I loved my Papa so much, but it was hard not to be frustrated with him. “Papa, you know what the doctor said all those years ago.” I sent Chester a look of murder. “Once a bond has been severed, nothing can repair it. I’m damaged forever. There’s no cure.”
“I’m sorry,” Chester said lamely.
I wanted to snap back, “No, you’re not,” but my parents were there.
“Now that we know you’re safe, we’ll leave the two of you alone,” Dad said, coming to take Papa’s hand and lead him away from me. “We might even be able to get an hour or so of sleep before we have to get the little kids up and go to work.”
I didn’t want to be left alone with Chester, but I didn’t want my parents to suffer because of him either. I said nothing as the two of them left the kitchen, Papa smiling sadly at me as he went.
Once they were gone, I turned to Chester and growled, “Get out.”
“I’m only trying to make amends,” Chester said quietly, holding up his hands. “I feel bad about everything that happened.”
“The time for feeling bad was five years ago,” I hissed. “I begged you not to make me go through the severing procedure. I knew what would happen. My life has been nothing but pain since then.”
“It’s not my fault—” Chester started defensively before stopping himself. He lowered his hands and let out a breath before taking a step closer to me. “I wish I could make thingsbetter,” he said, like being compassionate was a struggle for him. “It sucks that things turned out the way they did. But I would like to at least be friends again. Who knows what might happen from there?”
“Friends?” I snorted and shook my head, crossing my arms again. “After what you did to me, you want to befriends?”
“Maybe?” Chester said, then shrugged. “It would be…useful.”
I couldn’t believe his nerve. “I’m not interested in being useful to you, Chester. You can get the fuck out now.”
“Quincy—”
Chester took another step toward me, but pulled back with a queasy look. He must have remembered what happened before when he’d touched me. The way he looked at me like I might contaminate him was a direct contradiction to his play-nice words earlier.
“Okay, I’ll go,” he said at last. “But I really want you to think about getting back with me. It would be good for you, good for your family.”
Warning alarms rang so hard in my head that I froze for a second. “Good for my family?”
“Yeah,” Chester said, his expression completely guarded. “I know you guys have always struggled with money. It might be nice for them to have a little extra. And it would suck if anything happened to them.”
The warning alarms turned deafening.
“Why would anything happen to them?” I asked. “We’re fine. We’re all fine. Are you trying to bribe me into getting back together with you?”
“No! No, I’m not saying that at all,” Chester’s face and neck went red, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m going now,” he said, marching for the door. “See? Just like you want me to. I’m going. But I left my number on the table. Give me a call sometime and I’ll take you out to a nice restaurant.”
I didn’t say anything one way or another. I glared at him, jaw clenched, as he scrambled to get out of the house as fast as possible.
Once he was gone, I let out my breath and dropped my arms. Chester didn’t want to get back together with me any more than I wanted to be around him. Someone was putting him up to courting me. Someone who had enough power to tell a billionaire what to do.
Three guesses who that was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jack
By the time the first day of the Tech Expo arrived, Quincy and I were ready to put our plan for freedom through blackmail into action.
“I got here as soon as I could,” I said, a little breathless from dashing up from the parking garage of The Grand without my dad seeing me as I approached the registration table where Quincy stood. Dad was there at the hotel already, but he thought I was on a client visit for the day.
“Great,” Quincy said, darting a look around as restlessly as I was. “Bethany, can you take over here for a bit?” he asked the alpha woman standing at the other end of the line of tables where volunteers sat, checking attendees in for the conference.
“Yep,” the beefy woman said, adding a wink to let Quincy, and me, really, know that she was in on the whole thing.
Quincy smiled at her, then grabbed my hand and pulled me back through an open doorway into a small room stacked withboxes of conference programs and a table with blank badges and the other stuff that volunteers were putting into gift bags.
