Ryan struggled to keep up. “She told you all that?”
“Yeah. She’s proud of who she is now, Ryan, proud of the fact that she picked herself up and dusted herself off. Sure, she should never have told Clive what she did but she never thought that he would talk to the press... I would’ve suspected him but she’s not cynical like me. Or you.”
“I’m not cynical,” Ryan objected but he knew that he was. Of course he was.
Merry snorted. “Sure, you are. You thought Jaci slept with her ex because she looked happy. Anyway, Jaci blames herself for you losing the funding. She blames herself for all of it. Her dream is gone, Ryan.”
He’d made a point of not thinking about that because if he did, it hurt too damn much. He rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb. “I know.”
“But worse than that, she’s shattered that you could think that she slept with Clive, that she would cheat on you. She feels annihilated because she never believed that you could think that of her.”
Ryan rested his elbow on his desk and pushed the ball of his hand into his temple. He felt as if the floor had fallen out from under his feet. “Oh.” It was the only word he could articulate at the moment.
“Fix this, Jackson,” Merry stated in a low voice that was superscary. “Or I swear I’ll hurt you.”
He could do that, Ryan thought, sucking in air. He could...he could fix this. He had to fix this. Because Jaci had been hurt and no one, especially not him, was allowed to do that.
The fact that Merry would—actually—hurt him was just an added incentive.
* * *
There was only one person in the world whom he would do this for, Ryan thought, as the front door to Chad’s house opened and his father stood in the doorway with an openly surprised look on his face.
Ryan held his father’s eyes and fought the urge to leave. He reminded himself that this was for Jaci, this was to get her the big break that she so richly deserved. Shelving Blown Away meant postponing Jaci’s dream. He couldn’t do that to her. Once the world and, more important, other producers saw the quality of her writing, she’d have more work than she could cope with and she’d be in demand, and maybe then they could find a way to be together. Because, God, he missed her.
He loved her, he needed her, and there was no way that he could return to her—to beg her to take him back—without doing everything and anything he could to resurrect her dream. She’d probably tell him to go to hell, and he suspected that he had as much chance of getting her back as he did of having sex with a zombie princess, but he had to try. Writing made her happy and, above all, he wanted her happy.
With or without him.
“Are you going to stand there and stare at me or are you going to come in?” Chad asked, that famous smile hovering around his lips.
Yeah, he supposed he should. Bombshells shouldn’t be dropped on front porches, especially a porch as magnificent as this one. Ryan walked inside the hall and looked around; nothing much had changed since the last time he was here. What was different, and a massive surprise, was the large framed photograph of Ben and himself, arms draped around each other’s shoulders, wearing identical grins, that stood on a hall table. Well...huh.
“Do you want to talk in the study or by the pool?” Chad asked.
Ryan pushed his hand through his hair. “Study, I guess.” He followed his father down the long hallway of the sun-filled home, catching glances of the magnificent views of the California coastline through the open doors of the rooms they passed. He might not love his father, but he’d always loved this house.
Chad opened the door to the study and gestured Ryan to a chair. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”
Ryan could see that Chad expected him to refuse but he was exhausted, punch-drunk from not sleeping for too many nights. He needed caffeine so he quickly accepted. Chad called his housekeeper on the intercom, asked for coffee and sat down in a big chair across the desk from him. “So, what’s this about, Ryan? Or should I call you Jax?”
“Ryan will do.” Ryan pulled out a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and slapped them on the table. “According to the emails you’ve sent me in the past, you are part of a group prepared to invest in my films. I’d like to know whether you, and your consortium, would like to invest in Blown Away.”
Chad looked at him for a long time before slowly nodding. “Yes,” he eventually stated, quietly and without any fanfare.
“I need a hundred million.”