Married To Her Ex (a standalone novel)

by Kat Cantrell

“They wouldn’t talk to me about him. But no, not about the wreck. It’s about the factory.” The sentence almost hadn’t come out, and she had to force the next words. “Outlaw is being investigated.”

  “What?” He tried to sit up and cried out.

  Panicked, she pushed on a shoulder to get him to lie back down, which he did, heavily. He had very little strength, and she disliked having to sap one little bit of it.

  “Don’t move so much! Keep still and listen to me. Someone at the attorney general’s office is investigating allegations about you hiring undocumented immigrants. They’re at the factory now, searching your records. Ben’s handling it, but he’d like to brief you.” With a light squeeze on his hand, she smiled without humor. “That’s it.”

  “That’s it?” He stared at her in disbelief. “They’re investigating me. Not Outlaw. Undocumented immigrants. They have a lot of nerve.”

  “Well. At least you’re taking it well,” she said wryly. “Should I call Ben now or wait?”

  “Now. Five minutes ago would have been preferable.” His eyes snapped, and some color had leached into his cheeks as he grew more alert with each passing second. “Give me my phone. Where is it?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. Did it get left in the car? They didn’t give it to me at the hospital. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it, let alone ask anyone.” His lifeline to Outlaw had been pretty far down her list of concerns.

  “It’s not your fault. Call Dolores and have her get me a new one.” He put a hand to his forehead and squeezed. “The chemicals are doing nada for my headache. Can you bring me a beer?”

  Horrified, she glared at him. “You can’t drink alcohol while on pain medication. The combination will kill you. Isn’t that what Heath Ledger died from?”

  “I was kidding. Sort of. Thanks for telling me about the investigation.” He stroked her arm in the opposite direction of the hair, raising goose bumps. “Can I sit up, or will that kill me too?”

  She laughed, relieved his spirits hadn’t been completely smashed. “I think slow movement is allowed. Let me get you some more pillows, and I’ll call Ben. He wanted to come earlier, but I thought it was better to let you sleep.”

  Since he didn’t complain, she propped him up as comfortably as possible against the pillows and headboard and then went downstairs. After telling Ben that Jesse was awake, she called Dolores to get a new phone.

  With the tasks complete, she took a hot bath, but she couldn’t successfully scrub away the filth of the accusations. Or the creeping disappointment. Jesse’s every waking second would be spent at Outlaw for the foreseeable future. It was the absolute worst time to be talking about having a baby.

  Jesse had conceded on the subject of the patent. It was a victory, but not enough to convince her he’d thoroughly reprioritized or that if, God forbid, she did end up pregnant, he’d be there for her through it no matter what happened.

  And it scared her how much she wanted that.

  Ben finally pulled into the drive and saved Jesse from the inane game show Alexia and Moki were watching. Jesse trudged to the door, his stupid ribs aching and preventing him from moving as fast as he’d like. Ben followed him to the study.

  With a half wave, Jesse offered Ben a chair and then sank into the one behind the desk. It was too short for him—because he’d bought it with Alexia in mind—but it hadn’t been an issue until the airbag had walloped his ribs. His legs bent at exactly the right angle to put pressure on his spleen, and his already-black mood deteriorated. At least the pain sharpened his mind.

  “Who did this?” Jesse barked before the other man fully settled in. “Holloway? I already handed him Sattlewhite on a silver platter. Is he after Outlaw too?”

  Surely Holloway wouldn’t stoop to such underhanded tricks. Someone had, though, and fury rushed hot across the back of Jesse’s neck. Outlaw was his, and whoever was looking for a fight had found one. And they wouldn’t walk away from it intact.

  “The state hasn’t said, and I haven’t asked. I’ve had more important things to worry about.” Ben leaned forward, his lips tight. His lawyer’s unshaven jaw testified to the late hours he’d been putting in on Jesse’s behalf. Yet another reason Outlaw thrived—he didn’t scrimp when it came to filling the place with talent. “We’ve had a couple of calls. Some of the distributors are nervous.”

