She scrubs at her cheek with her free hand, and her gaze hardens. “I hate him, Nathan. I fucking hate him!”
Yeah, me too. “You never have to see him again, Mel. You can cut all ties with him, your mother too, if that’s what you want. Or you can fuck with them both by taking everything they have. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll make it happen.”
The way she looks at me makes my heart beat faster and my dick twitch in my pants. “You really would, wouldn’t you?” Her face softens in a faint smile.
I’d do fucking anything for you. “You only have to say the word.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to them. I don’t need that on my conscience. Besides, karma will get them in the end. But I do want to cut ties. I want my name removed from everything to do with Edison Holdings. Can that be done? So I never have to have anything to do with either of them again?”
I frown. Edison Holdings is her father’s legacy, and just because Bryce has spent the last seventeen years bleeding the company dry, that doesn’t mean it’s irredeemable. “You sure? Because I can have Bryce removed as CEO, and we could appoint an interim—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’m tired, Nathan. I just want to walk away. From everything.”
Even me? That thought makes me stall for breath, but I don’t voice it. What if she said yes? “Then I’ll make that happen.”
Her eyes shine, and she lets out a sigh. “Thank you for being such a good man.”
She leans into me, and I wrap my arms around her, resting my lips on her hair. A good man. I’ve never considered myself one of those before. Ruthless in business and in my personal life, I’ve never cared what anyone thought of me, and that has served me well all these years. So why the fuck does her calling me that make me want to do everything in my power to prove her right?
Chapter
Sixty-Five
NATHAN
Ifucking love when she falls asleep on me while watching TV. How her soft pink lips part a little and she scrunches her cute button nose when she’s dreaming. I love that when I came home from work today, she was here. Her presence pervades every inch of my penthouse—the lingering scent of her perfume, her books in the kitchen, the food she likes in the fridge, the stack of magazines on the coffee table. Even in my bedroom, the place she hasn’t set foot in for months, she lingers there, and the memories of all of the nights she spent in my bed are starker now with her here.
I only have three more nights until Tyler comes back and she goes home, and I’m no clearer on what the fuck I want to do. No clearer on what she wants. We share this space like we’re best friends, but the reminder that we were so much more than that is never far away. The chemistry is still there, and if I’m honest with myself, I would have had her in my bed by now if she wasn’t recovering from a miscarriage. I would be fucking her every goddamn night and day.
Our divorce papers sit in the safe in my office, waiting for me to file them to make it all official. I guess I have three days to figure out if I’m going to. Or if she wants me to. I look down at her beautiful face. The lies she told me at the start of our marriage seem so far away from where we are now. And if she’s telling the truth about her part in all that, those lies are insignificant compared to the hell we’ve endured the past couple weeks.
My phone vibrates beside me, Drake’s face lighting up the screen. I answer with a whisper, careful not to wake her. “Hey.”
“Hey, I have all that paperwork drafted. I’ll email it over and you can take a look.”
“Already? I only asked you this morning. Don’t you ever take time off?”
He laughs. “You already know the answer to that, bro. Besides, it was an easy fix. Provided the current CEO agrees to the terms, nothing is contentious.”
“Oh, he’ll agree,” I say with a low growl.
“Well, yeah. You got him trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.” Drake laughs again. “You need me to do anything else with this right now?”
“No. I’m going to sit on it. Just wanted to have the option if we need it.”
“Okay.” Drake yawns loudly. “In that case, I’m gonna call it a night.”
“Good night, buddy. And thanks.”
He mumbles a good night and ends the call.
I brush a strand of hair back from Mel’s forehead, and she smiles contentedly. I’ve missed that fucking smile.
But her eyelids flicker open, and the smile fades. My heart aches for her. It’s like each time she wakes up, she remembers again, and I wish I could stop her pain. “Did I fall asleep on you again? I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
She sits up and stretches. “I’ll have to stop getting used to this. Tyler hates it when I fall asleep on him.”
I don’t want her falling asleep on anyone but me. A phantom clock ticks away the minutes in my mind, reminding me that I only have three more nights of her sitting on this sofa with me. Yeah, I need to figure out what the fuck I’m gonna do because I know exactly what I want.
I stand on the front porch, waiting to be shown into the house, rolling my neck to ease the tension tightening my muscles. I tap my foot and grind my jaw. Is she fucking kidding me? I bang on the door again, and a few seconds later, a housekeeper answers.
“I’m here to see Miranda.”
She blinks at me.
“I called ahead,” I growl.
The housekeeper nods and allows me inside, leading me to a sitting room where Melanie’s mother is perched on an armchair, sipping what looks like sweet tea.
She casts her eyes over me, not bothering to disguise her disdain, which is fine by me because I fucking hate her as much as I hate her son.
“Nathan James.” She sneers. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
I sit down in the armchair opposite her and brace my elbows on my knees. “All I want is the truth, Miranda. If you have a single ounce of motherly love for your daughter in your body, then give me the fucking truth. Did she know anything about what Bryce was planning? That he was still going ahead with his plan to set me up?”
