“Jeremy, call my surgeon then get me a clean shirt,” he demands of his assistant. The man is supposed to be his friend, but you wouldn’t know that by the way Andrew talks to him.
He turns toward the side door, the one that will let him escape like the rat he is. “You and tubby have fun making little piglets.”
I growl and step toward him. All it takes is that one move and he’s scurrying away. Sounds like he’s laughing under his breath. But I don’t care. I just laid claim to my bride. Now all I have to do is convince her to walk down the aisle with me instead.
My knuckles throb, already bruising. There are ways to throw a punch and protect the knuckles, but I didn’t do that. I wanted the punches that would inflict the most pain possible on my brother. Even now I want to run after him. I want to demolish him until he’s nothing more than a stain on the asphalt next to the dumpster outside.
I turn to Cadence, content now that I know she’s safe from my brother’s barbs. It doesn’t matter whether it’s physical or verbal, I’ll always be the man who defends her. It takes a superhuman level of concentration to ground out the words, “Marry. Me.”
2
CADENCE
“How are you doing?” I grip my phone tighter as I ask the question and fight the nerves rolling in my stomach. Never did I imagine that I would be having a phone conversation with my father while he’s in jail, awaiting trial. They deemed him a flight risk and set a bond of millions despite the fact that he’s never left the country and has no prior convictions for any crime.
“Your old man is doing just fine, sweet pea,” he reassures me in that gravelly smoker’s voice. “Now you tell me what you’re doing today.”
For a moment, my heart beats faster as I worry that he knows. Today, I’m marrying his arch nemesis. Or at least, the son of his arch nemesis. Andrew is no prize. He’s cruel and manipulative, just like his father.
But Andrew’s father cooked the books. He made it out like my father has swindled his investors. Phony evidence that he submitted to a crooked judge, all in a desperate bid to get his hands on my father’s technology.
So, I did the only thing I could do. I went to Jackson Abernathy and pleaded for mercy. I begged, a fact that would shame my father if he knew. But he doesn’t know. He’ll never know. If I’m careful, I can keep him in the dark about this sham of a marriage.
“I’m working on a big marketing project then going out with the girls for sushi,” I answer. I’m the marketing director for his company. Our company. My name is on it, same as his. Only with one key difference. I hold a sixty-one percent share in it.
He started the company with my mom when she was alive. She was his queen, and he would have laid the world at her feet. That’s why he gave her a sixty-one percent share. But she passed just a few years after that, and her shares became mine according to the will. Not that it mattered.
My mom wasn’t alive to see what the company would become. My dad was still a poor inventor, a tinkerer when she passed. His success wouldn’t come until nearly two decades later when he would discover a way to revolutionize the battery industry. With his technology, the Abernathy family will be able to manufacture electric cars that run three times as long and only require a charging time of less than ten minutes. It’s unheard of and it’ll give them the edge to own the industry within a matter of years, maybe even months.
“I’ll be out of here real soon, and things can go back to normal,” Dad says. He’s making promises he won’t be able to keep. I’ve already consulted a lawyer, some second-rate attorney that didn’t have the sense to be afraid of the Abernathy name. But even Mr. Flunked-the-Bar-Six-Times could see the writing on the wall. The case against my father is airtight.
For a second, my mind drifts back in time.
“See, four plus four is eight. It’s always going to be eight,” Daddy says as he spears the eighth dinosaur-shaped noodle on a fork. The glow of the streetlight illuminates the can of cold pasta, a staple of my childhood.
I write the number on my homework sheet, sighing my relief. The last math problem is finally solved.
He offers me the eighth dinosaur, and I take it from the fork before peering into the empty can. “Where are your eight, daddy?”
He rubs his belly. It used to be round and jiggled when he laughed. It’s flat there now and he never laughs. At least, not like he did when mom was here. “Daddy ate a big lunch. He’s still full. Now come, sleepy time.”