by Alex Wolf
“Awesome! The feedback has been great. Look at this.” She pulls up something on her computer.
I walk around and look. It’s a page full of testimonials from women saying they would’ve never done this if it hadn’t been for our program. Half of them said they’ve already signed up for memberships, which means they’ll be paying customers in the future. It’s a win-win situation. The company makes money, and they’re changing their lives for the better. It’s the best kind of transaction.
“That’s only one gym in Chicago. Imagine if we implement it everywhere.” Marcy’s grinning from ear-to-ear. She reminds me a lot of me. When she has a vision, she goes full bore trying to get it done.
“You’re killing it.” I look right at her. “This is your baby. Do it your way, and I got your back one hundred percent. Take your creativity and do what you need to do. Call me if you need anything, but it’s yours. I mean that.” This has always been my managerial style. Why hamstring employees and micromanage everything? If you find the right people and let them loose, pay them well, they’ll perform miracles for you. You don’t stifle creativity and innovation with corporate red tape.
“Thank you. I’m loving this. Seriously, it’s…” She pauses like she can’t form the right words.
“No problem at all. I’m excited too. I can’t wait to see what else you come up with.” I stop once I’m halfway to the door and remember the other reason I came in. “Oh yeah, don’t forget, we have the expansion stuff coming up soon. I definitely want you in on those meetings for that. You can sit in on the supplements too, if you want. I’d love your input. I see everything from a professional athlete perspective and that’s not who we’re trying to help, the demographic we’re marketing to.”
“Great, yeah. Let’s do it.”
“Perfect, thanks, Marcy.”
“You’re welcome.”
I walk out to the office and everyone is moving and doing things, typing at computers, rushing around. I built all this, from nothing. It’s surreal and kind of hits me all at once. All these people depend on me, and I won’t let them down. I can’t.
It’s only two p.m. and really all I have left is to meet with my HR people and discuss the hiring we’ll need to do once the capital is here, oh and the construction companies who will build the new gyms, and the supplement manufacturers to negotiate deals.
It gives me a small headache, but I decide to break it off one small chunk at a time and knock it out. Then, I can go home and have dinner with Harlow and Mom. That’ll be my reward for working hard.
It’s going to be a great night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Harlow Collins
Cole hasn’t texted me all day, which is very odd. I know he has a lot going on at work, but usually I get a text every hour at the least, to the point it’s annoying. That’s if he doesn’t call me, which he usually does two or three times a day.
I haven’t talked to him since he asked me to have dinner and then left for work. I feel like such an asshole because I want to be supportive of him and whatever he has going on with his mom. It’s just hard. He’s a fucking billionaire. People come at him all day, always with their hand out, always wanting something. It’s not like he’s some regular, middle-class guy whose mom just showed up to reunite. Part of me wonders if he should have a DNA test done, but there’s no way in hell I’d bring that up.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just a cynic. That could be it too. I don’t trust people as easily as Cole does. It’s one of the things I love about him. He really does have a big heart, despite his broody, bad-boy, tough-guy image.
I stop by the store and pick up some wine because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to show up empty-handed to dinner. I sent Cole a few texts around five and six. Nothing. He said meet at seven, so I head up the elevator to his floor. Maybe he was just rushing around, or his phone died, or something. He’ll have an explanation and apologize a million times for it. I already feel like I know him better than he knows himself. When I get to the door, I start to pull out the key he gave me, but I hesitate. What if he’s not here yet? What if I just walk in on his mom doing something weird like watching porn?
Really, Harlow?
She’s a woman, she has needs too, fuck.
God, this all feels so awkward and forced.
I ring the doorbell.
Nothing.
What the fuck?
I ring it again.
Nothing.
Where are these assholes? I just hauled ass from across downtown to get here on time and they’re not even here? My hackles start to rise, blood starts rushing into my face. Finally, I knock, hard.
“Go away!”
It’s not a female voice who just screamed at me. Surely, he must think it’s someone else.
“Cole?” I yell back.
“Go! Away!”
Maybe he thinks I’m some kind of solicitor. Maybe he didn’t recognize my voice. “It’s Harlow. Open up. What the hell? I’m in heels trying to tote these bottles of wine around. The shit is heavy.”
No response.
I stand there for about thirty seconds, and I’ve about had it.
Goddamn it, Cole.
I hear him slump against the door, like all his bodyweight just pushed against it. “Please, just go away.” There’s pain in his voice.
“Fuck that, open the door right now. Are you okay?”
I hear him back away, but he doesn’t open the door.
Goddamn it, is he hurt? My mind goes into panic mode.
I haul ass to set the bottles of wine against the hallway wall and pull out my key. When I turn the knob and open the door, I’m ready to unleash hell on someone, but I don’t. I freeze in my tracks.
“What the fu—”
Cole’s standing in the middle of his living room. There are a few holes in the drywall and he’s holding his face in his palms.
“Cole, are you?”
“Please, Harlow.” He doesn’t look up at me. Just shakes his head. “Please leave.”
