because they wanted the company, but Garreth assuaged those concerns when he promised that as soon as I was well, I’d be the head of Hanson Liquors. He swore to me that they were only there to help. And they kept their word.
Now, though, we’re closer than ever, and we run our family business together. Our different talents have been pivotal to our success in the last decade or so. Garreth has a keen eye and can spot problems before they happen. Hayden, on the other hand, is better with people, which is why I called him. Right now, I need someone with a heart. If I called Garreth about this, he’d probably hire a hitman to take out Frank.
I cough out a laugh and pull my hand away from Elyse. “It’s fine,” I mutter to her.
She rolls her eyes but leaves me to sulk in private.
“Doesn’t sound fine,” Hayden counters.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I grumble.
“Oh, I’m sorry, considering I was pulled from a meeting with Clinton to take this call, I figured you actuallywantedto talk to me.”
With a groan, I drop my head back against my chair and search my office for something to focus on. Something that will calm my nerves while I get out the next few sentences. Instead, my mind conjures up Cat’s face. The way her lips parted as Frank touched her. How her cheeks flushed. The soft moans she made, even though it was obvious she was trying to hold them back. It’s probably sick that I’ll be jacking off to that image tonight while simultaneously fuming over it.
“I do want to talk to you,” I grate out, scrubbing a hand over my face, hoping like hell to gain some clarity. “And no, it didn’t go well at all.”
Hayden’s voice softens. “What happened?”
“She doesn’t know.” My voice cracks. “He didn’t tell her. He had the stroke before he could tell her.”
Fuck.Cat needs to hear the truth from someone she trusts, and it kills me that she might never get to hear it from him. And I’m fucking devastated that the man who’s been by my side for the last thirteen years is in the shape he’s in. I can’t even visit him, because his family thinks we hate one another.
Hayden hisses a curse on the other end of the line. “Then you have to tell her.”
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “She’ll never believe me, Hayden. And even if she does…there are parts even I don’t fully understand. I’m not sure how to navigate them. Chase’s birth mother, our parents’ affair. Theo was supposed to take the lead. Now it looks like I’ve been hiding these secrets for years. But they aren’t mine to tell. If I tell Cat the truth, I’m betraying Theo’s trust and taking away his opportunity to tell his family in the way he thinks is best.”
“But Jay, you’ve sacrificed enough over the last decade. You deserve your life back. And Cat deserves to know that she meant something to you.”
“She didn’t mean something. She meanteverything.” I growl in aggravation.
