Page 97 of Work with Me

“I can help you.” Weston leaned back in his chair. “You own a significant number of Synergy stock shares. I’d be happy to take them off your hands at market price. For safekeeping.”

Fuck. Like Potter, he’d wrapped me up like a cobra and tried to hypnotize me. This wasn’t about helping me or the foundation. It was a stock grab.

Between Cooper and me, we held fifty-one percent of the shares, enough to keep control of our company. We’d promised each other to hold onto it no matter what. No one could take away what we’d built together.

I jumped to my feet. “I’m not interested in giving up my stake in Synergy.”

Weston stood and shrugged. “I’m trying to help. Regardless, my donation offer still stands.”

He sauntered to the door and paused, his hand on the knob. “Let me know if you change your mind. After…everything, you might need a gift to smooth things over with your paramour.”

The asshole closed the door, leaving me hollowed-out. How did he know how badly I’d fucked things up with Alicia?

But he didn’t know Alicia. If she wouldn’t take me back for me, no amount of diamonds or horses or private-school education for Noah would convince her. I had to strip all that away and prove to her something immensely more difficult: that I was the kind of man she could depend on. One she could trust to be in it for the long term. For her and for Noah.

And after I’d fucked everything up so badly, I had no idea how to do it.

But I was going to try.

33

JACKSON

I hadzero experience with groveling.

Every other relationship I’d had—and I’m using the termrelationshiploosely here—I’d fucked up somehow, either intentionally, like by taking off in the middle of the night without leaving a note, or unintentionally, like the time I’d called a woman Caroline instead of Catherine. While she had my dick in her mouth. Ouch.

But each time, I’d shrugged and moved on. I’d never cared enough to want to fix things.

Okay, I’m not proud, but that was Old Jackson.

New Jackson didn’t want to fuck this up.

And that meant I needed to learn how to grovel, fast.

Marlee, clutching her stack of romance novels, had tried to coach me every day for the past week. She’d said things about admitting fault and being vulnerable and expressing my feelings. She’d mentioned a spectacular entrance, gifts, sweeping her off her feet—and I got the weird feeling she meant literally.

Cooper had no advice for me. He’d stared out the window in the car on the way to the airport and in the jet all the way to Texas. It didn’t bother me. We never talked about feelings.

His silence had given me time to work through a few dozen emails. Setting up a foundation was fucking hard. Who knew you couldn’t do it in three weeks? Once I got someone on board to lead the foundation, we could set up some camps. Until then, we’d funnel the cash to organizations that helped kids with ADHD, dyslexia, autism, Tourette’s, and OCD. I was sure I’d discover other causes related to neurodivergence, too.

We split up at the airport. Cooper headed for the office’s holiday party, and I went straight to Cherrywood.

The clouds hung low over the Webers’ yellow house that afternoon. They weren’t green like they’d been the day I’d met Alicia outside the Synergy office, but the bottoms were dark and heavy. It’d be fitting if Austin decided to unleash some fresh meteorological hell on me.

My mission was too important to be deterred by hail or tornadoes or raining bats. I squared my shoulders and strode up the Webers’ front walk clutching a bouquet of grocery-store flowers. Give me a little credit; they were from the fancy organic grocery store I’d passed on the way from the airport.

I knocked on the purple door.

The porchlight turned on, then the door opened. Alicia’s mother, Diane, leaned in the doorway in a pair of jeans and a striped sweater. She squinted at me through the screen. “What areyoudoing here?”

So much for Southern hospitality. Not that I deserved it. “Good afternoon, Ms. Weber. Is Alicia here?”

She crossed her arms. “No, she’s at work.”

Silence stretched between us. “Do you know when she’ll be home?”

“I don’t know that that’s any of your business, Mr. Jones. She said things didn’t end so well between you two.”

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