“I came as soon as I could,” William says, rushing into my office.
“You’re here now.” I close the door.
He’s here to see Aurora, but I wanted to talk to him first.
I called him last night to tell him what transpired between Aurora and Nathan, but he was in Florida for a business trip. He took the first flight he could get back to New York.
I won’t keep him for too long because I know he’s eager to see his daughter. What I have to talk to him about won’t take much time.
“How is she?” He’s so worried he’s paler than I’ve ever seen him.
“She’s not too bad. Bruised and shaken up, but I’ll take care of her.”
“Thank God you were there.” He rests a weary hand at his temple. “I can’t believe what almost happened to her. Where is Nathan now?”
“Behind bars.” And barely alive. While Aurora was asleep, I paid that motherfucker a visit. Let’s just say once he’s finished doing time, he won’t want to show his face in New York ever again.
“I didn’t give him the job. That’s why he did this. Even if I gave it to him, he fully believed Aurora was going to marry him once the contract with you ends.”
I stare back at him, those last words feeling foreign to me, and that brings me to the reason I wanted to speak to him.
“That’s not happening.” My voice is as firm as I am in my decision.
William watches me as I lean over my desk and pick up the envelope I prepared before he got here. I hand it to him, and he takes it with a puzzled look on his face.
“What’s this?”
“All the evidence I have on you. Everything’s there. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
He stares back at me with wide, surprised eyes. “What? Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do if I want to move forward with your daughter.”
Awe replaces surprise as the color returns to his face. “You’re not letting her go, are you?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He smiles, but then his expression falters, and I know why.
“But Sunset Cove, Knight—”
“I know. I … know.” I sound like I have a solution for that too, but I don’t. I still don’t. At least not one that sees me getting my legacy. All these months have passed and I haven’t found a way. “I’ll figure it out. Go see her. She’s expecting you.”
He nods but reaches out and touches my shoulder the way a father would when they’re offering reassurance. My grandfather has done that many times, but it feels different coming from William.
I guess he’s so good at being a father that he can offer me some of his parental support too.
“Thank you. For this.” He holds up the envelope. “But mostly for loving my Aurora. She needed it.”
The words reach my cold heart. It’s still covered with the black fog of desolation, but at least it’s clearing, and I feel human again.
“I needed it too.”
With a final nod, he leaves, and I’m left with the thoughts that have plagued me for the last few months. The girl of my dreams and the empire.
Or rather, the girl of my dreams or the empire.
I’ve never been in a situation I couldn’t get out of until now.
The last few months have felt like I’ve been thrown into a pit of conflict. Like tar, it’s swallowed me whole.
I’ve either had to watch Bastian continue his pursuits to outdo me with his expansion of the company in Japan. Or, watch Aurora glow with happiness as the work on Sunset Cove has progressed.
The moment the decorators started their work using her mother’s designs, I knew I couldn’t even mention the word sale. I saw how happy she was, and I couldn’t hurt her.
Apart from that, I’ve been selfish again when it comes to her. I’ve had several chances to talk to her about the sale, but I didn’t want to spoil a second of what we’ve shared between us.
Aurora makes me feel things I didn’t think possible for a dark soul like me. I’ve come to crave it like air to my lungs and food to my soul.
When I told her about Giselle, it was hard, but telling her released that grief that has lived in my soul for what has felt like eons.
There’s more to my story that I didn’t share. More pain, more wounds, more scars. All deep.
In ways, it feels like Aurora has healed me, but this conundrum I’ve found myself in can only get worse if I don’t find a way to fix it fast.
The next two weeks go by, and Aurora gets better, although she clings to me as if she’s afraid something will happen to her if I’m not around.
She starts loosening up and going back to Sunset Cove when Madison offers to stay with her for a week.
Madison has been an amazing support, providing the distraction Aurora needed by doing practice interviews in prep for the upcoming interview at People Magazine.
I took care of that Rachel problem with one phone call. In circumstances of shit like that, all you have to do is roar the loudest and stake your claim to being at the top of the food chain. I threatened to get their investors to pull all their funding on her father’s biggest project if she didn’t cease and desist her threats against Aurora.
Of course, she agreed.
I also got her to fix what she’d done in the past to restore Aurora’s good name and compensate her with a year’s salary she would have made at Montrose Magazine. Money like that is nothing to people like her, so she agreed to that too.
It was a triumph that made my wife happy, and I wished I could revel in the euphoria the way she did. I could see the burden lift from her shoulders, but it was nothing in the grand scheme of my worries.
Fast forward to today when I’m supposed to be meeting with Vladimir and my grandfather again.
The thought of sitting there like I did before makes my insides feel like they’ve been twisted with barbwire.
I’m even late for work.
Aurora left for Sunset Cove an hour ago, but I’ve been stuck here, stuck in my mind.
This can’t go on. More and more, I feel like a coward running away with his tail tucked between his legs. That’s not me.
My phone rings when I’m getting ready. It’s Jericho.
I answer it, wondering what he could want to talk about at this time of morning that couldn’t wait until he saw me at the office.
“Hey.” I press the phone to my ear while I button up my shirt.
“Knight, we have a big problem.”
My hands still, lingering on the loop of the last button. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve been hacked. Your computer and mine.”
My scalp tightens, and my blood boils with fury. “What the fuck do you mean we’ve been hacked? That’s near impossible.” Because of all the shit we do, the systems Jericho has in place are supposed to be tighter than at the White House. No one can simply hack us.
“It must have been some high-tech off-the-grid hacker. Because of the files they copied, I know someone hired them to get to you.”
“What files?”
“Everything to do with William and his mafia connections, his debt, addictions, and other shit. There was everything about Conrad and Nathan, the inheritance provisos for Sunset Cove, Aurora, and plans we have for Park Avenue. Knight, my computer had all that evidence, so it won’t take a genius to figure out what we did. It’s hard dirt.”
The instant he says that, one name comes to mind—Bastian.
Fucking Bastian.
As I’m sure he’s done worse shit than me finding out any of that stuff won’t lose me Sunset Cove, but there is one other thing I stand to lose.
Aurora.
My last encounter with Bastian comes back to my mind.
He told me he’d find out what I was up to, why my marriage was arranged, and that I shouldn’t wear my weakness on my sleeve for the world to see.
Cut off the head so the body is weak. Carve out a man’s heart, and there’ll be nothing left of him.
All he would need to do is spill my secrets to Aurora for me to lose her. Then nothing will matter.
Bastian’s knowledge with the supporting evidence doesn’t just hurt Aurora and me. There’s also her father to think about, and I assured William he wouldn’t need to worry about the evidence anymore.
The fucking evidence on Jericho’s computer contains a multitude of things Aurora doesn’t know. Like all the hardcore shit that could get her father killed if word gets back to his mafia friends about the millions he stole.
Bastian wouldn’t care about that. That motherfucker would use such a threat to his advantage.
“When did this happen, Jericho?” My voice sounds like a hollow rasp.
“Earlier this morning, a few hours before I got in. I’ve been here for about an hour checking things out.”
I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s ten. Aurora would either be at work now or still on her way there if she met with her friends first.
“I have to go.”
“But, Knight, I think—’
I hang up and rush out the door, following that sick feeling in my gut that’s moving me forward and telling me I need to get to Aurora.
I just hope I’m not too late.
