Page 31 of The Bourbon Bargain

Paige blinks her bright eyes up at me and I quickly take in her solemn face as I wind through the dark and silent streets of Savannah to our house.

“I don’t think he’s actually fixated on me, it’s you he wants to get to and I’m just a soft spot. As for coming after Olympus, can you blame him, if you put yourself in his position for a moment?”

Fucking hell, I don’t like when she forces empathy on me. It makes me… uncomfortable. I’ve been fine making business decisions without emotion. If it makes sense for our bottom line, I don’t even consider the casualties. That’s how business should be done, without all the feelings and mushy bullshit that complicate matters when you think of the people involved.

But… now I’m actually thinking of Rex and what he must have felt. Betrayed, likely. He was my closest friend and I saw the opportunity to take something from him that would benefit me, so I put that over our friendship. Just like I put acquiring the Xenios Group over my relationship with Paige.Hoping she would see it my way. I really am an asshole. Fuck.

“What would you do, now, in my place?” I ask because I don’t have a fucking clue. It’s easier to ask for her to give me the right answer she wants to hear me say than it is to be the man she actually wants me to be. I can’t live up to that and I’ll just disappoint her.

She interlaces her fingers with mine on the console and bites her lip in concentration. “You do the right thing, even if it’s hard.”

My fingers flex in hers with impatience. That’s easier said than done, obviously. It’s not practical. I pull into the drive of the gorgeous Victorian I bought for Paige knowing she would love it. Knowing it was the right thing to do to make sure she could be close to family and her roots here in Savannah. I am capable of doing the right thing, when it suits me, but the right thing by Rex? What does that even look like? Giving him back the parts of Rex Inc. we absorbed? Making him a business partner? Not fighting the lawsuit and letting it cripple the overseas mining division of Olympus? Nothing is easy when the situation is so convoluted that I can’t even predict what the right thing is.

I stay silent as I park and exit the car, drawing in deep gulps of the cool night air, tinged with an underlying brine from the coastal inlets that feed Savannah. Our house is lush with greenery even in the midst of December, and it beckons as a solitary retreat for me but I have Paige to answer to and can’t fall into the melancholy that comes on the heels of the holidays. I round the car and help Paige out, pulling her to her feet and into my arms, crushing her to my chest, and hoping I can steal some of her fortitude and emotional intelligence. What if she thinks differently of me now, seeing the results of the evil ways that are so ingrained in me? Will she pull away, close the chapter on us because I can’t live up to the image she has of me as a man with integrity?

Her arms snake around my waist and she hugs me back without hesitance. I breathe a sigh of relief and know I’m a lucky bastard to have a wife who will love me despite my inherent darkness and desire to take what I want. If only I could be the man she sees me as instead.

“Let’s go to bed. It’s late and there’s no use beating this to death right now,” I say into her hair instead of letting my thoughts take us down a path that will end in a fight, or worse.

nineteen

Paige

Christmasbrunchislessawkward than it could have been due to our appearance at the Fairchild Christmas Eve Dinner buttering up Mama, but I didn’t sleep well and I’m feeling the effects of the emotional strain of the last few weeks. Meeting an old friend of Hayes’s, and realizing we suffered the same fate at Hayes’s hands, was troubling. It reminded me that my husband is a ruthless man willing to go to any lengths to get what he wants, regardless of the casualties. It kept me up, tossing and turning, so now my brain is foggy, and I’m distracted, which is bad news when Mama is intent on making things more difficult any chance she gets.

“Paige, there’s a matter your father and I would like to discuss with you,” she says, between delicate bites of her biscuit, like that’s not the most ominous phrase to utter to your daughter.

I blink gritty eyes at her and swallow my own bite of French toast that now feels like a lump of coal going down slowly and settling heavily in my stomach.

“William, would you like to tell her?” she prods.

“Darling Caroline, this is all your doing. Please, if you will, tell her yourself,” Daddy drawls, cup of coffee in hand.

My eyes grow wide and my movements still. This is as good as telling Mama to eff off, as he has always steadfastly backed her up when she got on a wild hair. Whatever she has to say doesn’t bode well for me if Daddy is openly disagreeing with her, even in as genteel of a manner as he has.

Mama glares at Daddy momentarily before composing herself with a tight smile and returning her gaze to me. “We must start planning your wedding, dearest.”

I stare between them before flicking a glance at Hayes who sits quiet and motionless beside me. I don’t think either of us had this on our Christmas bingo cards.

“But… we’re already married,” I say.

“You did it all wrong and we must make things right for people to think this will last,” she says forcefully, and finally her true feelings are on display.

“Mama, I don’t care whatpeoplethink. Hayes and I are perfectly fine with how we did things, there is no reason for us to get marriedagain.”

I was thrilled at the idea of escaping the big to-do Mama would have made of a wedding by eloping. This conversation now makes me feel like I didn’t escape a thing and I’m about to be under her thumb once again. A beautiful butterfly she’s pinned to a mat to put on display for all to see. Hayes places a hand on mine where I’ve gripped my fork so hard my knuckles are white.

“Why would you want to host a wedding now?” he asks, his question startling Mama and forcing her to look his way.

She visibly bristles. She may enjoy introducing him to her high society circles, but she still doesn’t like him very much.

“Paige is our daughter; we want what’s best for her and don’t want her to regret her decisions down the road.” Mama, ever the practiced control freak, is in fine shape. “Not having a formal wedding is a travesty. I can’t let her forego this tradition just because you coerced her to elope.”

“I wasn’t coerced, I chose to marry Hayes exactly how I wanted to,” I say, my voice wobbly with the effort not to devolve into the whining of a contrary child arguing a tired point yet again.

It was wishful thinking to imagine I could get away with an elopement and rob Mama of this opportunity to have the final say in my life once again. She would never willingly relinquish her control over something so sacred as a social event, and a wedding is the biggest of its kind. Maybe I was too hasty in my attempt to repair our relationship and allow her back into my life. She’s just as calculating and twice as ornery now that I’ve started to push back. If I’m not careful, she will be picking out my wedding dress and telling me what to wear to the rehearsal, just like so many other functions in my life.

Mama scoffs. “Paige, you know that isn’t true. You chose the easy way out to avoid your obligations. Now, we must do our duty for society.” She holds out a hand to stop my pending protest. “Whether or not you understand it now, a wedding is exactly what you need. As horrible as it is, that nasty gossip site has focused its attention on you andhisbusiness,“ she says, indicating Hayes with a flick of her wrist. “Give them something else to focus on, or the scrutiny will eat you alive and leak into every aspect of your lives.”

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