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“I said scary, not stupid!” he clarifies. “I was talking about maybe taking her out to dinner, taking a chance to get to know her outside of a business meeting… something like that. I never said anything about taking her to a remote island in a private jet!”
His eyes roll back into his head before he adds, “Why do you always have to overdo it, Chase?”
“Because I don’t half-ass shit like that,” I tell him. “I needed her to look at me differently, and this girl… she’s not easy to impress.”
He frowns at me. “You needed her to look at you differently? Wait, are you playing this girl? Did I give you advice on how to play with her heart, so you can get what you want?”
I feel an unpleasant quiver in my stomach, and draw my lips into a thin line while biting my lip, instead of giving him a verbal response. That’s pretty much what happened, but now that I hear Aston say it out loud, I feel nothing but shame about what I did to Madison.
“I know, I’m an asshole,” I admit.
I can feel his eyes on me, as I reach for my beer, and I can see the way he shakes his head in disappointment from the corner of my eye when I take another large swig. I’m given a temporary reprieve when the waiter comes to our table to take our orders.
“Wagyu ribeye steak,” we say in unison, exchanging a quick smile while the waiter types our order into his tablet. Wagyu ribeye has been our group’s signature steak since college, and there’s an unspoken rule that this is what we order when we meet for a meal.
“You are an asshole,” Aston cements. “It didn’t sound like you were just planning to play with that girl’s heart when we last talked about her. I thought you really liked her?”
Well, that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it, I think to myself. I completely underestimated my feelings for Madison, and was stupid enough to think that this would be the way to convince her to sell to me—and that was just as stupid as thinking I would be able to get through this without getting too attached to her.
“I do like her,” I say eventually, finally looking him in the eyes. “And yes, that’s what I planned initially. Problem is, she totally thwarted my plan by…”
I pause, unable to find the right words for what happened between us.
“By being too awesome?” Aston concludes, arching another eyebrow at me. “You fell for her, and now you don’t know how to proceed?”
“Well… yeah, fine,” I concede. “She’s fucking amazing, and I don’t want to hurt her. I hate causing her pain because she doesn’t deserve it. But I also still really, really want her company.”
“That sucks,” he comments dryly. “If I were you, I’d reconsider that buyout. I’ve never seen you like this. You’ve never been this smitten with any other girl. I mean, acquisitions? Don’t you have enough of those?”
“This isn’t just any other acquisition,” I maintain. “This is a true giant that could turn my entire empire around—”
“Oh, you and your empire!” Aston interjects.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t born into one like you!” I call him out. “I worked hard to get where I am, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. I’ve been wanting to expand into orthoses and work with the army for years, you know that! This is what I have been working toward!”
He looks a bit hurt, lowering his gaze for a moment, which makes me want to apologize for what I said about him, but he waves me off before I get the chance.
“It’s fine, I get that,” he says. “And I understand that this is about more than just ‘growing your empire’, even though you would never admit it, for whatever reason. There’s no shame in doing something good for other people, you know?”
Our eyes meet, and once again, the sobriety in his gaze gets to me. Sometimes it feels like Aston has some kind of third eye that allows him to look into other people’s souls. If he hadn’t become a university professor, he would have made a great therapist for sure. He knows that my altruistic endeavors don’t stop with my foundation.
After making my first million with a proprietary legal technology platform that I built from the ground up with our friend Gabe, I have invested most of my efforts—and my money—into the healthcare sector. Not only because it was a great way to make money, but also to help people. A collaboration with the army to provide them with better orthoses for injured veterans has been on my list for a long time.
“Well, it doesn’t matter how noble—or whatever—my intentions are. She won’t sell, even after…,” I cut myself off, unwilling to share the intimate details of my time with Madison. “You’re right, I was trying to play her, to make her fall for me, so she would sell. But I should have known that that could never work. It’s her father’s legacy, and she worked all of her life to get where she is.”
“Just like you.”
“Just like me,” I agree. “Which is why I can never take it from her.”
He nods. “So, what are you going to do then?”
I release a dark laugh. “Fuck if I know!”
It’s my luck that the waiter chooses this moment to bring our steaks, placing the heated plates in front of us. My mouth waters when the scent of freshly grilled steak fills my nostrils, providing a momentary diversion from my dilemma.
But I’m painfully aware that I won’t be engaged with this steak forever. Just like I couldn’t escape to Hawaii forever, and just like Madison and I couldn’t pretend there was nothing between us forever. Reality will catch up with me soon enough, and I will have to make a decision: Break Madison’s—and frankly, my own—heart, or give up on my dream.
Chapter 33