“What? Fuck that. What happened?” I start toward him, but he backs away like I might be poisonous or something, keeping the distance between us.
I just freeze in my tracks. What the hell is going on here?
About the time I start to grill him for more information, I look over at the far wall. There’s a painting cocked sideways and an open safe with nothing in it.
I point right at it. “Who? What the— Were you robbed?”
He shakes his head and moves his hands. His face is red, and his eyes are welled up. “I just want to be alone right now. I need to be alone, please.”
“Fuck that. I’m not going anywhere. Look at you—”
He flies toward me, faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move in my life, jaw clenched, but he stops himself right in front of me. It doesn’t even look like Cole. It’s like I’m staring at someone else possessing his body. He grits his teeth. “I want you to fucking leave. I don’t want to say shit I’ll regret.”
I smell alcohol on his breath, but I try to ignore it and focus. He’s not stumbling around, but he’s definitely been drinking. “Where’s your mom?”
“Don’t.” He points a finger in my face. “Just, don’t. I don’t want to hear how you were right about her. I don’t want to hear shit. I just want you to go!”
My heart shatters when he tells me he wants me to leave. I don’t want to go with him like this. I want to be there for him. If he’s hurting, I’m hurting too. I reach for his face, but he backs away. I hate to think awful thoughts about Cole’s mother, but that fucking bitch. She did this to him. I thought something like this might happen if she violated his trust. He looks like he’s in more pain than he’s ever imagined, like twenty-five years of suppressed feelings just erupted like a damn volcano.
All he’s ever wanted was for some type of parental figure. He was abandoned by the person who should’ve loved him most in the world and lived on his own until he was seven or eight
years old. That has to take a toll. Now, he has people trying to take advantage of him constantly because of his wealth, and then his mom comes along and does it.
“Cole, it’s not your—”
“Fault? Yeah it is.” He turns and walks away, back toward the couch.
“Did, umm…”
He whips around, teeth bared. “What?”
I glance over at the drywall. “Did you punch those holes in the wall?”
“It’s my fucking apartment, Harlow. I’ll punch a thousand goddamn holes in it if I want to.”
I hold both hands up. “I just want to help.”
He glares right at me. “If you want to help, leave me the fuck alone like I told you. Now fucking go.” He points at the door.
My heart squeezes so damn hard in my chest, I think I might be having a heart attack. Does he really want me to leave, or is he just saying that? Yeah, maybe he’s been drinking, but he knows what he’s saying. I’ll leave if that’s what he really wants, but I’m not so sure it is. At least, I’m hoping it’s not what he really wants. “I’m not leaving unless that’s what you really want me to do.” I shake my head and take another step toward him. “So think hard right now, consider everything, and tell me what to do.”
He glares right at me. “I want you to fucking leave.”
My heart shreds into a thousand pieces the second he says it. I know he’s upset and he’s been drinking, and I know he’s just had his trust violated, but how the hell can he tell me he loves me and then just push me away like this when I’m trying to be there for him?
I don’t deserve this shit and I don’t have time for it. I knew something like this would happen. He needs to see someone, talk through this, even if it’s not with me.
I nod, slowly, barely able to form words. “O-okay. But you really should talk to someone, Cole.”
He points at the door and stares at me with more hate than I’ve ever seen him stare at anyone. “Get out.”
He might be hurting, and maybe if he comes and apologizes later, I’ll forgive him. But not right now. Not anytime soon.
I didn’t do this shit to him. Fuck this.
If he can’t be with me at his worst, he can’t have me at his best.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cole Miller
I can’t believe I blew up like that last night. It makes me hate everyone even more.
Everything at work just pisses me off.
Little things that I’d usually let go or brush off, seem like monumental problems and fuck ups. Everyone is rushing around, making plans for the expansion and the new supplements division. It’s like nobody can do their fucking jobs around here.
I’m not an idiot.
I know it seems this way because I’m pissed off about my mom. I’m not even mad anymore. I got that out of my system quickly. I was so mean to Harlow. Extremely harsh. That’s what I’m angry about, and that anger deserves to be directed at me, but I’m taking it out on everyone else.
Marcy walks into my office, takes one look at me, and turns around and walks back out.
At least someone has a brain around here, can see I don’t want to be bothered.
I need to reach out to Harlow, apologize my ass off, but I don’t know how. I miss her. After I told her to go away all I wanted was her there. I’m just so used to doing things on my own, dealing with shit by myself. I don’t know who to trust anymore. I know she doesn’t want anything from me but me, but everything feels like a conspiracy now. I don’t even know my mom and it did this to me. It’s like I pushed it all down somewhere, the hate from being abandoned. I never dealt with it properly because I didn’t have the means to when I was six fucking years old, and it all just exploded at once.
Now, there’s this anxiety sitting right in the middle of my chest. What if Harlow, or Bill, or Pedro did something like that to me? I know they wouldn’t, but what if they did? How would I react? What would I do?