  “Nervous? Like pulling-the-contracts nervous, or wait-and-see-what’s-going-to-happen nervous?”

  The room grew unbearably hot as Ben hesitated to answer. Outlaw had done business with these people for years. He’d have staked lives on his relationship with the distributors who took the parts he manufactured to market. Without them, Outlaw would just be a giant toy box full of unsellable widgets.

  Ben threw up his hands. “I’ve got them calmed down for now, but I can’t tell you what sort of damage control might be necessary if we don’t get these allegations dispensed with ASAP.”

  “I’ve got that. Thanks for handling things,” Jesse said, and Ben nodded.

  They’d been friends a long time, and he trusted his college roommate like family, but his gut still churned over the senseless accusations. Someone was playing a dangerous game. Why? To get their hands on Outlaw? A plainly declared takeover he could handle and would stomp flat fast. But this floored him.

  Stress pounded against the base of his skull. Things with Alexia were finally on the upswing. As seemed to be the pattern, another complication dropped in his lap, like the fates were throwing dice and laughing at his plans. Of course. Because he’d done the right thing by giving her the patent and was poised to reap the benefits of it as soon as she got it all straight in her head.

  He’d hoped she would choose to stay, that she might still have a soft spot for his success with his chosen profession. Until now. If Outlaw went under, what would he bring to the relationship—more failure?

  “Has the AG’s fine-toothed pawing over Outlaw’s records yielded anything?”

  “Nah.” With a head jerk, Ben dismissed the question. “It’s all for show. I called Danny. I think you should give a statement to the press, and he’ll coach you through it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he responded, his mind still on Alexia.

  Her fingernails had been in shreds since he’d woken up in the hospital. This fiasco probably had them down to bloody nubs. He hated her worrying over him.

  “Danny also offered to do a special interest report. Show your side, get some positive press,” Ben said. “What do you think?”

  “It would look like an admission of guilt.” Jesse blew out a hot breath and massaged the back of his neck. Small comfort only his left hand had been injured. “I’ll tell him I appreciate the thought, though.”

  Danny showed up about thirty minutes later, and Jesse suffered through the counseling and press statement, so exhausted even thinking hurt. After it was over, his friends clapped him on the shoulder and murmured encouraging words he scarcely registered.

  They left, and the tension in his spine skyrocketed. He fell into a morose silence and sat stiffly on the couch, not able to summon the energy to assure Alexia everything would be okay. Moki skittered around him, clearly not sure how to handle the boss’s black mood.

  What a stupid time to stop taking the pain killers. He took two and had enough energy to be grateful when he finally passed out for the night.

  Early the next morning, Fed Ex delivered a new phone, and he put it to immediate use by calling his sales guy at the dealership to order a new Vette.

  Then he called Ben for an update as he rooted through the pantry for the necessary elements to mainline caffeine into his system. Just rolling out of bed had nearly put him on his knees.

  “They found something,” Ben said, and his grim tone spoke volumes.

  Jesse slammed the pantry door with a resounding crack, but it did nothing to dissipate his instantly raging temper. “What did they find?”

  Ben ran down the details, while Jesse’s vision blurred. Alexia came in the kitche
n, her eyes questioning. She put a warm hand on his shoulder. He let her.

  Ben hung up. Jesse threw the phone, without checking his strength, at the wall. It bounced to the tile, beeping, without a shred of courtesy for his pounding head.

  “Are you planning to go through phones like you go through cars?” Alexia asked.

  He couldn’t move. His ribs were killing him, and his fist itched to sink a hole in the Sheetrock. Alexia retreated a couple of steps, like she was afraid of him, which only ratcheted up his rage another notch. Usually he could control his temper, but this was too much.

  “They found some questionable paperwork. My HR manager wasn’t as careful as he could have been.” His breath rushed in and out in ragged gulps as if he’d run a mile at top speed. “Ben said they’re going to subpoena the rest of the records. And me.”

