Page 102 of Priceless

“Maybe. If we’d gone to the board and told them ‘okay, yes, we’ll do it,’ then I don’t know if they would have just left us to our own devices, given us a timeline, or possibly offered someone they knew as an option.”

We turned down a different catwalk, still trailing Ocean. Everett shook his head. “I’m not sure how that would help them. Unless they’d planned to do what Frank is trying to do to Ocean and force that person to provide information. Which, for the record? Violates one part of our agreement with him. If we can prove it.”

“I hope that’s true,” I said. “But in the end, what we really need to know is why they were so desperate.”

The three of us met while we were in college, and in that way that packs formed, we were drawn to each other. We knew as soon as we met that we were it. There wasn’t a question or hesitation. And everything else as far as the company was a bit of skill and a lot of luck. Everett was the business mind, and I was the designer. Cam was the architect behind the feel of our brands. He understood people in ways neither Rett nor I did.

Though we were ruthless in going after what we wanted, we didn’t want to step on people to do it. Every employee was paid what they were worth or more. Happy employees did more for a company than shiny profit reports ever could. And yes, because we had success, we had enemies. But we didn’t make them on purpose.

Even with Frank, though we hated him for what he’d done to our wife, we made the deal fair. Well, mostly fair.

The point was, there were plenty who would love to see us screwed over, or help someone screw us over. But why now and in the last decade? “Why now?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Everett asked.

If we hadn’t been so taken with Ocean and the wedding we would have dived into all of this sooner. I didn’t regret a single second. But if someone was coming for us, and therefore our wife, it needed to be dealt with.

“Not to mention—” Rett stopped mid-sentence like he’d remembered something.

“What?” Cameron asked.

Everett pulled out his phone and typed something quickly. “Nothing. Well, nothing yet. Just a thought. I’ll let you know.”

I watched him carefully. If Everett thought something but didn’t want to say it until he was sure, it had the potential to be explosive. “Please do.”

We trusted each other implicitly and always had. There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for each other, and now, for Ocean.

Like I’d called her name. She looked over her shoulder at us and smiled. It lit up the whole damn room.

I touched Everett’s arm. “Everyone’s asleep on our side of the world. Let’s catch up with our wife.”

He smirked and put away his phone. “Don’t mind if I do.”

35

BALSAM

(BANG SEED, JEWELWEED, POP WEED, SNAPWEED, TOUCH-ME-NOT)

MEANING: ARDENT LOVE; IMPATIENCE; WAITING IS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO DO

OCEAN

________

I’d never seen so many flowers in my life, and I was a fucking florist. The flower auction was exactly as cool and overwhelming as I imagined it would be. And by the time we were finished and piling into the back of a sleek black car, I was exhausted. There’d been some sleep on the plane, but it was still a total time shift.

Curling myself toward Cameron and leaning my head on his shoulder, I closed my eyes. “Where now?”

“Venisi,” he said. “It’s only an hour by car, and we’ll be there for a couple of days. And if you’re okay with it?—”

“I’m okay with pretty much anything,” I said through a yawn.

He laughed quietly. “Good to know, sweetheart. We were going to come here next month for the Extasis product launch. We have a big party, a bunch of celebrities come for the exposure. Red carpet, the whole thing. Since we wanted to bring you here anyway, we thought, why not? We moved it to tonight, but we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

Extasis. Their sex toy company. I already had several toys from their line, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. At least not until we got home and they saw them firsthand.

My eyes widened. “You’re taking me to a sex toy party?”

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