She’d offered to talk and maybe I was just grasping for control wherever I could find it, but I scrolled to her number anyway. My pulse thudded in my ears as I stared at it.
This was a bad idea. I knew it, but I still almost hit call.
Almost.
At the very last second, I locked the screen and shoved the phone back into my purse like it’d burned me. I wasn’t ready to open that door. Whatever waited on the other side of it would only make things worse, not better.
I leaned back against the couch, feeling like everything was slipping just out of reach. My brother. My marriage. My company. My sense of control.
I didn’t know where to start fixing any of it.
All I knew was that something had cracked and I was standing in the middle of the mess, trying to decide which fire to put out first before everything burned.
CHAPTER 42
ALEX
Jane still hadn’t answered my calls. My texts sat unread, the little delivery confirmations mocking me every time I unlocked my phone, and a tight, restless sensation was crawling under my skin.
“Take me to the Thayer house,” I told my driver as I dropped into the back seat of the car I’d had waiting for me. The city blurred outside the windows as he pulled away and took me to my wife without asking any questions.
By now, he’d probably seen the article and she definitely would have. An unfamiliar tension hummed through my muscles, and while I didn’t have a ton of experience with it, I was pretty sure it was anxiety. Nerves.
Fuck, I should’ve gone straight to her when I saw it. I should’ve been there, the one to show it to her and explain what happened.
When we pulled up to Nora’s house, hope flared in my chest embarrassingly fast—and promptly died just as quickly.
The driveway was empty. Jane’s car wasn’t in its spot and the house itself looked closed up, the blinds drawn like no one even lived there at all.
“Wait here,” I said, already opening the door. My jaw clenched so hard it ached.
Despite knowing what the outcome was going to be, I marched up to the front door anyway and knocked, but nothing happened. Nora didn’t appear with that usual polite smile on her face. Wyatt didn’t pull aside the curtain and glower at me. Jane didn’t open up to invite me in after pressing a kiss to my lips that always left me wanting more.
As I walked back to the car,out of sortsdidn’t begin to cover what I was feeling. I liked control. I thrived on it. Every deal I touched was iron clad, layered with contingencies, and pressure tested until there were no surprises left. Jane disappearing, the article, and the board meeting all on one day were chaos.
And it was happening at the worst possible time.
By the time I sat down in the Thayer boardroom after not hearing from or being able to reach my wife for an entire day, my nerves were wound so tight, I felt nauseated. The long table gleamed under harsh lights, leather chairs filling one by one as members filtered in, murmuring to each other like they already knew how this would go.
Which was a problem for me because I didn’t. I had no fucking idea what was happening or how it would go, and again, I didn’t operate like this. I didn’t get blindsided, ambushed, or surprised. Not in business anyway.
When Nora walked in, I almost relaxed. She was our ace in the hole, responsible for working with my father to arrange a fuckingmarriageto put this company in her daughter’s hands. I didn’t want to believe that she’d work against us now, but she didn’t look at me as she strode to her seat.
There wasn’t even a flicker of acknowledgment.
A week ago, I would’ve bet my life on her support, but Uncle Harlan’s voice echoed in my head, reminding me how often logic bent under the weight of greed. My gaze tracked her as she satdown on the far side of the table, her posture as stiff as a board and her eyes locked on her hands in her lap.
My gut flared with unease, suspicion creeping through me like twisting vines. But the meeting was called to order with brisk efficiency before I could even move a muscle to pull her outside for a minute.
Sterling’s face appeared on the screen at the end of the room. He gave me a small nod. Then the second screen flickered to life and Andrew Thayer’s smiling face appeared. He was barefoot, shirtless, and sitting on what looked like a white-sand beach with turquoise water stretching endlessly behind him. He held a glass with a ridiculous little umbrella stuck into the fruity cocktail, not even pretending to be embarrassed.
“Well, hello everyone,” he said cheerfully, raising the glass toward us. “Exciting times, huh?”
No formalities. No preamble. Just vibes and irresponsibility.
“I’ll get right to it,” he said. “I’m thrilled about the prospect of selling the business. Frankly, I think it’s the smartest move for us all.”
My hands curled into fists under the table. He went on, explaining that he’d spoken privately with every board member except Sterling, myself, and, I assumed, Nora. The implication hung there, heavy and deliberate.