  She flew to his side but stopped short as he winced. Her slight weight was too much for his bruises, which just sucked. He’d really like to ease his frustration with a good, hard orgasm or two. And yeah, imagining her spread out naked on their bed crooking her finger at him didn’t help.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand. “I don’t understand. What did they find? It couldn’t have been anything of substance. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said. “I wish it would hold up in court, but it won’t.”

  She gasped and tried to cover it. “You have to go to court?”

  “Yeah. Or pay a fine.” But to pay the fine meant admitting guilt, and he refused to do that. So he and Ben agreed to fight it instead.

  “What can I do to help?”

  The fierce determination in her posture almost got him to smile, and his blood cooled a little. It was an odd reversal for him to be the one spitting fire and Alexia providing the calm, rational viewpoint. It was nice to have her here, to know she was on his side, no matter what.

  He wished he could say he’d always done the same for her. Just as they were on the mend, this had to happen. All he wanted to do was prove to her she could trust him again. After this was over, he’d find a way to make up for it.

  “No one can do anything right now, but thanks. Once the paperwork is filed, I’m headed for court.” And he was going to kick this thing where the sun didn’t shine.

  The court session was scheduled for the Monday after his stitches dissolved. Time stood still, yet the day arrived faster than he’d like. Or been prepared for. How did one defend against accusations which were partially true but unrepresentative of the kind of company he ran? Physical injuries he’d sustained during the car wreck, except for his ribs, were mostly healed, but the internal hits to his pride pounded with an unrelenting ache.

  He drove to the court building, opting to leave Alexia at home. He didn’t want her there to witness the humiliation.

  By the end of the day, he would have preferred humiliation instead of the vulgar emasculation of sitting through testimony against Outlaw. A cat-o’-nine-tails would have been a kinder method to flay the flesh from his bones.

  And for his trouble, he didn’t have the option of an early funeral. This was only the first day of a long-and-drawn-out process and first day of the downfall of Outlaw. Antsy distributors had pulled the plug before lunch.

  As Ben approached the doors of the courtroom to leave, Jesse blocked him and planted his feet. “Ben, please. Talk to the AG and get a name. I have to know who started this witch hunt. Who hates me enough to do this to me?”

  Ben flinched and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “You already know.” He took a deep breath, about to blast his soon-to-be-former friend for not telling him right away, when a cataclysmic frisson of awareness worked its way through his solar plexus, blending with the nausea already there from the ghastly day. He somehow knew with sick certainty what Ben was going to say. “Who?”

  “It can’t be what it seems, Jess.”

  “Tell me.”

  With a sigh, Ben put up a restraining hand. “Alexia. It was Alexia.”

  Frozen, Jesse listened with half an ear to the rest of Ben’s explanation. Thunderous wrath drummed through his head, drowning out everything else. He stumbled to his car, ignoring Ben’s pitiful attempts to keep him from jumping in.

  Full dark descended and still he drove. Court had ended at five o’clock, and the little traitor must be worried by now. Good.

  Like an evil cancer, her betrayal ate at him. He’d given up everything for her. The Sattlewhite acquisition. The patent. Outlaw was the only thing left. She’d only started hating it because of his bonehead moves during the pregnancy and miscarriage, but he’d naively believed he could swing her back in his direction.

  Instead, she’d taken his company too, which he’d founded and then shed blood and sweat until it thrived so Americans would always have a place to work. He’d vowed to keep jobs on American soil so other little boys wouldn’t have to see their dad’s face every day after losing his job to a cheaper overseas line.

  Ironic that the downfall of Outlaw would occur over undocumented immigrants.

  The deep crow’s-feet on his own dad’s face—put there after the layoff—still haunted him and solidified his abject need to control whatever he could in life. Had driven him to succeed at any cost.

  And he’d let a woman destroy it all.

  A part of him tried to cultivate bits and pieces of a belief she hadn’t done it, but facts were facts. She hated Outlaw with an unreasonable passion, as if convinced Jesse’s soul wasn’t big enough for both. He’d thought they might have gotten past that, but obviously not.

