I pulled my checkbook from my jacket pocket, movements deliberate, like performing some ritual. Took out my pen. Uncapped it.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
The sound of pen on paper cut through the frozen atmosphere.
I wrote a string of numbers.
Tore off the check.
Then threw it in Lucas's face.
"Is this enough?" My voice was soft, but each word carried absolute command. "Mr. Lucas, I seem to remember when I acquired your company, you weren't nearly this... chatty."
The check fluttered down, landing at his feet, those numbers glaring.
Five million.
Lucas glanced down, then looked back up at me. No anger on his face, no humiliation. Just that smile growing deeper.
"Mr. Blackwood, you're certainly generous," he said, not scurrying off like I expected. "But I'm afraid some things..."
He bent down, picked up the check, then slowly, deliberately, tore it to pieces right in front of me.
"Can't be bought."
Paper fragments drifted from his fingers like snow.
"Think you've got backbone?" I narrowed my eyes, barely registering him now, thick jealousy consuming me—I reached past him, trying to grab Layla directly.
"I—"
"Enough!" Layla's voice tore through the silent standoff.
She rushed out from behind Lucas, shoving away my reaching hand. The force caught me off guard, actually making me stumble back a step.
"Kayden Blackwood!" She stood before me, chest heaving violently, those eyes hidden behind blue contacts burning with fury I'd never seen before. "Enough!"
I opened my mouth.
But she didn't give me a chance to speak.
"I have nothing to discuss with you!" Her voice shook—not from fear but anger, from an explosion too long suppressed. "Everything I'm going through right now—isn't it all because of you?!"
"The news, the photos, the abuse..." She raised her hand, pointing at me, finger trembling in the air. "All of it because of you!"
Each word lashed across my face like a whip.
"Because you bought Lucas's company! Because you stalked me! Because you... You invaded my life!"
She took a deep breath, tears pooling in her eyes.
"And now you insult my friend? Throw money at him?"
Her voice sounded torn from her throat, carrying hysterical pain and sorrow.
"Kayden, am I just a toy you can buy with money?"
No.
