Page 34 of The Bourbon Bride

“Paige,” I warn.

“I thought this could be something special, okay? Call me a fool, but I thought you were taking your time with me because you actually care about me, not just about getting into my panties. That’s on me for not taking you at your word when you told me what kind of man you are.”

“There is literally no one else I even want to take my time with. Don’t you get it? You’re different, and it’s making me reevaluate everything.Iwant to be different.”

“Glad I could be a catalyst for change for you. I hope the next girl appreciates my part in your reformation.”

“Woman, you’re infuriating!” I snap.

“Good! Now you know how it feels!” she snaps right back, her tiny frame squared up to mine.

I take a step back as it dawns on me. “This isn’t just about Maisie.”

She opens her mouth to refute it, but something stops her prepared tirade. Her shoulders slump and she turns away from me with a look of defeat.

It fucking breaks my heart to see the fight go out of her like that.

“Baby, come here.”

She waves me away but I pull her into my arms and she tucks herself in without protest.

“What is it?” I ask gently.

“I was bought and paid for a long time ago.”

Her broken voice slices through my heart and my arms tighten around her.

“I don’t understand.”

She pulls her face away from my chest and wipes under her eyes. “Mama’s been keeping more from me than I realized.”

“What would that be?” I work to keep my tone even because I don’t have much patience for Paige’s parents after the shit they’ve pulled with her.

She takes a deep breath and leans back against the island. Cerberus crawls on his belly to her feet and I have to hide the smile that wants to unfold at the big dog’s desire to be closer to her.I feel you, buddy.

“Mama’s family’s agriculture investments haven’t been doing well for a while, but I never thought it mattered because we have the hotels. The ag money Mama gets goes right into the hotels, so when it started to dry up years ago, we were looking at losing a lot more than some cotton crops.”

This isn’t news to me, as I’ve had my team looking into this for a while. It’s part of the reason we targeted the Xenios Group for acquisition. The revenue stream from the agriculture side may have bolstered the company at the start of what I now know was the marriage between her parents, but it’s been less and less of a boon recently and made them ripe for taking a big deal like what Olympus is willing to offer.

“Go on.”

“I think the prospect of losing everything made Mama desperate. Mama confronted the Daniels when…the situation… happened, and they offered a lot of money to keep things quiet. Mama took it.”

Her voice cracks as tears well in her eyes.

“Mama seems to think we owe them for their unintentional bailout, and the price is my marriage to Garrison.” A fat tear slips over her lashes and traces a path down her cheek.

Shit.

“She told you all this?”

Paige nods. “I called her again today. I was hoping we could resolve everything between us, but she was stark raving mad and said I had a duty to keep if I wanted to save the family legacy.” Her eyes screw up tightly as more tears come. “I never thought my parents would sell me out to keep the business profitable.”

I’ve had my team working on cracking not just the Xenios Group, but also getting the scoop on the history with the Daniels family. There was indeed a sizable donation made to Thackery Agriculture from the Daniels corporation six years ago, which confirms what Paige said. It doesn’t fit with the typical Xenios dealings but is seen several times since in the Daniels’s finances. I think Mommy and Daddy Daniels wanted to cover up their son’s indiscretions to keep his image clean, and Paige wasn’t his only victim.

“I’m going to fix this,” I promise. There is way more resting on me fixing this for her than she could ever know.

“I appreciate it, but I don’t know how you can undo something that happened years ago and has been in motion ever since.”

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