Gregory pivoted effortlessly, turning to Alex next. “And you. Once I have that share of the company? God, it’s going to be so much fun being your boss. Maybe I’ll redecorate. Something gaudy. Something tacky. Something Texan, perhaps.”
Alex moved a fraction, but Trent caught his arm.
I swallowed hard, beating both of them to the punch. “If I do it, if I sign your precious paperwork, you leave Trent alone. You don’t touch him. You don’t speak his name. Ever.”
Gregory’s grin widened like he’d been waiting years for this exact moment. “I knew you’d come around, darling. Ever since our conversation the other day, I knew you’d see reason.”
Trent went still, but he didn’t seem tense or angry. Just still. A dangerous, razor-thin kind of stillness that set even my teeth on edge, but Gregory didn’t notice. “Honestly, I could’ve slipped those rings right off your fingers if I’d wanted to. Did you tell them that? Did you tell them how easily I could end this silly little fake marriage?”
That did it. Trent moved so fast, I barely processed it, but one second Gregory was smirking, and the next, Trent had him by the collar, his teeth gritted and muscles coiled like a bull about to gore someone.
“Enough,” Trent snarled. “Enough is really fucking enough, and this is enough.”
“Trent—” I croaked, suddenly terrified about what would happen to him if he did whatever he was about to do, but he didn’t even seem to hear me.
He dragged Gregory straight out of the office and no one stopped him. Instead, people scattered like he was hauling a live bomb. The hallway echoed with Gregory’s sputtered protestsuntil Trent slammed him into the back wall of the elevator and the doors snapped shut behind them.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, stumbling forward, but Alex caught my arm before I made it three feet. “Trent’s going to kill him.”
Alex laughed, like actual, real laughter. “No, he’s not. He’s a cowboy, Charlotte, not a hit man. He’s just going to encourage Gregory to leave town. Forcefully. You can relax. I know what Trent is capable of when he’s like this, and we won’t be seeing Gregory again.”
“Relax?”Does he seriously expect me to be able to relax?“Are you kidding me right now?”
“I’m serious, Char,” Alex said, asmileon his lips as he finally sat down behind his desk. “Honestly, I’m surprised it took him this long to snap. He must’ve been a whole hell of a lot more distracted than I thought, but don’t sweat it. He’ll be back in a minute and Gregory will be gone.”
I snorted, but then I paced. I sat. I stood back up. I wrung my hands. Nate tried to get me water, but I couldn’t swallow. Every awful scenario imaginable spun through my head, Trent getting arrested, Gregory pressing charges, and security footage capturing everything.
Minutes stretched into small eternities before Trent finally walked back into the office, completely fine. There wasn’t a scratch on him. All that thick, deep red hair wasn’t even ruffled. If anything, he looked a little smug, but that was it.
Striding in as if he hadn’t dragged a man out of here kicking and screaming just a few minutes ago, he dropped a stack of crumpled papers onto Alex’s desk. “Thought you might want these.”
Alex lifted the top sheet, his brows rising slowly as he read. “What’s this?”
“It’s everything Gregory had,” Trent said. “Prenups. Agreements. Letters from Douglas. Contracts.”
Alex didn’t hesitate. He scooped up the entire pile, marched to the paper shredder, and fed it all through. The machine whirred hungrily, chewing up months of Gregory’s scheming in just a few seconds.
I stared at them, my gaze flicking from the relief on my brother’s features to the absolute ease in the set of my husband’s shoulders. “What the hell just happened?”
Trent immediately came to my side, shot me a smile, and leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Did I ever show you my dad’s pigs?”
I frowned. “What?”
“Hungry creatures,” he said, entirely too casual. “They’ll eat anything if you toss it in. I let Gregory know that we’ve got a whole pen full of ‘em.”
Alex snorted. Nate lost it, bending over laughing. I swayed on my feet, unable to decide whether to be horrified, relieved, or both simultaneously. “Did he actually buy that?”
“’Course he did. The secret to making people believe that you’re serious when you threaten them is to be willing to follow through.” Trent wrapped an arm around my waist. “It’s done, sweetheart. He’s gone. He won’t bother us again.”
Alex clapped his hands a few times, giving Trent a standing ovation as he laughed. “Well, I’m starving. Anyone else hungry? I’ve got a standing reservation at a place just down the street.”
I stared at the shredder bin, marveling at Trent’s absolute confidence that it was over. I let out a long, shaky exhale before I leaned into his side. “Yeah, I could definitely eat, but come first thing tomorrow morning, I want to go home.”
Trent kissed the top of my head and nodded. “You’ve got it, baby. I’ll have the pilot fuel up the plane. Whatever you want,you’ll get. Especially if what you want is the quiet life away from all this fucking insanity.”
He winked at me, leading me out of the office after my brothers when they left, and I pulled in a proper breath for what felt like the first time since his parents’ barbecue. From now on, there would be no more cousins arriving with bad news, no more phone calls from my brother insisting that we had to come home immediately, and no more backroom deals by my father.
I didn’t know what we’d do with all the free time we were suddenly going to have, but I really couldn’t wait to find out.