The thought scares the fucking shit out of me. I’m one of the best fighters in the world. I don’t even remember punching those holes in the wall. I completely blacked out when I walked in and saw what’d happened.
I lean my head down on my desk and I want to ram my face right through the wood. I thought I was good. I thought I was fine, that I wasn’t fucked up from my childhood, but I am. I’m fucking broken and I don’t think there’s a way to fix me. What do I do about it? Do I need to seek help? Is it too late for that shit?
My assistant halfway eases through the door. “Mr. Miller?”
Fuck, my employees are terrified to even come talk to me right now. I don’t like this. I don’t like who I am right now. It’s like bugs crawling all over my skin and I can’t get them off.
I take a deep breath and do my best to give her a pleasant look, even though I want to scream at her to go away. “Yeah?”
“You have a meeting in five in conference room A.”
“Okay.”
“You want me to push it? It’s with one of the VCs.”
I start to snap on her and catch myself. “No.” I hold up a hand. “It’s fine. I’ll be there.”
“Umm, are you okay, sir?”
I look up at her. She’s been nothing but a perfect employee the last two years. She doesn’t deserve to be talked to the way I’m talking to her. I just nod. “Yeah, and I’m sorry. There’s some stuff going on, but yeah. I’ll be fine.”
Fuck, what if I blow my top like I did at my apartment, but in public? At work? It’d be all over the news. Just the pressure of all this, all of it crashing down on me from every angle, it’s almost too much to bear, but I have to. These people are all counting on me. We have an employee stock option plan, and the second those capital firms invest, everyone here makes a ton of money, not just me.
She nods. “Okay, I’ll let everyone know.”
“Thank you.”
She leaves and I want to punch myself right in the goddamn face. Why didn’t I listen to Harlow? Why the hell would my mom wait until now to rob me? All she had to do was ask for some money. I’d have given it to her. I don’t give a shit about money.
I stare over at my phone. Finally, I reach for it and the screen lights up. It’s a picture Harlow and I took at the park during our first date, acting silly. The day we made up stories about people. The perfect date.
I go to my contacts and hover over her number, but I just can’t push the button. I don’t know why, but I just can’t. Part of my brain tells me to stop acting like a bitch. It’s just a woman. I could get any woman I wanted.
I don’t want any other fucking woman, though. I want her. There’s no woman out there like her. Not even close.
I shake my head, trying to rid myself of all my problems. I need to get through this fucking meeting, so I don’t torpedo a billion-dollar deal. Once I make sure the business is secure and everything is in place, maybe I can work shit out with Harlow.
I need to fix myself too, work on me, before I can be worthy of her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Harlow Collins
Fuck you, Cole Miller. This is how you get shit done.
I stomp off the elevator and into The Hunter Group offices.
“Hey, cousin.” Donavan takes a step toward me and I walk right past him. “What the…”
I storm into the middle of all their offices and bullpen of cubicles and crane my head around, my fists balled up at my sides. Heads pop up behind temporary walls and stare at me like I’m nuts. They’re not wrong. Where is that son of a bitch?
Donavan rushes up behind me. “What the hell are you doing?”
I wheel around on him and his eyes get big in a hurry. “Where is he?”
“Umm, I need you to be a little more—”
“That fucking PI. Rick something? Where is that motherfucker?” I take a step toward Donavan.
He backs up on his heels. “What’s this all—”
I cut him off, and my jaw clenches. “Take me to him. Now.”
Donavan hems
and haws, like he’s buying time, and then along comes Decker, Deacon, and Dexter. They march right at me and they don’t look happy. I’m going to have to whip someone’s ass soon if they don’t get on board and do what I tell them.
“What’s going on here?” says Decker.
Donavan turns to him. “She wants to see Rick.”
They all look back and forth at each other like I have all day for this shit. Like I have all the time in the world for them to deliberate before they finally do what I say.
I point a finger and wave it between them. “Take me to him now, or I will put all four of you in the fucking dirt.”
“Right this way.” Decker leads us back around a corner.
“What do you need Rick for?” says Dexter. “Is this about Cole? Did he do something?” His jaw sets and he stares right at me, trying to look tough.
“None of your goddamn business.” I don’t even bother to look back at him.
Donavan whispers to Deacon, “Rick’s gonna shit his pants.”
He will if he doesn’t do what I tell him to do. I’ve about fucking had it with the men in my life.
We come up on an office, and Decker knocks on the door. There’s some kind of audiobook blaring through his phone. It sounds like a gospel sermon or some kind of Christian self-help shit.
“Hey, Rick, I need—”
I shoulder right past Decker, knocking him out of the way.
Rick’s eyes light up. “Well, if it isn’t the hot Collins cousin.”
I reach across his desk and grip the collar of his shirt. “Listen up, pencil dick. You work for me today, understood?”
His eyes get huge, and he nods furiously.
“Wait, Harlow, we have him doing…” Decker’s words trail off when I glance back and give him the meanest stare I can conjure.
