I grabbed my folder again and flipped through the pages. When Renee didn’t walk away, I turned back to her. “Yes?”
This time, she looked different, definitely a lot more somber. “Rose is coming in tomorrow…”
We didn’t deal with each other most of the time. She had an assistant who helped her with whatever she needed, but sometimes an interaction was unavoidable. “Whatever.”
“I just hate how she walks in here like she owns the place.”
“Well, she does own half the place.” Because of my stupidity. Because I’d let her manipulate me like a goddamn idiot.
“There’s got to be something we can do, some kind of loophole.”
I shook my head. “Renee, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, spent a lot of money for the best lawyers to think about this. If there were a way, I would’ve found it. Until she allows us to buy her out, we’re stuck with her.”
She released a heavy sigh, like the weight of the situation was just as much of a burden on her shoulders as it was on mine. “I told William if we get married, I need a prenup. Nothing personal. He understood.”
“He seems like a guy who would.”
“Who knew marriage was the most dangerous thing to a wealthy person?”
It really was, at least in a fifty-fifty community property state. “Can be. But if done right, I’m sure it’s the happiest thing in the world. Don’t let my mistake ruin the good things in your future, Renee.”
She continued to stand over my desk and look at me. “Would you ever think about getting married again?”
If she’d asked me this before Carson, my answer would’ve been definitive.
Hell fucking no.
But now that we were officially together, both of our guards down, my answer had changed. “Yes.”
She nodded slowly. “Good.”
“It would be different with Carson.” There was no doubt in my mind that she wanted me for me, not for any other reason. She seemed indifferent to my wealth, seemed to brush over the nice things I could offer her. Her brain simply wasn’t wired that way, to focus on monetary gains instead of accomplishments. She wanted to change the world—not to be rich. She was a special kind of person. The idea of spending my life with somebody like her didn’t seem so scary.
“Yeah, I think it would be too.”
5
Dax
After I left the office, I joined the guys at the bar. The game was on, so we got together in an oversize booth to watch the screen.
Matt and Jeremy were already there, sitting close together, talking about the pads under the players’ uniforms.
Nathan and Charlie walked in together at the same time.
After they each got a beer from the bar, they joined us. We made small talk about the game, threw out some wagers, and then enjoyed our beers and waited for the hot wings to come out.
Jeremy turned to Nathan. “How are things going with Kat?”
Nathan gave a slow shrug. “Pretty bad, I guess.”
Charlie stilled at the response, his eyes shifting to Matt.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. My hand grabbed the bottle, and I leaned against the leather padding in the booth as I stared at him.
Nathan looked down at his beer before he gave an answer. “She ended things yesterday. Just said it wasn’t working. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. We weren’t serious anyway, so…” He gave another shrug.
“Are you okay?” Jeremy asked. “I know you aren’t the commitment type, but you seemed to like her.”
“I did.” He took a drink of his beer. “But when somebody wants to break up, you break up. I have too much dignity to try to talk her out of it, you know?”
Charlie didn’t participate in the conversation and instead stared down into his beer, as if this were another blow to his plan.
I wasn’t sure why Kat would dump Nathan so unexpectedly, but I suspected it had something to do with Charlie and Carson. Maybe she didn’t want to date a guy who was mutual friends with the people she never wanted to see again. Or maybe she realized she needed to find a guy she really liked so she could get over Charlie for good. Nathan just didn’t fit the bill.
“I suggested that we be friends since we all hang out now,” Nathan said. “She seemed fine with that.”
Charlie released a quiet sigh beside me, likely suspecting that was bullshit.
The waitress brought out the hot wings. She handed out the plates, made small talk, and then turned to me. “You come in here a lot.”
It took me a second to respond to her, because I was still immersed in the news I’d just received. I finally gathered my thoughts and addressed her. “Good beer. Good food. I’m a happy customer.”
She chuckled as she slipped her hand into her apron and pulled out a napkin with her phone number written on it. She set it in front of me and walked away.
The guys all watched her go before turning back to me.
Her name was written on the napkin in pretty handwriting along with a :-). I slid it across the table to Nathan. “I think you can get more use out of this than I can.”
Nathan folded up the napkin and put it in his pocket. “Sounds good to me.”
“Wow.” Jeremy shook his head as he looked at me across the table. “Dax Frawley is really off the market.”
“Yep.” I took a drink as I watched the TV. “And I hope I’m off the market for a really long time.”
“Carson is pretty cool,” Jeremy said. “But she seems to go back and forth a lot… Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Charlie got fired up immediately. “Excuse me? What exactly do you mean by that?”
I gave him an angry look across the table, silently telling him to keep his mouth shut.
“Nothing bad,” Jeremy said quickly. “It just seemed like they had a lot of problems and Carson wasn’t interested. Just don’t want to watch my friend get smashed again.”
“If he doesn’t lie out of his ass again, we won’t have any problems.” Charlie raised his voice a little higher, growing more menacing.
The nice atmosphere had been demolished, and now it was just tense. I tried to smooth it over. “Jeremy is just looking out for me. He doesn’t mean anything bad by what he said. But Carson and I are really happy. It took some time for us to get there, but we made it, and the destination was worth the journey.”
That seemed to quiet everything down, so we went back to watching the game and eating the hot wings.
Charlie was the only one who still seemed angry, but I suspected it had nothing to do with us. He had a lot on his mind and shoulders—and it showed.
The guys took off after the game, so it was just Charlie and me. He’d had more beers than I had, either because his tolerance was somehow higher or he just didn’t care right now.
“You seem down.” I’d moved to the seat across from him once the guys left. Since the game was over, there was no point in looking at the TV anymore.
“What gave me away?” Charlie said sarcastically.
“I’m sorry, man.” It was unfortunate that I was happier than I’d ever been, but Carson and Charlie were dealing with this problem that weighed them both down.