Page 116 of The Candlemaker

“I hope you get everything you want, Chandler. I really do,” I said and walked back into the house, leaving him to read his label alone. And free.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chandler

Tick tock.

I watched the clock like it was a bomb strapped to the boardroom wall. Ten minutes until the event that would change my future.

My attention slipped to my phone, opening my message to Frankie for the hundredth time that morning.

I love you.

It was the first text I sent her every morning since I’d returned to the city earlier this week, and every night, I typed out a book on how the day went. I didn’t want to leave things like this. I wanted her to know it would be okay if I had to be here—okay if I had to focus on this for a little.

Or maybe I was only trying to prove to myself that it would be okay when every minute that passed was evidence stacked that it wouldn’t.

I swiped back and opened up my chat with Tom, catching him just as he was typing out an answer to the message I sent him every morning.

How is she?

His response appeared.

Good today. She says you’re being a stubborn fool.

My jaw locked.

She knows why I have to do this.

No, she doesn’t. You’ve always been a better man than your father.

“Fuck.” With a groan, I reached for the knot in my tie and loosened its strangle around my neck. Even with that, I couldn’t inhale deep.

I’d been after this company for almost three years now, carefully moving the chess pieces on the board. Closing in and cornering GC Holdings until I’d finally forced them here.Checkmate.

Now, all that was left was to deliver the final blow. Watch as they were forced to take my offer, signing over everything that was left of my father. Watch as they gave me the power to absorb it. Destroy it.To wipe him from its history and legacy and prove that I was the better man.Prove to a dead man that he never should’ve left me.

But instead of feeling energized—instead of the buzz I normally felt in the moments before I closed a huge deal—I felt a pit. A hollowness inside my chest that was eating me alive, its teeth sinking through my heart and soul.

Everything about this felt wrong. I felt nothing like the better man, instead, the thought of going through with this deal seemed more and more like a sign of our similarities. It wouldn’t prove that I was better; it would prove that I was exactly like him, a man with no time for the woman who’d loved him and his unborn child.

A soft knock jolted my attention to the door. “Mr. Collins. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Mark Collins are downstairs. Should I send them up?” My secretary, Judy, asked; she knew something was wrong with me. She never would’ve needed to ask this before.

“Yes,” I clipped.

As soon as she closed the door,I reached for my glass of water, only to realize I’d already drunk all of it.Empty.Just like me. Just like I was—would be without her.

I couldn’t do this.

I didn’t want to do this.

The door opened, Judy introducing the four grim-faced suits who followed her in. “Mr. Collins, Mr. Thomas, and…Mr. Collins and their lawyer, Mr. Masters.”

I stood, watching the two majority shareholders of the GC Holdings and their lawyer approach me. My heart beat too hard against my chest, and I swore buttons were going to start flying from my shirt.

You can’t be all business and be here, Chandler. I’m sorry.

It hit me. I wasn’t all business. I was bitter and broken. I wanted to prove I was enough to someone who wasn’t even around to see it—who didn’t deserve to see it. And I wanted to prove I didn’t need anyone, just like my father hadn’t needed me.

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