“I’ve lost everything tonight, already,” she whispered. “Don’t make me lose you, too.”

She’d lost her dream, her company, because of me. I’d known the terms her father had placed upon her once she’d started a relationship with me—I’d known them and still fucking slipped. I jerked out from underneath her touch, glancing over my shoulder with eyes I hoped were as cold as ice. She took a few steps away from me like she’d just happened upon a stranger…a dangerous stranger.

“Can’t lose what you never had, Red.”

A tiny gasp and one more tear. One more slice to the heart I never knew I had.

Then she straightened her spine, shifting from wounded bird to fearsome lioness in an instant. She gave me one nod and backed into the elevator, never losing my eyes until the doors slid closed, taking the only woman I ever loved away from me for good.

 

 

Chapter 16

 

 

Paige

 

 

“Paige, won’t you reconsider merely taking a small leave of absence?” My father paced in front of my desk as I packed some of the more important items away in the box I had on top of it. “I was too harsh last night. I should’ve waited to speak to you in person.”

I cut my eyes to him, battling the anger I had inside. I couldn’t decide which was worse, that I understood his actions from a business standpoint, or that I felt beyond betrayed as his daughter? I couldn’t have it both ways, but even as I stood there, contemplating how best to professionally handle the situation, I knew where my heart lied.

“You handed me an impossible ultimatum—having to choose between the company I love, the dreams I have for the future, and the man I love.” His eyebrows rose at my use of the L-word. “And to make matters worse, you didn’t even give me the chance to explain last night. You simply texted and said I was fired. A text!” I shook my head. “Do you realize how many more instances like this will happen to me in my future?” Even one without Rory in it. The thought had my heart shattering all over again, but I kept my face even. “Regardless of who is by my side, or if I’m alone forever, there will always be someone in the media out to get me. Just as they have been you for years.”

I took a deep breath, forcing the emotions flooding my body to calm.

“You threatened me over fear of a public relations fiasco and some consumer backlash bullshit. You pushed me to this exit.” I scooped the box off the desk and walked around it, stopping just in front of him. “I hope to God you pulled the reports I told you to. Hope you realize how much this company’s increase in profit margins, employment retainability, and product innovation rose after I implemented more movements than you know what to do with.”

I walked to the doors of what had been my second home since childhood. A heavy, sick weight set on my chest but I swallowed past it.

“Paige?”

The softness in my father’s voice forced me to turn and look at him.

“Was it worth it?” His eyes fell to my belly, and I shifted the box in my hands, suddenly worried he could see right through me.

Thoughts of Rory flooded my mind—as did the two pink lines on the test I’d taken right before he’d picked me up last night for the event. I was going to tell him after the party. After I’d had time to get my head on straight. Then all hell had broken loose because he couldn’t keep hold of his temper. And even after all that—after knowing I’d lost my dream shelter and my position in this company because of the terms my father had set around my relationship with Rory—I’d forgiven him before he’d even reached me at the elevators.

His cold, hurtful tone, his emotionless eyes as he brushed our relationship off as nothing more than the contract it had started off as had shattered my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. He’d called me a hassle and the realization that I was the one thing he wasn’t willing to fight for had left me a sopping, broken mess.

Or that could be the hormones. Maybe a combo of both.

Either way, I’d managed to pull myself together long enough to come into the office today and give my father a piece of my mind. While his temper had cooled overnight, mine had not, and I was done being treated like a little girl playing at running a corporation.

I held my head high, finally prepared to answer my father. “Ask yourself that question when the company feels the sting of my absence. I was your biggest asset. Now I’m your biggest competition.” I let the doors swing shut as I walked through them, and refused to look back.

 

“When do you start at Wilson & Rowe’s?” Bailey asked as she sat next to me at Nine’s bar.

Jeannine slid an ice water toward me, eyeing it like it was poison. “Are you sure this doesn’t call for scotch? Seems like the type of situation in which there is scotch.”

“Stop it, Jeannine,” Bailey chided, placing her hand on my back. “She needs a clear head.”

“She needs to get drunk,” Jeannine challenged, and the two took up a staring competition of epic proportions.

The restaurant had been closed for a couple of hours and enough time had passed for me to work up just enough courage to say what I needed to.

“Trust me. I need water.” I swallowed the nerves jolting inside me. “I’m pregnant.”

Jeannine dropped the bottle of scotch she’d pulled off the shelf, the glass thunking against the thankfully padded flooring.

“And to answer your first question,” I continued, eyeing Bailey. “It’s an open invitation to come work whenever I want. I haven’t given them a final answer yet because…” I gestured to my still flat stomach, completely at a loss…not about Wilson & Rowe’s of course, but about everything else.

I’d been raised to top the company time and time again, and now they’d offered to let me head up their corporate offices here in Seattle. The business side of it was smart—they offered me more money than I made in my previous VP position, and they ensured me the freedom to take the line in a new direction if that was my vision. They’d wanted me bad after we’d crushed them in sales this fiscal year, and I knew I could make a real difference there. It was the personal side, the roots I had in my family’s company, which made me feel dirtier than any list ever could.