AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We were quiet for a time, both of us processing our thoughts. I broke the silence, asking, “Do you think she could have saved the company if she hadn’t died?” I didn’t know what difference it made now—probably some misplaced hope that if the cards had fallen a different way, we might not have lost them. But I needed to know.
He didn’t answer straight away, and the longer he delayed, the more I knew what his conclusion was. “She would have needed a miracle,” he finally murmured, his voice full of regret. “There was a lot of money embezzled. To make it back during a period of economic growth would have been difficult, but to do it when the world markets were collapsing was nigh on impossible.”
“Those bastards took my parents’ money. They have a fuckton of blood on their hands.” My blood boiled whenever I thought about them living the high life while Mum had struggled both financially and emotionally. Dad’s life insurance payout had never been forthcoming. Apparently, he’d changed it just before he died, thinking that the new policy offered more coverage. It would have if the exclusion period had passed. Suicide wasn’t covered in the first twelve months of a policy, so Mum got nothing.
“I want them dead, Tris,” I seethed, my hands now shaking from blind fury instead of sadness. “I want to make them suffer.”
“I know. But there’s something I need you to do first.”
My gaze shot to his as he stepped closer, and his scent filled my lungs. My eyelids fluttered, and I mentally kicked myself. I couldn’t get into this again. Yeah, he smelled good. So what? It wasn’t like I wanted to jump his bones or anything. Jesus, talking made my walls crumble, and I hated it. I needed distance between us.
I’d managed to separate myself enough that I avoided coming face to face with a fuck fest on most days. But it was getting harder. I’d allowed myself to indulge two times too many, three if I counted Zali’s plane in Sydney. Monaco was a mistake, something that should never have happened if I had any hope of keeping my defences intact. I knew that if I let myself get any closer to Zali, I wouldn’t be able to resist the others either. Tristan was too damn charismatic for his own good, Flynn was adorable but in a sexy excitable puppy turned demanding and confident kind of way, and Ezra was sex on legs. It didn’t take a genius to spot how attractive they all were, and all four of them together was too much of a temptation for me to resist.
“Yeah?” I asked, my voice more of a squeak than my normal baritone.
“Yeah.” He nodded with a smile that bordered on wicked. His emerald eyes sparked, daring me to react. “I need you to man up—”
His words were like a slap to the face. A bucket of ice-cold water dousing me. My chest squeezed tight, and disappointment in myself flattened me with the force of a steamroller. But he was wrong. It’s all I’d ever done. I’d worked so hard to make them proud. I’d focussed all my energy into becoming the man they wanted me to be, one Dad would be proud of.
Anger surged through me, and I reacted on instinct, pushing up out of my chair so fast that it skittered across the small room and bounced off the wall.
“What the fuck?” I barked.
I crowded Tristan, grasping his button-down shirt in my fists and shoving him against the desk. I loomed over him and clenched my jaw, my lips turned up in a sneer.
Who the fuck did he think he was?
He didn’t know me.
I’d stepped up from the moment Dad died. I’d been there for everyone. I’d taken care of Mum, my grandma, and pop. I’d been there for them, the shoulder to cry on and the person who helped pick up the pieces when they needed to be put back together again. I’d started a part-time job so I could help pay the bills and take the stress off Mum. I’d become the man of the house just like Uncle Kev and Tom and Chris, Dad’s mates, had told me over and over.
I’d done it for Dad.
I’d done it for Mum.
When I wanted to cry, when I wanted to be held and rocked and told that it’d all be okay, I shoved it down. I buried it. I held my head up and my arms out so Mum could lean on me.
Only Ash had seen me fall apart.
Then I’d lost him too, and I’d stepped up again. I’d erected walls around the shattered remains of my heart and held my arms out wider. I’d pulled Zali and Flynn into my embrace. When Roe was barely holding on, I’d made sure he knew that his daughter was safe in my hands to take the stress off him.
I’d watched out for Zali, protected her. I’d made sure that the fuckers who wanted her body didn’t take more than she was willing to give. I’d made sure she got home every night and that the worst of the guys never got anywhere near her. I’d kept the drugs and alcohol away and made sure she ate properly and rested enough. I’d checked in with Ezra, making sure he knew he’d have to answer to me if he didn’t look after her too.
Then after all that, when Roe was still struggling, I’d helped Mum reach out to him so they could hold onto each other, grieve, and slowly heal together.
Tristan didn’t know the first fucking thing about me. If he thought he could walk in here and tell me that I needed to man up, he had another thing coming. My nostrils flared as I sucked in a breath, cocking my fist back.
“Settle down, Ry,” he coaxed, resting his hands on my chest. His touch was soothing—strong and confident. Warm. I shook him off, fighting that wave of calm he threw out, blanketing me with it and trying to draw me under. He was like a wizard casting a spell.
But I wasn’t an idiot.
I wasn’t falling for that. He reached out again, and I lifted my chin, proving to him that he didn’t affect me. His eyes softened. It wasn’t pity I saw in them, though, but rather the same genuineness I’d seen earlier. I gripped his shirt again, shoving him back until he was practically sitting on my desk, his legs spreading to make room for my hips as I forced him off balance.
It wasn’t until I pushed my weight onto him, pinning him in place, that I realized my cock was raging hard. I swallowed back the groan at the heat of his body pressed up against mine.
His pupils flared and his jaw ticked, his breath coming harder. I liked him like that, trepidation making his heart beat faster.
I didn’t want genuineness or caring.
