Harrison leaned back, throwing his arm over the edge of the couch and jerking his chin towards the bedroom. “Albert’s my uncle.”
Nash grunted in response. That meant Harrison was Kensington’s cousin. He shifted on the couch.
Harrison took a swing from his drink. “I saw your file. And I looked you up.” He rolled the can between his open palms. “It’s not good.”
Nash’s defenses went up and up and up, like a red balloon with an unknown direction. “Tell me about it.”
”Aren’t you at all sorry?”
Yeah, he was sorry. But probably not for the things that Harrison thought he should be sorry for.
When he didn’t answer right away, Harrison brought his arm down and leaned closer. His jaw had gone hard and his eyes burned with an unspoken threat. The threat didn’t remain inside of him for long. “You’re not good enough for her.” He stressed each word as if Nash were hard of hearing, or maybe he believed Nash slow on the uptake.
Nash was many things, but he wasn’t slow. He knew he wasn’t good enough for Kensington. All you had to do was look around at the opulence that surrounded her every moment of her every day to know that he wasn’t born to be a part of her world, and that he had done nothing in his life to earn him a spot.
Harrison pushed Nash’s shoulder. “I don’t see in you what Pamela sees. But I do see that you can be scrappy. That’s the only way I can explain how you ended up at BMB.”
How had he ended up in Pamela Jones’s office? He had the world’s worst luck, that’s how. How else would he have stepped out of prison only to land in a situation where his hands were tied and he was yet again asked to lie for a business? Because that’s what Kensington wanted him to do. She wanted him to pretend to be her loving husband so she could take over the company.
Nash needed to deflect this line of questioning. “How did things go with Raquel?” He smirked. From what he’d seen, Kensington’s sister could make a tornado run for cover. Even Harrison, with his overbearing protective nature, would find her a formidable foe.
“I handled it for now.” Harrison got to his feet. “Kenzi’s got a long, hard climb ahead of her and she’s going to need someone scrappy. You do your best by her, or I will destroy you.” He tipped his soda can in Nash’s direction before heading back toward the smell of fresh bread.
Nash folded his arms. He wasn’t scrappy. If he’d been scrappy, he would’ve gotten out of the way when the lawyers swept through his old company.
Harrison’s threat stayed with him, tasting sour in his mouth. What could the man do to him that hadn’t already been done? Still, he didn’t want to take Harrison up on his threat. And therein was his conundrum. He wouldn’t lie. The request sat like a hippopotamus on his conscience. He’d made a vow to himself, and he needed to know he could count on himself to do what was right in this situation. Prison messed with his head, and he wasn’t sure who he was anymore. He knew who he wanted to be—that had to count for something.
Kensington had assured him that because her company was privately owned, none of the happenings were shared publicly. The family was influential in the area, and they had a good rapport with the local press and were rarely featured in the scandalous side of the society pages. They enjoyed their privacy. And as long as he played his part well, he would come out smelling like roses.
The logic of her arguments sat well, but the reality that things didn’t always work out as planned loomed on the horizon. He wouldn’t change who he was or wanted to be—not even for his beautiful wife.
