The blood drains from my face. My past is exposed, but how does he know?
“Which is why,” he whispers, close enough that I can smell his expensive cologne, “I find thisthingyou have with my son… concerning.”
I freeze in my seat, my muscles tensing. “Dane and I…”
“Have something special, right? Sure. He’s good at making people believe that. But he's reckless, selfish, if I’m brutally honest. He acts on impulse, does whatever he pleases, whenever he pleases.” He stares at me while adjusting his cufflinks.
“Maybe you don’t know your son as well as you think you do.”
He unbuttons his suit jacket with a calculated calm, extracting a stack of papers and slowly leaning onto the desk, sliding the papers, including a check, over with one finger. “You’ll find there’s enough zeros here to make you reconsider your…attachment to my son.”
My fingers tighten around the arms of my chair as I stare at him, processing his words. My throat is dry. “I’m not interested in your money, Mr. Walsh.”
A faint smile crosses his face. “That’s what women like you always say. Until everything settles and you have clients deciding this salon isn’t a good fit anymore.” Glancing around my office one more time, his eyes land back on me. “It would be a shame to see all of this…fall apart.”
My chest tightens. “Are you threatening me?”
“I don’t make threats,” he says smoothly, leaning back in the chair. “I make predictions. I’ve seen many women latch onto powerful men, hoping it would give them the stability and status they wanted. In the end, it destroyed them. I’d hate to see you become one of them.”
Hands clasped on my desk to keep them from trembling, I lean in and say, “With all due respect, I don’t need your approval to see your son, and frankly, neither does he.”
His dark chuckle sends a chill through the air. “Approval? No. Protection, perhaps. Do you know what people in this town are whispering? That you’re cozying up to Dane Walsh for leverage, that the permits and approval for your spa came through because of him. Small towns love gossip, Ms. Allen, and reputation…” He rests his elbows on the chair and steeples his hands. “Reputations are fragile.”
I stare at him, processing every word he is saying. None of it is true…well, except that Dane was the one who pushed for the permits to get approved, but that was on him. But I stay quiet, as he leans forward, entirely too close.
His voice drops low. “You’ll never be enough for him. Dane has a history of chasing fire until it burns him. Do you want to be another one-night headline in the long list of women?”
I force myself to maintain eye contact, never averting my gaze. It may not be the right move, but I’m not backing down. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.” His tone, pure ice. “Ambitious. Independent. Strong on the outside, but underneath? Vulnerable. He doesn’t have time for a relationship; he’s too busy at the firm. For now, he’s carving out what few minutes he has to see you, but one day soon, the fire will fade, and he will be stuck at the office more, canceling plans. It always fades, and he’ll go back to his old ways. And then you’ll be alone,disappointed, wondering how you let him into your life, only to crush you.” He taps the papers with the check on top. “I’m offering you an out. Take the check. Sign the agreement. Walk away before you’re humiliated. Before people here look at you and see not a businesswoman, but a mistake on Dane Walsh’s resume.”
He straightens his cuffs, rises from the seat, and smooths down his jacket. “Think it over. But don’t take too long. Opportunities like this vanish.”
Without another glance, he walks out, leaving me with a silence that is heavier than his words.
I’m stuck in this chair, shock taking over my body. Staring at the door he just walked out of, I return to my desk, where the papers and the check sit, screaming at me. My lungs, breaths coming too shallow, too quick.
I slam my fist on the desk and shove the papers, but the words he left behind linger in the air.
You’ll never be enough. People are already whispering. You’ll just be another mistake.
It hits a little too close to Jake’s voice. The poison in every word, cruel intention meant to cut through me, to hurt me. I can’t sit anymore; jumping out of my chair, I pace with arms wrapped tightly around myself, thinking. Why am I letting his words get under my skin? He knows exactly how to hit me where it hurts.
Glancing at the mirror on my wall, the woman staring back at me is a complete mess—flushed cheeks, eyes wet, the confident woman stripped down to something small and uncertain, which is exactly what Edward Walsh wanted.
Tears prick my eyes, and I blink rapidly to clear them. I will not give him the satisfaction of my tears. I worked too damn hard to build this business, to bring myself out of the Jake wreckage, to stand on my own.
And yet…
My chest squeezes, and doubts flood in faster than I can push them out. What if he was right? What if people think I’m using Dane? My reputation…smeared.
I brace myself against my desk, shoulders shaking. For a moment, the walls feel like they are closing in on me. Using this time to figure out what’s next, I walk around and sit in my chair. Straightening the papers on my desk, pushing the check to the far corner, I inhale slowly and deeply until my mask slides firmly into place. No one will ever know how close his words came to breaking me. When there’s a knock on the door, I startle.
“Hey, you okay?” Sally asks as she opens the door to my office and walks in.
“I don’t know.” The tears I was holding in finally break free and roll down my cheeks. I have so many questions, and a salon to run, with clients waiting for me. Dane is at his office and says he won’t be able to see me this week. I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait until the end of the week to talk to him. What I do need is a few hours to process what the hell just happened. His dad has me second-guessing myself—and us.
She walks over to the mini-fridge in the corner and grabs a bottle of cold water. Placing it down on my desk, she says, “Drink this.” And then she hands me a handful of tissues.
