Page 76 of Designed for Disaster

“She’s…I don’t even know where the fuck to start.”

Dominic shrugged. “How about the beginning?”

I sighed, taking a sip of my water before explaining what happened at the board meeting and about the fight with Natasha afterward. I watched their expressions shift from horror at what my mother had tried to do to disbelief to pure shock when I told them I’d fired Natasha on the spot. Paul gaped so wide I could see the crowns at the back of his mouth.

“There’s no way,” Vincent said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “Natasha isn’t the kind of person to sell someone out for money.”

“I agree,” Dominic said, shooting Aiden concerned looks across the table. “It’s not possible. Not the way Stacy’s always talkingabout her. If anything, she goes out of her way to help people. Natasha is agood person, Trent. You know that.”

“I thought so too,” I grumbled under my breath. “But apparently she had us all fooled.”

“Okay,” Aiden said, frowning like I’d just told him a load of bullshit. “Let’s just take a pause here. Your mother’s not exactly a reliable source. We all know that. Could she have been making the whole thing up? Lying about Natasha taking the money?”

“No,” I insisted. “Not possible. All the information she had was true about Dee and Jimmy and the issues we’d encountered with the new line. Outside of you guys, Natasha’s the only one who knew all those things. Sure, she’d tried to say it wasn’t like that, but she admitted that she’d been talking to my mom behind my back. Why hide it, unless she was selling me out?”

Aiden hummed uncertainly. “I don’t know. I still feel like something’s not adding up.”

I shook my head, my anger resurfacing. “She could have come to me at any time and told me that my mother reached out. But she didn’t do that. She organized secret meetings and shared my private business with the last person I wanted to know about it. She betrayed my trust. Period. End of story.”

“No, don’t leave it like that,” Paul said. “You need to talk to Natasha again.”

“Let her explain,” Vincent agreed.

“Don’t forget we all had issues in our relationships that seemed bleak at one point,” Aiden said. “Remember when I screwed things up with Cora and told her we shouldn’t see each other anymore?”

I did. Aiden had almost gotten into a fistfight with Cora’s ex—and a nosy influencer had witnessed and recorded the altercation. The PR nightmare would have been disastrous, but the group of us had stepped in to help him out. This was different though. Cora had never betrayed Aiden.

“Look,” Aiden continued. “When you’re in the middle of this kind of situation, it feels like you can’t possibly get past it together. That things can’t possibly work. But we’re the proof sitting right here, Trent, that thingscanwork out, if you’re willing to put in the effort. I promise you, you can figure this out with Natasha.”

I took another swig of my water. “I really don’t think I want to. Making a go of things with Natasha in the first place was a big mistake. This was only supposed to be for Nana Dee’s sake. It was never supposed to be real.”

“But that’s what it became anyway,” Vincent said. “And you’ve got real feelings for the girl. I’ve been there, too, man. My relationship with Piper wasn’t supposed to be real, either. So take it from me. The biggest mistake would be turning your back on the best relationship we’ve ever seen you in.”

I looked over at Dominic. He’d been unusually quiet. I’d expected him of all people to be on my side. He’d had a relationship fall apart disastrously, complete with a messy divorce and a protracted custody battle with a toxic ex. He should understand that sometimes the person you loved, the one you envisioned spending the rest of your life with, could let you down in the most horrible of ways. “Well?” I said. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

Dominic cleared his throat. “I think they’re right, Trent. You need to hear her out, get her side of things.”

I scoffed. I couldn’t believe it. “You can’t be serious.”

“If you don’t get her side of the story, you’ll always wonder what really happened,” Dominic said. “And not knowing is worse. Trust me. Maybe it won’t work out for you two in the end, but this argument will hang over you forever unless you get closure. Do that, and then you can move on.”

I fought off a shiver at the thought of moving on. I’d never cared for any woman the way I cared for Natasha. Even knowing what I did and feeling the way I felt, my heart still beat for her, and it was rebelling at the thought of letting her go. But that was what I needed to do. She’d proven today that I couldn’t trust her and that what I had to offer her—myself—wasn’t enough to earn her loyalty in return. Love was transactional, and in this transaction, I’d lost.

“Seriously, dude,” Aiden started up again as my phone rang. “Take our advice.”

I ignored him, pulling my phone out, some traitorous part of my heart skipping at the thought that it might be Natasha. Instead, Sofia’s name flashed across the screen. “Hello?”

My pulse throbbed in my ears hearing her panicked voice on the other end of the line.

“What is it?” Vincent hissed.

I looked at the guys, the blood draining from my face. “Dee’s collapsed!”

23

NATASHA

There was something about loud music and power tools that really helped with the whole being-dumped-and-fired-all-in-one-go thing. The combination drowned Trent’s accusations from my thoughts as my focus narrowed to the jigsaw cutting through wood. The workshop was my happy place. Besides, who needed feelings when you held that kind of power in your hands?

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