Page 24 of The Billionaire's Wife

Scott paused and tilted his head to one side as he studied me. “This is not a good thing, I take it.”

I shrugged, ignoring the tight ball in my chest. “She thought it was the right move.”

“You asked her to stay, right?”

I took a sip from my soda.

“Dude.” Scott shook his head and went to my fridge to get his own drink. “You really don’t know anything about women, do you?”

“Guess not.” I could hear the bitterness in my words, but it seemed to go straight over Scott’s head.

“Hey, it’s us.” Austin’s voice came down the hallway along with the sound of shoes getting kicked aside and bags rustling. “Wes brought eats.”

“Eats are good.” Scott frowned at me a moment before moving to help with the bags.

The rest of the guys had shown up as a group. That was reasonably typical. They tended to be on time, not early and not late, so they probably all got clumped together waiting for the elevator.

And wow, it was amazing the things I’d spend brain power on to avoid thinking about Faith. Or in this case, Scott’s reasonably accurate summary of why Faith was gone.

I didn’t know anything about women. And apparently what I thought I knew was wrong.

I should make a T-shirt.

“What’d you bring, Wes?” I pushed to my feet and joined the guys in the kitchen. They were all pretty comfortable in my place, but they also knew I liked things just so, so it was unlikely they’d root around if they needed something.

“Fried chicken.” Wes reached into an enormous bag and pulled out a box. “Got the dirty rice, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits too.”

“No fries?” Cody peeked in the bag. “How did you not get fries?”

“Fries go with burgers, not chicken.” Wes grabbed the bag back and continued unloading it. “If you need fries, feel free to be the one who brings food next time.”

“I cook for you guys a lot. It’s not like I never contribute.” Cody crossed his arms and scowled at the collection of boxes on the island. “Who doesn’t get fries?”

“I probably have frozen fries if you need me to put some in the air fryer.” I glanced at Cody. “Or we could order some for delivery.”

Cody waved me off. “No. It’s fine.”

It didn’t sound fine. “You all right?”

Cody pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Kind of. Not really.”

“Which is it?” Austin frowned. “Is Megan okay?”

“Megan’s fine. Our marriage is fine.” Cody shook his head.

“It’s work, right?” Noah grabbed a stack of plates out of my cabinet and brought them over to the island. He set the stack down and took the top one for himself. “Mr. Ballentine’s announcement?”

Cody nodded.

“One of you needs to fill us in.” Austin took the next plate and followed behind Noah, adding food to it.

“Seconded.” I slid into line and grabbed two pieces of chicken out of the box. I scooped a big dollop of the dirty rice onto my plate, then opened my silverware drawer to get a stack of forks out for people to use. After ripping a paper towel off the roll, I went back to my seat.

I picked up one of the drumsticks and crunched into it.

Cody joined me on the couch. He sighed. “Ballentine is officially retiring at the end of the year. Jackson Trent has been doing a lot of honcho stuff for a while, so that’s not as big a deal, but…”

“It’s change.” Noah took a seat in a chair opposite. “And it’s hard to imagine that everything will stay the same. I actually knew a little before the official announcement because Jackson wanted me to know ahead of time that my new project wasn’t going to be impacted.”

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