As he expected, she shook her head vigorously. “I don’t want some other company, some other career. I want Barone & Sons. It’s in my blood. It’s my legacy. Please.” Her eyes took on a shine he didn’t like. “Will you help me?”
This was his wife. Boldly determined, stubborn as hell. She wanted something, she got it. He’d been caught on both sides of her will before. The best and worst moments of his life had been with her.
“Why don’t we just tell everyone the truth?” Secrets had almost torn his family apart two years ago. Even with the best intentions, he knew hiding the truth hurt more than it helped.
“The truth?” Her brow furrowed with astonishment that he’d suggest such a thing. “Like the we-got-drunk-in-Vegas-then-hitched-then-made-a-wedding-night-baby-then-lived-together-for-almost-four-months-without-telling-anyone-until-we-lost-the-baby-and-broke-up truth?”
When she said it all in one breath like that… “Yes.”
Their marriage was never meant to be a secret. The plan was to tell everyone at a special dinner with both their families. But the rug had been pulled out from under thembefore they could, and they’d lost the plot. Nothing had mattered after that.
“You’re kidding, right? They’d never forgive us. Me. I can’t tell my mother, or any relative, that I secretly married into the Morgan family. She’d kill me.”
“That’s a bit of an overdramatization, don’t you think? I’m sure she’d understand if we explained we had every intention to tell her.”
Lucy cocked her head to one side, still frowning at him. She blinked twice, as if she was waiting for him to come to his senses. “You’ve met Maria Barone, right?”
He blew out a breath. “All I’m trying to say is that if we get caught in another web of lies, we’ll complicate things more than they already are.”
Lucy took great interest in her lap, then started nodding to herself in a way he didn’t like the look of. Then she scooted back to her end of the couch. “You’re right.”
“We’ll tell them?”
“No. Never. They won’t understand. Besides, the truth would hurt them, and there’s no reason to do that at this point. It’s over between us.”
He ground his teeth at that statement.Overwas such a final word. Like a movie coming to an end, or curtains closing on a show. Even though years of silence had passed between them, nothing about what had played out felt finished to him.
She sighed. “But you’re right. This is complicated. It’s not fair to put you in the middle of what’s between me and my father.” She met his gaze. “Maybe it’s best if we get the divorce and put the past behind us.”
She continued looking him dead in the eye. Like she had when she’d told him that their marriage had been a mistake and she needed space. Back then, he’d understood herunwavering eye contact to mean that she was being fully honest with him, so he’d given her what she asked for because he never wanted be the one who held her back.
But four miserable years later, he wasn’t sure he could count on anything other than how fucking perfect it was to be this close to her again.
When she moved to get up, his hand flew out to take hers. “Wait.”
It came down to one thing: Lucy had a problem, and he could make it better for her. What he was about to agree to might crush his heart, but he’d consider it his penance. Punishment for the time he hadn’t been there for her before. “We’ll do this your way. Barone & Sons belongs to you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that after Luciano retires, no one runs it but you.”
She raised a single, perfectly shaped, eyebrow. “There’d be nothing in it for you. That’s not fair.”
Redemption was in it for him. His chance to atone for his sin against her. “This is a business deal, and good business benefits me. Being closer to Barone & Sons will give me an opportunity to network and make new connections in the industry.” His words were bullshit, but her hand relaxed in his.
The truth was, he didn’t need more connections. If she’d considered him wealthy and well connected before, she’d be shocked at his status now. Turned out, he responded to heartbreak by submerging into the black hole of sixty-hour work weeks. And while he was under, he’d grown his father’s empire into a galaxy. He’d incorporated Morgan Construction into Morgan Enterprises, which he’d created to accommodate the investment side of the business he’d grown. He’d been smart and relentless, and the payoff hadbeen massive. The Morgan millions had become billions. He didn’t rent private jets anymore—he owned them.
Squeezing her hand, he made her a promise. “Barone & Sons will be yours, Lucy. Whatever it takes. Okay?”
He would keep that promise or die trying. He owed her that much.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lucy couldn’t tear her eyes away from Joel’s piercing gray ones, and she couldn’t think of a single thing that would make her want to. They were like magnets locking into hers and holding. A connection that was decades old, since they were in elementary school and growing up around each other’s businesses.
Morgan Construction had been contracting out Barone & Sons for their interior cabinetry since Lucy was in kindergarten. Joel’s father, Walter, had been one of the first to give Luciano steady work after he immigrated to America, and the two men had grown their businesses alongside each other, their families intertwining.
Lucy grew up on invitations to the Morgan Christmas parties and Fourth of July barbeques. She and Joel had shared a keen interest in their fathers’ companies for as long as she could remember, so it wasn’t uncommon for them to meet at construction sites, wearing oversized hard hats and steel-toed boots, following their fathers around the perimeter as the older men discussed business. Little mini-mes, wide-eyed day dreamers.
Now Joel sat on his father’s throne, while she sat on the sidelines.
Joel was offering her a chance at her dream. Nerves exploded in her stomach like a million butterflies.
