Page 105 of Rebellious Hearts
Yes, I blamed myself for Sofia not loving me, too. Because after it all, who could love a reject like me?
I stood in front of Alex’s door, trying to figure out what I was going to say.
“Is everything okay, Ben?” Marina asked from her desk. I’d been standing there for too long.
“Yeah,” I said and pushed the door open.
Alex sat behind his desk, phone against his ear.
“I’ll send you those documents as soon as I can, and then we can finalize the deal.” He grinned broadly—the business grin we all knew—and jutted his chin up at me in greeting. He held up his finger. He would be with me in a sec.
I walked to the leather wingback chairs that faced Alex and sat down. I leaned back, crossing my ankle over my knee and interlinked my fingers on my stomach, waiting.
“That’s not a problem,” Alex said into the phone. “We’ve been doing this dance for a long time. You know we’ll figure it out and make it work.” He paused, and then his grin broadened again. “It’s always a pleasure doing business with you.”
He ended the call, put the phone down, and leaned back in his large leather chair.
“Good to see you, bro,” he said when he looked at me. “Good trip back?”
“Can’t complain,” I said. “The plane was fine, as always.”
“Good, good…” Alex watched me with his icy eyes, waiting for me to talk first.
Fuck.
A part of me wished he would ask the questions so I could just give him the answers and get the hell out of dodge. But I was going to have to do the whole thing by myself, wasn’t I? I was going to have to offer the facts willingly.
“So, the contract with Richard Thompson didn’t go through,” I started. I tried to sound nonchalant about it.
“I noticed the documents didn’t come through after you told me you were going to see him. He had a health scare, did that interfere?”
I shook my head. “Only for a moment. He thought it was a heart attack but it turned out it wasn’t that serious.”
“Thank God for that,” Alex said. “Losing a client to something as serious as a heart attack when you’re about to start a new project together can be quite a blow.”
I nodded slowly. Alex watched me, again waiting for me to talk.
“I botched it,” I admitted. Better to bite the bullet and get it over with than to dance around the fact and draw this shit out. Alex was going to find out one way or another and it was better that he heard it directly from me.
Alex frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m the one that fucked it up,” I said again. How many fucking ways did he want me to say it? I was a failure, I ruined our chances, I was the shame of Blackwood Inc.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Alex asked when I didn’t offer any more information than that.
I sighed. “Not really, but I have a feeling I won’t have a choice.”
Alex raised his eyebrows, and I dropped the sarcasm.
“I lied to Richard,” I said. “I told him Sofia and I were married.”
“What!” Alex cried out. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“He was so serious about family and the real values behind wanting to help people. He kept talking about his late wife and how they’d been a team, and it just… slipped out.”
“Jesus, Ben,” Alex said under his breath and turned his face toward the window. “What the hell.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Sofia went along with it, though. She was pissed, of course, but she knew that if we came clean right away and she threw me under the bus, the project wouldn’t happen at all, and she wants it to happen. So she played the part.”
