The sound of a chair squeaked. “They’ll be fine. I have confidence in the contracts you set up for them.”
“Thanks. I guess you’re right. I’m worried about Dad too, though. I kind of wish… well, never mind. It is what it is.”
Desi hesitated before speaking. “Don’t worry about your dad. He’s a smart man. He knows how to look out for himself. We all do, don’t we? It’s never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket.”
“What about…” Ellison paused and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Investing personal money in some of our clients? Have you ever considered that? It’s just… I worry about these clients. And I have a little money to invest…”
“Me? No, of course not. But if you were interested… I could probably help you find some ways of going about it.” The smirk was clear in Desi’s voice. “There are ways to get around the rules.”
Ellison blew out a breath. “Okay, yeah. Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
“What do you know about Blackwood? Your father told me you have a history with the man.”
There was a beat of silence before Ellison’s voice took on a different tone, a lighter one as if he was smiling. “He’s pretty amazing, actually. I know everyone is worried about how he’ll manage the company, but… so far it seems like he knows what he’s doing. I’ve followed his career for years. He’s thorough, smart, and deliberate. Did you know the first VC company he acquired was on the cusp of collapse? He structured the takeover before the owners could take their money out of their clients’ projects prematurely. If he hadn’t taken over Innor VC when he had, their collapse would have led to the grounding of Aerocepte’s entire fleet for months. The commercial airline industry would have suffered a major setback. The man’s a fucking genius. No wonder he’s a billionaire.”
I continued listening to Ellison describe my corporate successes in a way I’d never heard before. Not only had he followed my career, he’d been impressed with it. And he hadn’t been afraid to tell Desi Martinez, one of his father’s toadies, about it.
That wasn’t the voice of a man out to get me or a man with a hidden agenda to take me down. But I’d already known that, so what the hell was my problem?
Stone-cold fear.
I crawled onto my bed and lay back to stare at the ceiling. A rattan paddle fan rotated lazily above me, and the distant lapping of the water on the beach through the open sliding doors provided a rhythmic backdrop to my jangled thoughts.
Cate had been at breakfast with us that morning. If he took her to the airport Sunday morning, it had to have been while I was on the call with the team in Paris. But then why had his clothes been missing from our room? Had he intended to go somewhere with her? Had he taken his things to the airport but changed his mind and returned?
It didn’t make any sense.
I thought back through my time with Ellison in the Hamptons, the fight we had on the beach especially.
“What happens if you walk away from me again?” I asked.
Ellison pinned me with his glare. “Need I remind you that so far this past week it’s been you who’s walked away from me? I’ve laid myself at your fucking feet, begged you for more, introduced you to people who matter to me. Do you want promises? You know I can’t make them, and you also know you yourself wouldn’t make them this early on. But I’m here. I’m not walking away from you. This is me fighting, dammit. And I want to break through this infernal fucking wall you have built up and see the real Grey Blackwood. I hate when you get that stoic look on your face and act like you don’t have a heart. You do. I know you do, so fucking show it to me!”
Fucking fuck.
How many times had he accused me of running off instead of talking to him? Had I done it again? No, I’d texted him. I’d tried calling him.
But then I’d blocked his number and left the damned country like a fucking coward when he hadn’t called me back within an hour.
I jumped up and raced next door, not caring that there were clearly sex noises coming from Marcel and Luca’s villa. “I need to go to Vermont,” I yelled through the door. “I need your help.”
Luca’s voice was clear and unhappy. “Fucking Christ. Go away.”
“On it, boss!” Marcel said with a laugh, before letting out a long, debauched groan. I put my fingers in my ears and raced back to my own villa to take a quick shower.
I needed to get to Ellison and convince him it had all been a mistake. I would beg him on my hands and knees if necessary.
After all these years, it was finally my turn to do the groveling.
When my plane landed at the small airport closest to Warrington Academy, I was nervous enough to consider puking just to get it over with.
“Breathe, Grey. Vomiting on a man is not considered a declaration of love in most cultures,” Marcel reminded me.
Love? Jesus. I swallowed hard.
“Not helping,” I muttered. By the time I walked into the administrative office of the school itself, I was pouring sweat.
The receptionist looked up at me with a smile. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to see Ellison York, please.”
She frowned. “He’s not here. Ellison lives in New York.”
I turned to Marcel in confusion. “But he works here. In Vermont.”
Thankfully, Marcel took over with his usual charm. “We were under the impression he’d moved here to work full-time in development for the school,” he said with a smile.
“Well, yes. He did, but then he went back to work for his family business in the city. He’s a lawyer, you know.”
My hands started to shake worse than they’d been before. “That’s not possible. He hates the law. He quit York Capital.”
She frowned. “Well, yes, but then…” She glanced over my shoulder. “Maybe you should talk to his sister… Gigi? These men are looking for Ellison.”
I turned to see a woman who looked completely different from Ellison in coloring but had the exact same searching gaze. I recognized her as an older version of the pretty girl at the country club. “Gigi, I’m—”
“Grey Blackwood,” she said in a flat voice. “You’d better come into my office.”
She let us into a small office to the side of the reception desk and closed the door behind us. Marcel and I took seats in front of her desk while she took her chair on the opposite side. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want your brother,” I said, without meaning to say it like that. Even though it was really very true.
Marcel put a hand on my arm and leaned forward. “He means he’d like a chance to talk to Ellison. We believe there may have been a big misunderstanding.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him, and I wanted to laugh. I’d been on the receiving end of that look many times from her brother. “And you are…?”
“Grey’s keeper. The man who’s trying to untangle the giant mess he’s made of things.”
Finally, Gigi’s face softened. “Thank god someone’s trying. Maybe while you’re at it, you can find out why he decided to go back to work for our dad, something he swore he’d never do.”