All Chapters of Chasing the Pride of Alessi : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Weston━━❖━━I hadn't slept.I'd tried going through the summit report around four. The numbers were unchanged. The deal was on schedule, and the fuel costs were locked in. Even if every problem on the table became a reality, the company would still make money.That should have settled it.Instead, I kept seeing her at that podium, forty minutes of questions coming at her from every side, and not once did she look for me in the room. She always had until yesterday. A glance across a crowded space. A hand finding my arm when she wanted to leave without making it an announcement. Small things. I'd never counted them until there weren't any left to count.I won't keep paying for something that was never going to choose me back.I choose myself this time.I'd heard those two lines outside Alfred's door and none of what led up to them. I still didn't know what Alfred had said back or what had brought her to that resolve. I only knew I'd carried those two sentences to the home we both share

|•Marin• |The two o'clock meeting let out into a lobby too loud to think in. I went straight for the doors. The building still held what Weston had said on the stairwell landing, and I needed air that didn't.I carried those words down the hall. I'd chosen to stay and finish this acquisition on my own terms. I wasn't walking away with the work half done. But he'd turned that choice into another way to control me, making it sound like concern.Be a good wife. For now.That stayed with me the whole way to the doors.The fatigue never really left now. A dull ache sat low in my back most mornings. Two losses already sat behind me at St. Gabriel's, so I watched every step, said nothing to anyone, and told myself I only needed the company stable a little longer. Then I'd have his signature, and my own life back.I stepped onto the marble plaza.Cameras started firing the second I crossed the threshold.A crowd of photographers had already boxed in a silver sedan at the drop-off lane. Secur

|•Marin• |I didn't remember much of the walk away from the lobby.I went around the corridor instead of returning to my office, then wandered into an office I had no reason to enter. I stood there staring at a desk belonging to someone I had never met, wondering what I was doing there. A few minutes later, I walked back out.I needed distance from the lobby.The scene followed me in my thoughts anyway.Eli's hand around mine. His face when he'd asked me to stay. The way he'd settled against me as if I were already familiar to him, despite how little time had passed since he'd first learned who I was.Then Weston had appeared.I kept walking.The acquisition report was open on my desk. The investor briefs needed another review. Calls to return, figures to check, and a dozen small decisions that could turn into bigger problems if I let them sit. That was what I should have been thinking about.Instead, I kept seeing the plaza.Another press crowd.Another group of cameras.Another vers

Weston━━❖━━My SUV was parked in the secured section of the lot across from Highland Private Medical Clinic, away from the main entrance and the steady movement of patients and staff. The windows were tinted, the engine was off, and the security detail kept its distance, making it look like any other car waiting in the lot.A dark security vehicle pulled into the far end of the lot and stopped. Gideon Shaw stepped out from the rear passenger side with two folders under his arm. One of my handlers remained behind the wheel while Gideon crossed the short distance between the vehicles.He opened the rear door and climbed in.Gideon had worked for me for eight years. I had brought him in when I needed someone who could investigate a problem without turning it into a conversation with half the city. Over the years, he had handled private investigations, security reviews, background checks, and matters that never reached Vane Enterprises' records. He was thorough without wasting time, and

|•Marin• |He didn't move. In the mirror over the dresser I could see him a step behind my shoulder, collar open, one hand raised a few inches off his side.When he spoke again his voice had gone lower and sharper at the front. "Is this rush for freedom about our agreement, Marin, or is it Damien Ashford?"In the mirror, his jaw was set. The hand had come down.I opened the drawer. The ring lay on its folded square of tissue. I took it out and put it on. It stopped at the knuckle and I had to turn it to get it over, down onto the pale band."Please go downstairs, Weston."His eyes went to the ring and stayed there. I watched the question go out of his face. What he said next came from somewhere else."Cain can have whatever he asks for," he said. "Every account, every entity, the records behind them. I'll tell the wealth office in the morning to clear all of it by noon." He went to the bed, picked up his phone, glanced at the screen, and put it in his pocket without opening whatever w