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“Yeah. Yeah, they do.”
She wanted to cry but couldn’t. Her insides had gone terribly cold, like permafrost that would shatter if you pressed too hard against it. That was it. It was done. If Scott was determined to leave, then she wouldn’t have a choice but to sell the place and split the money with him. He’d get himself set up in Nashville with a new job, a new place bought with the funds, and a bright new future. Nicole, meanwhile, had no earthly clue what her future was going to look like now.
“I just can’t stay here,” said Scott, his voice flat and still so quiet. “It’s eating me from the inside out and it’s selfish — Iknowhow selfish this is, I do, but I think I need to be selfish or I’m going to go crazy. The only reason I’ve stayed this long at all is because I couldn’t bear to do it to you, but…” He shrugged. “I’ve had enough. I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”
He sounded so broken and Nicole didn’t want that for him, butgoodGoddid he have to make such a mess of his escape?
“Okay,” she said, somehow standing up despite the wobbling in her knees. “Okay, here’s the thing… And I’m just going to be super practical about this right now, and then I’m going to bed.”
He nodded up at her, looking like a lost puppy, or really like a dog that knew digging in the backyard was wrong but still did it anyway.
“I’m happy for you,” she said, though right now it was hard to admit it. “I am. And you’re going to go to Nashville, and you’re going to work your butt off and do this a hundred percent, because if you chicken out now then I really will disown you. You owe me that much — got it?”
Scott nodded, and though the look on his face couldn’t be called asmile, there was a softening to his expression that meant he understood that, no matter how angry she was right now, it would pass. Eventually, far into the future.
“But,” Nicole continued, looking daggers at him, “I think you know how bad you’ve screwed me over, Scott. There was a right way to do this, andthiswas not it.”
She could have said more, gone on a tirade, screaming and shouting and listing how monumentallywreckedher life was now, basically being forced to sell the farm whether she liked it or not. But Scott knew and she knew — and what was saying it all out loud going to do?
Nothing. It would do nothing but hurt to say the words.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “Don’t talk to me again until tomorrow.”
She left the room, climbed the stairs and crawled under the covers in a state of numbness. Only once the lights were off and she was alone did the tears start to fall.
CHAPTER2
BRENDAN
Brendan had absolutely zero appetite, which wasn’t the ideal way to feel sitting in the best restaurant in Houston. He sat at the table that had been reserved, looking through the glass walls down at the city below, as he waited for his sister to arrive. She’d been too busy lately for them to do much more than send a smattering of texts, so she’d purposely blocked out a lunch break to meet up with him.
Brendan wasn’t working right now and hadn’t been for a few months — not that it was a problem necessarily. He didn’t need to work ever again, not if he didn’t want to. His bank account had eight figures sitting in it, which not a whole lot of people could boast. Add all of his assets and his property portfolio to that and, yeah, work wasn’t the issue. It was more that he felt kind of… useless. Like a cardboard cutout of himself.
He looked around the restaurant, filled mostly with businesspeople having meetings over food and wine, the bills adding up to outrageous amounts and more often than not being just enough to get a deal to land. He knew what these people would think if they looked over at him: that he was one of them — and a good number of them probably already knew who he was.
He had a real estate portfolio that spanned the continental United States, and that included owning half of Houston. He knew what they would think because he made sure to present himself in a very particular way, to get just the right reaction. His dark hair was long, but not too long, swept back off of his face, and his beard was more stubble really, neatly trimmed nearly every day to just the right angles and length. He never wore sunglasses because he wanted clients and colleagues to be able to see his eyes, no matter the situation, and his eyes were dark enough that he could get away with it, not having to squint in bright lights thanks to his nearly black irises. Then there was the secret code of clothing, knowing what to wear and how to wear it to make yourself both the most effortless and the most powerful person in the room. He didn’t buy off the rack anymore; why bother when he could just get a tailor to make him custom shirts and suits that fit him perfectly, all of them in muted blues, navies, blacks and grays? There was a system to navigating the world at this level, and Brendan had gotten it nailed down to perfection.
Except for the past three months, that was. Now that he wasn’t in the office every day, or out of his apartment much at all, the immaculate suits and dress shirts felt more like a costume rather than something helikedto wear. Even trimming his facial hair every other day seemed excessive, a pointless exercise now that he didn’t have an audience. Not that he particularly wanted to go back to the office…
His sister Tina had taken over for him during his sabbatical. She’d always shone in the finance department — a whip-smart mathematician, good enough that she could have walked into any organization and asked for a job with ease. But she’d always liked being close to home, and now she was putting her plethora of skills to use. Brendan was exceedingly proud that there had been no noticeable shift as she’d taken the reins to keep guiding the company, even if Tina was too humble for her own good sometimes, and if anyone tried to get too pushy with her, tried to take advantage of her quiet and reserved nature, she simply invoked her brother’s name and got them to back off. Brendan found himself wishing things could just keep going like this… that he could leave the whole company in Tina’s capable hands. He hated how thinking about going back into that office, even into thebuilding, made his chest feel tight.
He was, to put it mildly, a complete mess lately, and that scared him. So Brendan kept staring out the window of the restaurant, focusing on the rest of the world turning around him instead of what was going on in his own head until there was a tap at his shoulder.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Tina, leaning down and kissing him on the cheek before sitting down opposite him. “I had to fire someone just now and he threw a fit.” She rolled her eyes and smoothed her hair off her face with an elegant hand. People often mistook them for twins, with the same dark hair and dark eyes, but Tina was five years younger than him and just as qualified to run a multi-billion-dollar company, so he’d secretly always thought of her as the superior sibling. She had actual degrees — he just had grit and not a great concept of how consequences worked, making him fearless where he probably shouldn’t be.
“Who?” Brendan asked as a waiter fluttered around them with wine and menus. He wasn’t mad that Tina had fired one of his staff, because right now they wereherstaff. He was just desperate for some sort of link to the man he had been just a few months ago, something to anchor him back in this world of work lunches and excess. “What happened?”
“That Tim idiot,” said Tina, taking a very large sip of her wine. “Lost an entire report that was needed like three days ago because apparently the save button is a foreign concept to him. Already gave him a second chance, and he blew it, so guess what? No more job.”
Brendan grinned at her across the table. “Good,” he said, hoping she knew she was in the right. “Don’t let them walk all over you. You have my blessing; do what you need to.”
Tina nodded and practically dove into the garlic bread, seemingly starving. “I think most of the employees, the ones who need a tight leash anyways, are just trying to wait me out until you come back.”
She gave him a pointed look while she chewed.You are coming back, aren’t you?
Brendan didn’t respond; he didn’t know how because frankly he didn’t know if hewasgoing back. He didn’t know if hecould.
While Tina ate both of their entrees, Brendan absentmindedly flicked through the property listings on his phone, a habit that he’d gotten from obsessively keeping tabs on every available opportunity in Houston and the rest of the States. Not that putting himself under that much strain to know everything all at once had done much good in the end.
