Page 63 of Their Diamond Ring Ruse

Kissing her head, he silently said his goodbye to her. Scrunching up his eyes, clenching his jaw, Julian tossed aside the covers, careful not to wake her as he left the bed.

He watched her then. Hair fanning out over his pillow as she sought out his warmth in her slumber. Committing the way she looked to memory, Julian left the room.

He showered and changed into a dark suit in one of the guest rooms before going downstairs, where he would make the call he had hoped not to have to make. Since the Zenith dinner he had been called by several businessmen who had never shown any inclination to work with him before. As a result, several deals had been signed with IRES. But Julian knew the moment he broke up with Lily—the moment he broke her heart—the Arum deal would be lost. Devan’s vote would be gone.

He didn’t care. It would be a fitting punishment to lose it. Except his employees didn’t deserve that. And, more importantly, Lily wouldn’t be fooled into leaving.

Their agreement was that they would pretend until the deal was signed. Well, there was only one way he was getting that done now—and it wasn’t through the support of the board.

He had his phone to his ear, waited three rings before it was answered by a hostile drawl.

‘What do you want, Ford?’

‘Harrison. I want the Arum energy deal and you’re going to give it to me.’

Julian wished he didn’t have to do this, but he did. He was already in bed with these people, and showing them just how ruthless he was would change nothing. All his contracts were iron clad, and once people worked with him they didn’t look elsewhere.

‘And why is that?’ asked Lincoln.

‘Two reasons,’ he responded. ‘One, you know how good I am. How good my technology is. You’ve already done the research and you know you would be a fool to discount IRES.’

He waited, but there was no denial.

‘And two, I know you looked in to me the moment I spoke to Lily. I did the same the day you accosted her at Crème, and I am damn sure you don’t want what I found out to become public knowledge.’

There was an amused huff on the line. ‘Are you blackmailing me? You’ll find nothing sticks to me, Ford.’

‘I’m incentivising you to make the right choice, because you and I both know I can make your past misdeeds hurt. Do you really want to try me, Harrison?’

There was a long pause before Lincoln spoke again. ‘You seem to think you’re going to lose the other fifty percent of the vote. I wonder why that is.’

‘Every good businessman has contingencies in place. I’ll leave nothing to chance.’

‘If you do lose the others’ support, you realise my vote counts for exactly half.’

Of course Julian knew that. ‘Yes, and I also know that you hold the tie breaker vote. So what will it be? Giving IRES the deal or facing your reckoning? I can count your crimes if you’d like. Let’s see...there’s bribery, assault of various degrees, that I’m sure you can thank your father for burying. Then there’s—’

‘Enough. Fine. You’ll have your deal, Ford, but this won’t be forgotten.’

‘I’m sure it won’t.’

Julian slipped the phone into his pocket and turned around to find Lily descending the staircase, freshly showered and ready to leave for work. Not just leaving for work, Julian reminded himself. This would be the last time he saw her, and he had to fight the crumbling inside him.

‘That was the news we’ve been waiting for. The board has voted to go with IRES,’ Julian said.

She walked over to him and kissed him lightly on his cheek. It knocked the breath from him. He knew he would never have that touch again, but he had to stand firm and do at least one good thing in his life.

‘That’s wonderful news.’ She smiled, but it faded quickly, to be replaced by a frown. ‘Julian, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said, taking a step back.

She tracked his movement.

‘We’ve achieved what we set out to do,’ he told her.

‘I don’t understand...’

‘You’ve got what you wanted out of this arrangement and now I have, too.’

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