Page 41 of The Merger
“I’m married,” I blurted out after our waitress dropped off our drinks.
Evie’s mouth fell open, but I held up my hand stopping her. “There’s so much more I have to tell you.” And then I did. I told her about getting married when I was twenty-one, about how I forgot and meeting Stryker again for the second time. I finished by telling her what happened with Waverly and how I ended up spending the weekend with Stryker in his suite.
Evie slumped back against the booth. “Well, shit.”
“That brings us to today,” I said and looked at Jana. “There’s still a bunch of your father’s cronies in the company working against you.”
She nodded. “I expected as much.”
I filled her in on my run in with Jefferies. “I don’t think he’ll be resigning by the end of the day.”
She shook her head. “No, he won’t. We need to dig deeper. My father hasn’t given up yet, and we need to be ready. You should meet with Stryker and have everyone you suspect to be working with my father frozen out of the network and escorted off the premises.”
I groaned. “Is there another suggestion? He was being a royal asshole. It’s the other reason I took off in the rain.”
Jana winced. “Caroline warned me he is rather grumpy. I only saw him treat a few others that way, but it’s no different than how Beck was before Evie.”
Evie chuckled. “He was horrible. Remember how his poor secretary used to hide from him?”
I shuddered. “Do I. Every time he ran one off I had to fill in.”
Putting her elbows on the table and cradling her head, Evie smiled at me. “So, what did Stryker do?”
Compared to Beck’s past mood swings this didn’t sound so bad. I was already regretting my reaction. “I went to see if he’d had lunch, since he hadn’t reached out to me all morning, and when I went in, he yelled at me for disturbing him.”
“Did he know it was you?” Jana asked.
I deflated. My voice came out weak when I finally answered her. “I don’t think so. He, uh, didn’t look up from his computer.” I took a breath and gave voice to what was banging around in my head. “I overreacted, didn’t I?”
Neither of them answered at first. “I think so,” Evie started, “but it’s understandable considering everything you’d already dealt with today. He doesn’t need to be shouting at the employees either. When Beck does it, that’s a sure sign there’s something bothering him.”
I thought back over the last couple of days. Every time he tried to reach out to me emotionally, I felt my walls start to come up. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but I had when I shut him out.
Evie and Jana shared a look before Evie turned her attention back to me. She reached across the table and took my hands and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “You look conflicted. This is about more than him being a big grump in the office. I know it is because you’re the grump tamer.”
I barked out a laugh. “I’m the what?”
Jana and Evie shared a look then busted up too. Jana fought to stop so she could speak. “You had to have heard what they called you around the office.”
Shaking my head, I waited for her to explain.
Her lips kept quirking up as she tried to keep control. “You already said that you had to handle Beck when he ran his secretaries off. Colter was usually friendly, but there were times he was a handful as well. The only one who could manage both of them was you.”
“This is so not the same thing,” I grumbled. “Colter is literally family. We might not have been super close while I was growing up, but when I did see him, Beck was almost always with him. You know he can’t stand his dad, so he always brought Beck around as a buffer. I was only able to ‘handle’ him as you say because he saw me as his friend’s little sister.”
Jana gave me a slight smile. “And you’re Stryker’s wife. You can handle him. And moreover, I think he needs you to.”
I exhaled a puff of air. “Well, shit. I guess I need to go back to the office, huh?”
A dark shadow fell across the table. I looked up to see Colt looming above us. “I think you can wait a bit longer.”
Evie scooted out of the booth and hugged her father. It was still weird seeing them hesitate before gravitating toward each other. She was trying to be strong and independent, when it was clear she loved getting to know her father. Him staring down at her with a mix of awe, love, and sadness for all the years he missed.
Colt ruffled her head, messing up her long brown hair. She rolled her eyes but moved to my side of the booth so he could slide in next to Jana. They looked at each other and you could see that for a moment nothing else existed for them but each other.
An ache speared my chest. I wanted that. I just wasn’t sure I was capable of letting myself have it. To do so meant being vulnerable, and I wasn’t good with letting down my walls.
Evie cleared her throat. “You know I’m totally okay with you being together, but maybe don’t do that gushy love stare thing in front of me.”