Page 101 of Wallflower
“Violet’s leaving.” I roughly clear the pain in my voice. “She got a job with a design house in Milan, and I’m so damn proud of her, but she’s going. For three years. And I just bought her a studio in San Francisco. I had it all set up, and she saw it for the first time yesterday. It felt so fucking good to give her something she wanted. To be able to take care of her. To show her that I want a future with her. To make her happy. And it didn’t matter. She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want my money or the life I can give her. She wants to do it all on her own.”
“Chord.” Charlie sets a hand over mine. “Violet has worked hard for a long time to make something of herself. If she’s been offered a job that she earned on her own, you can’t expect her to throw it away just because you can give her the same for free.”
“I know. Iknow. But I’ve worked hard too.” I clench my jaw and my nostrils flare with a sharp intake of breath. “I’ve sacrificed so much. I’ve got money and power and the ability to make life easier for the people I love—and none of you want it. I could walk onto the street right now and hand everything to a stranger who’d be beside himself to take it, and yet the people I want to share it with refuse to accept it. Fuck, Charlotte. I don’t need another car, another watch, another house, another business, another person in my bed. I just want to take care of my family and the woman I love, because what’s the point of any of this if I can’t do something as simple as that?”
Charlie’s brows furrow. “Chord—”
“I have to tell you something.”
The timing couldn’t be worse to confess the biggest secret I’ve ever kept, but it’s intentional. I’m looking for something—anything—to make the pain go away. The only emotion I know how to live with is anger, so I need Charlie to fire me up. I need something—anything—to trigger my old defenses because they’re failing me now.
“All right,” Charlie says slowly.
I snatch my hand out from under hers. “There is no catering client that buys enough wine for an army every month.”
Her lips twitch like this is a joke she doesn’t get yet. “What?”
“There is no Five Fools Holdings. It’s me. I’ve been buying wine from you for the last ten years so that there would be enough money in the business to keep the ranch from going under.”
Charlie’s sun-bronzed cheeks grow pale. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I’ve given Silver Leaf more than three million dollars without anybody knowing it. You expressly told me you didn’t want any of my money, but I found a way to give it to you anyway.”
She sits back in the chair, hands clasped in her lap, and is silent for a long time, staring into nothing. I grow impatient, waiting for her to snap.
“Say it,” I tell her. “I know you want to.”
She turns her head and narrows her eyes, and finally, I’m feeling chastised—and pissed about it.
“Say what?” she asks.
“Say I’m a selfish asshole. Tell me I’ve fucked up. Say you were right, and I was wrong, and I’ve screwed my family. Again.”
Charlie’s face is so still, I can’t read a single emotion on it. She’s composed. Cool. In control. Unlike me, who is completely falling apart.
“Are we the five fools?”
I give her a sharp look. “Huh?”
Her lips twitch again, but her gaze remains impassive and steady. “You, me, Finn, Dylan, Daisy. Five fools. Yes or no?”
I cross my arms over my chest and ignore the humor in my throat because she’s right.
“Possibly.”
“Interesting. Three million, you say?”
I’ve got no idea what’s going on. “Give or take.”
“Hm.”
Charlie goes back to her side of the desk, sits and opens a drawer, then tosses a bound stack of paperwork at me. I flick it open and scan what looks like a contract, eyes snagging on the San Francisco Fury letterhead.
And Charlie’s signature on the last page.
“What is this?” I ask.
Charlie holds out her hand to take it back, flicks through the contract, then returns it to me, opened to a particular page. There’s information about Silver Leaf on there, a wine order, and the Fury home stadium. VIP suites. A lengthy list of terms and conditions.
