Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
My lips press together, and I admit what I have never said out loud, “My father doesn’t mind taking a life if it makes his better.”
Blake’s response is instant and unphased. “Do you have the ammunition to check him?”
“Some. Not enough.”
“We better get some. I’m buried in work, but I’ll make time for you. Let me do some deep dives and come up with something.”
“When can you get Adam on Alana?”
“Three hours.”
Not a minute too soon, I think, and continue the call long enough to get Blake everything he needs to get Adam to me, and most importantly, to protecting Alana. We disconnect right as Alexander enters the coffee shop.
I have Alana back in my life. I’m not losing her. And I’m damn sure not allowing my father to take her from me. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her and make him go away. Forever.
Chapter seventeen
Alexander is tall, fit, and well dressed in only the most expensive of suits he earned by excelling at about everything he does. We met in college, where he managed to be both a player with the women and a top performer in his classes. We became friends, and I can say he’s one of the only people who got me back then and still gets me now because we’re alike. We’re focused, driven, and on a path to become our fathers’ protégés.
Neither of us did. His owns a massive electronics company and manages his business about like my father, which is why Alexander is now one of the most sought-after corporate attorneys in the country, rather than his father’s protégé.
I lift my hand and catch his eye, and he walks my direction, his strides long and heavy, his expression grim. Something’s happened, and that something is, no doubt, my father. He settles in front of me, a tic in his jaw.
“What’d he do?”
“He showed up at my office with Alana’s mother on his arm.”
My chin lowers and I sigh. “Damn it to hell,” I say, reaching for my cup. “Can I have some bourbon for this coffee? To what end?”
“Content-wise, the conversation was a bunch of lame threats, and he was aware there was no substance to them. My read was the conversation wasn’t the point. Alana’s mother was. He was sending you a message. Knowing your history with Alana, and your father, I don’t like where that’s leading me.”
Nor do I, I think, because the message is crystal clear.
He’s telling me that he’s close to Alana, he can get to her at any time, and I better not forget it. If I ruin him, he will ruin me, and start with Alana. If I take everything from him, he has nothing to lose. I have everything to lose. He’ll expose all my secrets and dirty laundry, even if it’s his own.
I knew this was coming, of course. I’m hyperaware of the immediate need to come clean with Alana, but I need time, and my father’s ripped that from my hands. I knew this could happen, of course, but not under these dire circumstances. We need a foundation of commitment between us first, one that I haven’t fully created despite how fucking much I want her in my life, and forever this time.
In a perfect world, this wouldn’t happen now. It would happen after time has passed, after she’s lived with me, and I’ve reminded her that I’m still the person she knows like no one else knows me. It would be after I told her that she’s always been my lighthouse, guiding me through stormy waters, from darkness to light.
Only then would I tell her there was a time when I allowed myself to be sucked under and into the waves. A time when she felt so far away that there was no reason not to allow the current to claim me.
She can’t be my lighthouse if she’s pulled into treacherous water with me.
Protect her first, I silently vow. Marry her later.
If she’ll even have me when my father is done with me.
Chapter eighteen
Alana
I arrive at the studio in the hired car Damion insisted become my regular means of transportation. I’d wanted to refuse such a luxury, but when I’d tried, Damion’s determination was clear. He didn’t do this just for me. He did it because he was worried about me, and I don’t remember the last time anyone worried about me at all. Except him.
I burst through the studio doors in a mad rush, late to set for the first time since the show started. I’m dressed in jeans and sneakers and still riding the high of deciding to move in with Damion. This is where we’ve always been headed, and I can’t say if it means we fly or sink, but we’re at least finding out. I think, even if it goes south, for the first time in my life, I’ll be at peace and able to move on. We never had closure between us, and now we’re an open book full of possibilities, and at least the story can be written, be it with a happy or sad ending.