I shouldn’t want that. I shouldn’t want her. And yet, here I was, ready to burn down everything for a shot at saving her from my father.
Instead of stopping by my office to drop off my bag, I strode straight to my father’s door. Delaying would only make it worse. He’d interpret hesitation as weakness, and weakness, he couldn’t stomach.
I rapped at the door once before pushing it in.
“Cole,” he growled, standing. Tension radiated off him in waves, and his sleeves were rolled up, veins popping in his forearms. This was bad. Very bad. “You fucking idiot.”
I stayed where I was, waiting for the explosion.
“Arrested? At a fucking party? How the fuck am I supposed to convince the board you’re taking this seriously when you get arrested for fighting?”
My jaw worked. The urge to defend myself died in my throat. Explanations were excuses, and excuses were weaknesses.
“Dad, I—” My fists clenched despite my best efforts. I pried them open and forced my breathing to steady. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The therapist I’d been forced to see during rehab had taught me that—coping skills, she’d said.
I wasn’t a child anymore. He couldn’t beat me, couldn’t lock me in closets, couldn’t press cigarettes against my skin while telling me real men didn’t cry. I was twenty-two years old, standing on the brink of everything I’d ever worked for—the NHL, financial independence,freedom.
Whatever he had to say, I could tolerate it. I’d tolerated far worse.
“Wasshethere?”
My heart stopped. The office was airless, the expensive ventilation system inadequate against the weight of that simple question.She.Not Delaney, my fiancée, the woman whose face appeared in business magazines beside mine,whose father’s company would merge with Carter Industries in a deal worth hundreds of millions.
She.
Eva.
“Was she?”
I swallowed hard. The lie formed on my tongue.No, sir. I was defending a teammate. It was a misunderstanding, but it dissolved before I could speak it. He already knew. He always knew before he asked the question.
“Dad—”
“Enough.” He roared the word, slamming his hands on the desk and sending papers flying. “I am fucking tired of this. You are engaged to Delaney Hartwell! You are my heir!”
Shame tried to claw its way up my spine. I shoved it down and let the exhaustion and frustration and anger—always the anger, simmering just beneath my skin—rise instead.
“I’m doing my best!” The words exploded out of me, loud enough to surprise us both. I never yelled back, never dared, but the possibility of earning Eva’s forgiveness had broken me wide open. “I’m in school full-time, I’m playing Division I hockey, and now, I’m working twenty hours a week for you. There is only so much of me to go around.”
For just a breath, emotion flickered across his face—not pride, never pride, but perhaps surprise I’d finally grown a spine.
His demeanor turned to ice. “So why are you spending time with that trash then?”
Rage turned the edges of my vision red. He could call me disappointing, question my commitment, my future, but Eva…don’t you fucking dare.
“Enough,” I snarled. “I’m doing exactly what you want.I’m trying to make you happy and follow my dreams at the same time. Why won’t you let me do that?”
My voice cracked on the last word.Fucking pathetic.I was twenty-two years old and still begging for scraps of approval from a man who’d never had any to give.
“Because you’ll fail, like you always fail, and then where will I be? Without the heir I fucking need.”
He walked to the front of the desk, and my brain screamed at me to step back, to protect myself, but I stood my ground. I was taller than him now, stronger. My years of training for hockey had transformed my body into raw power.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that I was plotting to take him down. It didn’t matter that I hated him with every inch of my being. I was still a child, standing in this same office while he explained exactly how I’d let him down.
“Someone’s been accessing files they shouldn’t,” he snarled. “And I don’t have the time to figure out who the fuck is digging around in my financials and force my son to man the fuck up. I’m done, Cole.” His voice went quiet, which was even worse than the yelling. “You are going to straighten out and start acting like someone poised to inherit a business worth billions. Immediately.”
My chest tightened.
