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Dalton nodded again, making some more notes on the page before him. I could see his hand shaking slightly, but I ignored it. He might have been scared, but I was set on this. I was set on what we needed to do next, what needed to happen. I couldn’t keep living in the shadow of my father’s legacy. If I wanted to be the kind of person Thea could love, the type of person she could be with. I had to start here, now. And I had to begin from the ground up with this business.
Dalton rose to his feet, and I could tell he was waiting for me to take it all back. Waiting for me to admit this had been nothing more than a joke on my part or something. But I met his gaze steadily, not shifting until he shook his head.
"I never thought I’d see the day," he muttered, and he stuck his hand out to me. "I’m looking forward to seeing where you go next with this, Scott."
"Me too," I replied, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. "And I hope you’ll be there to keep me company through it."
"Of course, I will," he replied, flashing me a grin. "I can’t wait to see how this turns out."
He turned and headed out of my home office, and I sank back down into the chair and stared at the spot he had just been in. This was it—things were moving now, no taking them back. I couldn’t undo it. I didn’t want to. This was what I had committed to, for a reason—and that reason came in the form of Thea, and everything we’d talked about the last time we had seen one another.
I knew it was a risk. More than a risk. It was the equivalent of throwing myself off the edge of a cliff without looking down first, without knowing how far I had to fall, but sometimes, you had to take that leap of faith.
My faith was in Thea, but more than that, it was in myself, in that I wanted this regardless of how things turned out with her. The more I spoke to her, the more I saw into this life that I desired, a life where I didn’t have to skirt around the sidelines of the decent world, a life where I could have a family without fearing that I would put them in danger just by virtue of them existing. They would be safe, and this was the best way I could ensure it.
I knew my father would have been rolling in his grave, but honestly, I couldn’t think about that now. Yes, he had spent a long time building up this business, these connections, but it was time to leave that behind. Wasn’t that the aim of every man like him? To be able to claim legitimacy somewhere down the line? He might not have sought it out himself, but he had made it so I could pursue it, and I was grateful for that. One day, from wherever he was now, I was sure he would see it my way and forgive me in the process.
And what about Thea? Well, I wanted to make sure I had everything in place by the time I spoke to her next so that it wasn’t just empty words. I wanted her to be able to believe everything I had to say to her and believe me when I told her I was ready to change. Even if it seemed crazy, I wanted her to believe it.
I didn’t know if she would still want me. Maybe she had been attracted to the part of me that offered danger, the part of me that seemed impossible. She knew nothing could happen between us, not with her brother hating me the way he did, and perhaps it had been a safety measure, a way she could indulge in this romance without commitment.
But I needed to try. I needed to find out if there might have been something more to the connection I felt with her. She made me want to change, she made me want to be better, and I couldn’t think of a greater compliment I could give her. I couldn’t think of anything more I would have been looking for in a woman.
I had fallen for her, hard, fast, harder than I had ever fallen for anyone in my life before. It was more than just a crush, more than just desire. I was sure of it. There was something solid between us, something I couldn’t deny, something that was just beginning to bloom, but something I wanted to do everything I could to cultivate.
And judging by how she had encouraged me to look into doing better things with my money, I would guess she felt the same way too. She saw something in me that nobody else did or had tried to see—something I couldn’t even imagine finding anywhere else.
I couldn’t wait to tell her what I had done, the choice I had made, based on the advice she’d given me. I just wanted to make sure she understood how much I appreciated her and the support she’d shown me. Even though her brother clearly thought I was a criminal, maybe he would start to see me through a new lens when he understood how far I was willing to go to prove myself.
I got to my feet to pour myself a drink. I felt like celebrating. I knew it was early to go about hailing a new change to my life, a new world for me to live in, but it felt right. I knew this was going to stick. I had this feeling deep in my chest like this was it—this was what I had been waiting for.
I filled the glass up with a generous helping of whiskey—my father’s favorite drink. He had been the one to introduce me to it. Whenever I sipped on it, I thought of him. And now, I thought of how he might see me—what he might think of me and where I had taken his business.
But, at the end of the day, it was what I wanted that mattered. I couldn’t live my life in his shadow. I had to strike out and create a legacy of my own, even if I wasn’t sure how to go about it—even if this ground felt so fresh beneath my feet, I wasn’t sure if I could stand up straight.
I was ready for it. Ready for anything. And, most of all, ready for Thea to find out just how far I had gone to prove myself to her.
Chapter Seventeen Thea
I fiddled with the cup in front of me, trying to remember exactly how much coffee my doctor had told me I could have each day. Even though I knew I was well within the healthy limit, there was still a paranoid part of me that wanted to play it even safer.
But I wasn’t exactly playing it safe now, was I? No, I was about to meet with Scott and tell him the truth of what was going on with me—the truth of why I had been dodging his calls, doing all I could to keep my distance. I was scared shitless about how he was going to react, but I couldn’t keep this from him forever.
I had been going back and forth on how to tell him if I even wanted to. He had reached out to me a few times, and I had brushed him off, not ready to see him yet. But I felt as though he would just be able to tell with one look the truth of what was going on inside my head.
But I knew I couldn’t keep it from him forever. He deserved to know the truth, of course, he did—and though I couldn’t tell for certain how he was going to react to it, this seemed the only way to handle this. I couldn’t keep pretending this wasn’t happening. At my first doctor’s appointment, she told me the baby was doing great, looked healthy, and I just had to keep doing what I was doing. It was as real as it would ever be, and the last thing left to do was tell Scott.
When I saw him walk through the door, my heart skipped several beats. God, I had missed him. I didn’t even realize I was capable of missing someone so much. Even though we’d only known each other a few months, my soul seemed to cry out for him when we were apart, drawing me in closer and closer until there was nothing left to resist.
He grinned as soon as he set eyes on me and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. I inhaled his aftershave, taken back at once to the night we’d met, the night this had all started. Even then, I had known there was something special about him. I had known there was something I couldn’t deny, something I didn’t want to let go of. No matter how tempting it might have been to give in to it right now and try and live in that fantasy world where I didn’t have to admit to what was really going on, I had to tell him the truth.
I had to.
He sat opposite me, eyeing me for a long moment as he tried to work out what was going on inside his head. I didn’t blame him for being confused. He must have been wondering what had changed to draw me back in again, pull me back close to him like this when I had tried to put some distance between us. When my brother had practically insisted we stay away from each other.
I wrapped my hand around the cup, gripping on for dear life as though it was the only thing in the world capable of bringing me comfort right now.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?” He asked me, raising his eyebrows and smiling at me earnestly.
