Page 129 of Stolen Kiss

My brows pulled together in a frown. “What?”

“I wasn’t satisfied working for someone else, even if that someone is my best friend. But I would have found contentment in it, I was sure. Perhaps, years down the line, I would have started a company of my own. I don’t know. All I knew was I didn’t want to be controlled by my grandpa anymore, even after he died.”

“I don’t understand. Then why did you come back? And what do you mean, you made Elodie happen?”

I’d never gotten around to asking him how Elodie came to be. I’d always thought she was the result of a meaningless one-night stand.

Or, at least, I had hoped so.

“Before that night, the company was run by my mom and my cousin Alan. Only, my mom was getting old. She’d wanted to retire years ago. She was getting ready to retire when I officially became CEO. But my grandpa died before that happened, and we found the bullshit stipulation at the will reading, and I walked away.

“Alan received the same stipulation, of course, but he already had a daughter with his long-term girlfriend. He could take in his share of the company. But Alan wasn’t born with a head for business. He had always depended on me. Until I walked away.”

He searched my eyes, as if to check that I was following him. I nodded, though I was still confused about what any of this had to do with me.

When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “When you’re in investment banking, you’re only as good as your reputation. Especially if a part of what our company does is advise high-profile clients where they should put their millions. When I walked away, it left Alan and my mom in charge. But Alan’s power in the company is nothing more than a front. An illusion, as most of the business decisions were left to my mom. But he went behind her back and advised our firm’s oldest client’s granddaughter to invest the bulk of her inheritance in a real-estate start-up headed by his friend, Peter.”

“I don’t understand. Did the real-estate company fail?”

Jensen laughed, but there was nothing humorous in his laugh. “It didn’t just fail. It never peaked. Peter decided to pull a mark-to-market approach.”

At my look of confusion, he clarified, “He adjusted the value of his company’s assets in the accounting books, and made it seem like the company was worth more than it actually was. When his company failed, Gabriella lost all the three million of her inheritance that she had entrusted us with, and Peter ended up serving three years for corporate fraud.”

“So Peter made his company seem like it was more profitable than it really was?”

“Exactly. And news of Alan’s fuck-up spread pretty quickly after that. The shock landed my mom in the hospital, and I had to try to do damage control for a company I was essentially powerless in.”

“Jensen—”

He shook his head, cutting me off. “I decided that night to leave you alone. For good. You deserved so much more than what I could offer, given the position I was in, on top of the trauma you had just experienced. I knew I wasn’t good for you.”

I couldn’t say anything to that. I had been in a pretty dark place the months that followed the accident. How could I have been there for Jensen while he tried to fix a dying company?

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with us now.”

“Don’t you?” he asked, walking over to me. He kneeled between my legs. I wanted so much to touch him.

I didn’t dare.

Because a picture was already starting to form in my head. And fuck, I didn’t like where it was going.

“To get control of the company again, I needed something.”

“An heir,” I whispered, afraid to make my voice go up any faster.

“An heir. I purposely made Elodie. Through an egg donor and surrogacy.”

“No.”

I pushed him away and stood up. Probably in surprise at my sudden move, he gave way easily, falling to the floor. I put some distance between us and walked to the far corner of the wall as I took him in with disbelieving eyes.

“That’s not possible,” I said.

He didn’t pick himself up. He sat where he was, looking up at me with devastated eyes.

“I didn’t want Elodie to know who her mom is. I didn’t want to know. That’s what the egg donor is for. But I needed to ensure that the woman carrying my child would not put her at risk in any way, so I looked into gestational surrogacy.”

“I don’t believe you. I asked to remain anonymous.”

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