“Margo, you prejudiced fool,” Nigel bit out at the same time.
I barely heard a thing with blood pounding in my ears as an intense pain spread from my chest. He was getting married. He…lied to me? About everything.
Jack grasped my arm, and dragged me away from the door I clung to like a lifeline, pulling me back into the room I didn’t want to be in any longer.
“Ray?” He gently cupped my face, making me look at him. “It isn’t true, I swear. There’s no one else.”
It was the sincerity, the intense emotion in his eyes, that had the frozen ball in my stomach thawing a little. He wrapped his arms around me, pressing me to his chest. His lips brushed my brow. “Grandmother, this is Rayen Logan,mygirlfriend,andmy plus one.” He seemed to relish informing her of that. “Whatever plans you’ve made with the Jaegers is on you. I never agreed to any of it when you first approached me weeks ago, and I never will. Now, please leave. You’re not only upsetting me but also the two people I care about.”
With a withering glare at us, the grandmother from Hell walked out.
Nigel chuckled. “Waited a damn long time to see her tuck her tail between her designer shoes and scram.”
My gaze darted to Jack’s cold features. Why hadn’t he told me about this marriage deal?
“That’s why you came early,” Nigel said.
It wasn’t a question, but Jack answered. “I wasn’t sure. Had a feeling when she stopped in my office earlier. She’s been on my back about meeting the Jaegers since she first devised the plan, then she was silent as a morgue this week. Seems I was right. Grandfather, excuse us.”
I pulled away from Jack, needing distance to absorb everything, hoping the hollowness in my chest would ease. But he wasn’t having any of it.
Jack grasped my hand and stalked out of the room. His mouth set in grim lines, he headed up to the third floor, tohisbedroom. Once there, he shut the door and leaned against the wooden panel as if barring me inside. His stare fixed on me. “You have questions?”
I paced to the bed and rubbed my burning face with icy fingers. I pivoted to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ray—” He took a step toward me, but I flashed out a hand stopping him. “Hearing that—what she said, it was like a punch in the chest.”
“I’m sorry—”
“You’re sorry?” I demanded. “You have no idea how I felt. The way she looked at me, then dismissed me like I was too far beneath you to even speak. She asked me to make her tea.” A hollow laugh escaped me. “I mean, I would have, but she treated me like I was nothing,” I breathed, my hurt seeping through.
A muscle jerked on his jaw. “I apologize for my grandmother. She’s a calculating bitch.”
I should be shocked at his words, but I shook my head, still upset and angry with him for not trusting me enough to explain. “Imagine if a member of my family suddenly accosted you and said I was getting married?”
His expression hardened. “I would have hurt him and dragged you off with me. Christ, Ray—” He shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I barely got you to agree to stay here. If I’d told you Grandmother had this merger-marriage planned for me, you would have left. I needed to know that you felt the same way I did before I said anything.”
“Jack, sometimes, it’s best to lay out things like this upfront. And to trust.”
“Trust?” His lips tightened briefly. “I find that very hard to do, Ray. But with you, I should have. You’re different…” He stilled. “Are you going to leave?”
“What?” My chest constricted at the thought. “Do you want me to?”
“It’s not what I want. It’s whether you believe me.”
I studied the tense lines of his face, his set jaw. He expected me to walk? Bottom line, it all came down to trust, I realized. And I did trust him. “I’m not leaving, Jack. I believe you. I was hurt that you hadn’t warned me.”
“I won’t make that mistake again. And we better be prepared for a backlash,” he said, the grimness back in spades. “She won’t give up, and she doesn’t care who gets trampled in the process. Not when it means adding to our multiverse conglomerate through me since I’m the only one left to sell to the highest bidder.” He freed his tie and flung it onto the bed with a fury that startled me. “Hell, we have enough money to last us several lifetimes, but it is never enough for her.”
“She wants world domination?”
Jack shrugged off his suit coat, and that landed on the bed, too. “It would seem so. Just so you know, even if you’d said yes to leaving, I’m not giving you up.”
His words should make me happy but worry shoved it aside. Margo Blackstone was a force of misery. Sighing, I sat on the bed and rubbed my face. “She must have already known about us.”
“Of course, she did,” Jack muttered, freeing the top buttons of his dress shirt. “Damn papers. As long as Pops is happy, it’s all I care about…” He unbuttoned and rolled his cuffs, then a wry smile tugged his mouth. “However, I doubted Pops had seen the paper because he asked me last night what I thought of you. I gave him a vague answer that you were nice and still healing, and he called bullshit but didn’t press for more.”
My own mouth curved in response, but I sobered at the reality. The reporters would hound us if they thought Jack was serious about me. Damn. I wanted to see what crap they’d splashed about us. “Do you have a copy of the paper?”