  Freeway lights zipped by in a comet’s tail, scorching his eyeballs and blinding him to the only guidance he had at this speed. No, his eyes burned for an entirely different reason, and it was pointless to pretend otherwise. It was the sting of brokenness.

  He had to know why his heart on a platter hadn’t been enough. Fifteen minutes later, his tires crunched down the drive of the gargantuan mistake he’d built for her as some kind of deluded shrine to the woman he thought Alexia was.

  A slat in the family room blind lifted, and the dark shape behind it peered out. Obviously she had waited up.

  As soon as he walked in the door and threw his keys on the kitchen counter, she pounced.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  He didn’t turn, didn’t think he could actually look at her lying face without losing it. “You don’t want to take that tone with me, Alexia.”

  The hard edges of his voice sliced through the tension.

  “No, really I do,” she insisted. “I have been here all day, worried and sick about what happened at court and, you couldn’t bother to call—”

  In one stride, he crossed the kitchen but stopped before grabbing her up like he’d been about to. The very tight rein he held on his temper almost snapped as her perfume—an unwelcome reminder of the treacherous arsenal of her weapons—assaulted him.

  Her eyes were huge but didn’t provide the window into her black soul one would hope. Because he really wanted to understand how she could have done this to him.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?” he asked smoothly with zero inflection. Evidence of the frozen organ in his chest, which he suspected would never beat the same again. “A little detail that maybe you forgot to mention?”

  She blinked, a guard snapping down over her expression. “You’re fishing. Did something happen? Why don’t you tell me what you think I should say?”

  Disgusted, he pounded a fist on the bar, hard. Not nearly as hard as he’d like since the granite slab hadn’t cracked. “You’ve got a lot of nerve acting all innocent after what you did. Tell me this. Did you do it because you found out about the Sattlewhite acquisition? Or just because you hate me that much?”

  Chapter 13

  “What acquisition?” It was all Alexia could spit out.

  Jesse’s voice was as brittle as his demeanor, and it scared her.

  “You he
ard me.” He bit out the words low and sharp. “This must be like the best day ever. Not only did I give up the acquisition for you, you took my company away too. Question for you. Did you intend for Outlaw to be shut down when you initiated the investigation, or was that a sweet bonus?”

  She reeled. He thought she had initiated the investigation? Her knees trembled as his words bled through her. “You think I did this to you? Because I found out about an acquisition? I didn’t know…”

  A few stray pieces fell in place. Boston. That’s what the trip had been about.

  He wasn’t taking less time at work. In fact, he was in the middle of acquiring another company. And hadn’t told her. Obviously he thought she’d be upset about it—and honestly, she didn’t have a clue how she felt about it in the midst of all this—but to accuse her of deliberately sabotaging it… it was unfathomable.

  “You didn’t know what, that I’d find out it was you?” He waltzed toward her menacingly. “The attorney general was very forthcoming. Told Ben straight-out they’d received a tip from a reporter who named you as the source. All very clean and clear.”

  She shook her head. “What? I didn’t talk to any reporters. What exactly did the attorney general say I said?”

  “Stop playing dumb. You know what you said.”

  “I’m not playing at anything. I would never do what you’re suggesting. I love you.” It was the wrong thing to say.

  He laughed, harshly and without humor. “I’m sure that’s true, in your own twisted way.” He scrubbed his face with both hands, and when he dropped them, his black expression had been replaced with a bleakness which dug at her deeper than his anger. “I lost my two biggest distributors over this. Outlaw is finished. I have to close up shop forever.”

  “No! Not forever,” she countered, as if sheer declaration could counteract it. “Surely something can be done.” This was destroying him, piece by piece, and as often as she’d prayed for Outlaw to fall in a black hole since the miscarriage, she hadn’t wished for this.

  “I have to hand it to you.” The bleakness fled, and he shifted back into a brick wall like he’d put on impenetrable CEO armor. “I really fell for your little seduce-and-conquer routine. I totally underestimated how vindictive you could be.”