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smithereens.
     

 
     
     
    Aiden hadn’t called me. I texted him to check that he’d arrived safely, hoping that it would spark a conversation. It didn’t.
    I’d met with my legal team on the Monday morning, and they’d told me the news I didn’t want to hear. If my mother chose to sign over her voting rights to Gavin for whatever reason, he would have the power to remove me as the head of the company if he wanted to. In order to stop this from happening, I needed to make sure my mother didn’t give Gavin any power within Jacobs Publishing.
    But before I confronted her with my doubts about her new husband, I needed proof.
    To get that proof, I needed to talk to the man who had plagued my thoughts since the moment I met him.
    Tuesday, I’d sent Aiden a text and got no reply—again. I knew what I had to do. It was exactly what he’d told me. In order to get Barrett out of my system, I had to confront him. I needed to find out exactly what had happened between us and why I was inadvertently involved in whatever scandal he was investigating. He was also the only man who could give me the ammunition I needed to protect both my mother and my father’s legacy.
    On Wednesday, I gave up. It was inevitable. I needed to see him—for my own sanity more than anything else, because if I kept spending my nights staring at that damn piece of paper with his address on it, then I would end up losing my mind.
    Grabbing the address, I stood outside the dark brown wooden door of Barrett’s apartment. My clammy hands fisted at my side as my heart pounded in my chest. The anger and hurt I’d felt was still strong, yet I found myself more desperate for answers and if I had to be honest, I was also anxious to see him again.
    Most of all, I wanted to know how spending only a few hours with this man had turned my life inside out.
    Before that trip to Vegas, I’d been comfortable, settled. I had my work, and I had Aiden—albeit I hadn’t been honest about my feelings toward him. I was happy, I was good. Everything was right in my world.
    My thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and in front of me stood the man of the hour. He wore a fitted navy blue tee and loose-hanging sweat pants sitting low on his hips. I’d never seen him so casual, and I stared at him unwittingly for a few seconds until he cleared his throat.
    My eyes shot up to his face to see his blank ones, making it impossible for me to read him. His closed off expression brought all of my anger back tenfold. Without waiting for an invitation, I stormed past him and into the apartment.
    “Alyssa, what—”
    I whirled around to face him. “You don’t get to talk right now. I’ve come here to get answers. I need to know about Gavin Barnes, I need to know why you were investigating him, and I need to know it all so that I can protect myself and protect my mom. That is why I’m here.”
    His head jerked back and his blank façade cracked when I caught his lips twitching. “I see.”
    “So will you tell me the truth this time, Mark ? Or are you going to keep lying to me, like you’ve done from the very beginning?”
    He gritted his teeth when I said his first name, but didn’t say anything to me. He swept his arm out in front of him and gestured toward the living area. My anger depleted slightly when I saw his jaw tighten but then I remembered what he did, the way he made me feel, the things he made me want and then finally, how used I’d felt when I’d found out the whole thing was a lie. When all of that came back to me, my anger returned.
    I strode over to the leather couch and sat down, my arms and legs crossed in a purposeful closed-off stance.
    He walked over toward the corner of the lounge and stopped in front of a glass liquor cabinet. “Would you like a drink, Alyssa?” he asked. His voice was low yet warm, and it brought back memories of the things he’d said to me on the plane, the reaction he could elicit from me whenever he got