Page 30 of The Bourbon Bargain

“Don’t even try, Rex. I know every last one of your fuckboy tricks,” I growl, still working on the control I seem to have misplaced since running into my rival. Not just my rival, the fucking mastermind I know is behind the lawsuits surrounding the South African mine collapse.

“Oh, come on, Hayes. How about giving me a break from this macho bullshit. It is Christmas Eve, after all—“ The grandfather clock in the lobby cuts him off as it bongs out the time and Rex tilts his head in acknowledgment. “I guess it’s Christmas, now. So, how about we put aside our differences and get into the holiday spirit? If I’m able to put aside my feelings about what you did, then you should, too.”

Paige grips my arm, and I look down at her face, growing alarmed when I notice she is more distressed than she should be running into someone only I would know.

“That’s the guy I saw at Rare,” she whispers. “He was also at Underworld Spirits on my first day, and here in Savannah before that.”

I’m instantly on guard. “Are you following my wife?” I snap, my attention fully on Rex now. My instinct to protect Paige is riding an adrenaline rush I can feel thrumming through my veins, hot and bitter. Red creeps into the edges of my vision and I don’t care where we are or who is around, I will end him if he’s done anything to make her feel unsafe.

“I told you, there wasn’t enough about her online, so I had to see for myself. She really is beautiful. And so… innocent,” he says, his eyes growing dark as his attention slides to Paige.

I feel her stiffen beside me and there is a part of me that wants to roar and smash Rex’s head against the marble column beside him. I force myself to stay rooted in place to not act on the instinct for violence.

“Eyes off, Rex.” The threat is thinly veiled, and I don’t have to tell him what will happen if he looks at Paige too long.

“You and I have something in common, Paige,” he says, heedless of my warning. “Hayes took a family legacy from me, as well. You see, he has quite the habit of coveting other people’s businesses and doesn’t care if he fucks over his best friend, or his wife, to acquire them.”

I feel, more than hear, Paige’s intake of breath from where I have her pressed to my side, and I want to scream that’s not what happened. To shut down every word he says that puts Paige on her heels about me—about us. But that wouldn’t be entirely true, because no matter what my intentions were, I did what Rex said. It doesn’t matter how much I fucking hate him for weaponizing it now.

“We’re done here.” I turn away from Rex, my arm around Paige to bring her with me and get her away from this situation. It feels like it could go one of two ways—Rex will say something that makes Paige look at me differently, or I will.

“Not exactly, Olsen. We have a lot to talk about, you and I. Paige, too, if she wants to know the kind of man she married.”

This mother fucker doesn’t know when to stop.

Paige pauses and places a hand on my arm to get me to stop. She looks up at my face and gives me a smile that just about breaks my heart before turning slightly to include Rex.

“I know exactly who my husband is. The good and the bad. I’m sorry for what happened to you, and the part Hayes played in it. I know how devastating that can be, but I don’t think this is the proper time or place to be having this conversation. Good night, and Merry Christmas to you.”

She takes my hand in hers and leads us out of The Mansion to the Maybach without another incident.

“I suppose you want an explanation,” I grumble, starting the car once I have settled her into the passenger seat and taken my own.

“Do you owe me one?” Her voice is deadly quiet, and I have to strain to hear.

Fuck. I don’t know how to answer that without admitting guilt or having to stumble over some shortened version of the events in question.

Paige tends to retreat into herself when she’s attacked, and she’s had two run-ins tonight that should be turning her inside out. She doesn’t deserve this.

I rub a palm across my face, leaving it over my mouth for a moment before starting the drive away from The Mansion.

“That was Octavius Rex—he was called Tavi back when I met him. We were friends once, probably the closest I’ve had to a best friend,” I say with a begrudging sigh, knowing I do in fact owe her an explanation.

“It seems like something went very wrong in your friendship, given the interaction we just had.”

That’s an understatement. She strokes my arm where it rests on the center console, and I’m so grateful she’s even touching me right now. She could have withdrawn completely after what she just heard.

“When my brothers and I took over my father’s company, it wasn’t much. I mean, it was doing great with the mining side of things, but it wasn’t diversified. One of the things we started doing pretty quickly was acquiring businesses to complement our mining operations and grow where we needed to. It just so happened that acquiring the Rex family company would get us into transportation. He didn’t love that.”

“Why did you pick his company when you could have found another and kept your friendship intact?”

“I did him a favor by taking on that business because it wasn’t a healthy company. Tavi was too close to the situation to be objective. He couldn’t see that his father had wrung out every dollar he could from the company and was doing a shit job of running things effectively. I thought I was doing him a solid by paying way more than the business was worth, which got his family out of debt. I helped him while helping myself.”

“And he couldn’t see it your way, right?”

I risk a glance at Paige and see her eyes focused on her lap, her hand motionless on my arm. I’m fucking this up, no matter how truthful I am and I’m at risk of pushing her away if I keep this up. Still, I’ll tell her what she wants to know because she deserves that much from me. No matter how badly it will make me look.

“No… he called me an opportunistic asshole and told me he’d make me pay someday.” I just hope my past mistakes aren’t about to take Paige down with me if that retribution is coming for me now. “I haven’t seen him since. Now it looks like he’s after Olympus. We think he’s behind the lawsuit over the mines, and now he’s fixated on you and I’m not letting that happen.”

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