Page 69 of Hard Limits

“Somebody had to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”

“I mean it. And I’m also sorry for what I said about Nolan.”

“Does he know?”

“That you had a crush on him? I don’t think so.”

“Good. Don’t tell him. He always thought of me as a little sister anyway.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“Where are the macarons?”

“Right here. Do you want lunch before you go back to…wherever it is you came from?”

“Lunch and dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“You think I’d miss this meeting? Seeing Carissa apoplectic will be the highlight of my month. How long do you think this video should be? Should I tease her with an intro, or get straight to the fun parts?”

“Use an intro.” Brax wanted to prolong her suffering the way she’d done to him. “I need to thank Jerry. Where could I send a gift? Is jewellery appropriate? A car?”

“The only jewellery she wears is a HOG’s tooth necklace, and she’s still driving the shitty old Porsche her dad left her.”

“That thing was due for car heaven a decade ago.”

“She had it professionally restored, but it breaks down most months. Just get her a bottle of mouthwash.”

“Mouthwash? Why would I—” Brax glanced at Alexa’s screen, frozen on a scene of Jerry going down on Carissa. Yes, mouthwash would probably appeal to Jerry’s deranged sense of humour. “I’ll head to the drugstore right now.”

The meeting with Carissa and her lawyer was one for the memory books. She turned beet red and began spluttering, accusing them of dirty tricks, but she couldn’t change the one basic fact: that she’d slept with somebody else while she was still married to Brax.

He made her a new offer—five million bucks if she signed on the dotted line before the hearing in the afternoon. Otherwise she could try fighting him, waste the money on legal fees, and he’d win in court. Her lawyer advised her to take the deal. She said she would if she could keep the apartment in New York. Brax didn’t want the place anyway—it was filled with too many reminders of the woman he longed to forget. So he agreed.

It was done.

Alexa had watched the meeting via the camera in Brax’s office, not in person, but she was waiting in the hallway when Carissa exited.

“Did you enjoy the video?” she asked.

It took a moment, but finally recognition dawned. “You’re that child from Blackstone House.”

“Yup. The child who grew up and became a movie director.”

Brax could practically hear the cogs turning in Carissa’s head. He’d told her more than once that Alexa was wise beyond her years.

“You? You did this?”

“Do you remember nine years ago when you stole my last three Ladurée macarons out of the refrigerator and ate them?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought not. Anyhow, I told you it was rude and you should apologise, and you told me to get over myself, and I told you that you’d regret it someday, and you told me to grow up.” Ah, now it was coming back. “Well, now it’s ‘someday.’”

Carissa’s voice was a mix of incredulity and fury. “You cost me over four hundred million dollars because of three macarons?”

“And also because you’re a shitty person. Bet you wish you’d apologised now.”

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