‘If you want to see it that way, then fine.’
He’s still, his eyes searing into mine, as if he can see all the way inside me to the truth. But I don’t back down. I don’t even flinch.
And then he’s gone as quickly as he appeared and I succumb to the scream, fisting my hands and then flinging them out as I let it go. It feels so good that I do it again and again, and then I slump into my chair, my head in my hands, and breathe.
Just. Breathe.
It’ll be okay. You just need to keep your guard up and all will be well. A piece of cake.
‘Some cake...’ I mutter into my palms.
CHAPTER THREE
ISN’T IT STRANGE how you can be someone to the outside world, even believe you are that someone, but the second you walk into the home you grew up in, with the same smells, the same furnishings, practically the same décor, you’re transported back to the person you used to be? Exposed.
I don’t feel like a successful billionaire who knows his own mind, who makes critical decisions on a daily basis.
I feel like a child.
Vulnerable. Angry. On edge.
I roll my head on my shoulders and shift back in the armchair my mother has set before the roaring fire especially. Dad’s chair.
‘Tough week?’
I smile at her, wanting to put her at ease. ‘You could say that.’
She frowns at me from her own seat, angled like mine to face into the fire, but her soft green gaze is all for me and it’s concerned. I really could be that schoolboy again, just come home after a run-in with his best mate. Or the teen who’s just fallen out with his girlfriend and doesn’t know how to feel.
She’s much the same as she always was. Her long hair is woven into the same plait she’s always favoured, only now it’s greying at the temples. Her voice still possesses that melodic ring that Dad was so fond of and Liam and I were comforted by as children.
My stomach lurches. It happens every time I think of Dad, of Liam. And I know the added lines on my mother’s face, the extra grey in her hair, have come in the last few months since the funeral. That the weight of facing life without them is taking its toll. But there’s still a strength to her, a spark to her eyes when she smiles at me, that tells me I’ve done the right thing. That having me here has helped to ease that burden.
Yes, coming back was the right decision—even if it’s brought me face to face again with Alexa and the unfinished business between us.
My mind replays the scene in her office. The crazy heat. The even crazier words that came out of my mouth. Out of hers. They burn through me even now, four days later, far more effective than the fire roaring before us.
I drag my eyes to the flames and watch them crackle and flicker.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Mum asks. ‘A problem shared and all that...’
My fist pulses around the arm of Dad’s chair and I take a deep breath—only to have the scent of my family home attack my defences further. I don’t even know where I’d start. Seven years ago? Three months ago? A week? And even so I’m not willing to voice the chaos underway in my head. To put words to it will only make it more real.
‘It’s nothing I can’t handle.’
My own conscience mocks me, laughing at my projected confidence.
I want to be confident, though. I want to be in control.
But in Alexa’s office I lost both, succumbing to the weakness of emotion, hormones, endorphins... I played myself for a fool.
‘It can’t be easy for you...coming back and working with Alexa—’
She breaks off, struggling for the right words, and I can’t find any to stop her, to put an end to this conversation before it starts.
‘I have a good feeling about this, though.’ She nods, sounding far more certain. ‘She needs you. She needs your help, your business acumen and your reputation.’
She reaches across to place her hand on my arm, her expression softening.