Worth Any Cost: (Adam & Mia #4) (Gaming The System Book 6)

by Brenna Aubrey

  "Wow," he said, shaking his head with a grin. "Did Adam Drake just admit that he's still got shit to learn? If there's no flying pigs today, then I'm thinking that maybe hell froze over instead. I won't be able to check on that until I die, though."

  "Smartass motherfucker," I muttered, shaking my head. "You're really making me pay for this shit, aren't you?"

  "That's what friends are for." His gaze met mine and held for a few moments of awkward silence. A light bulb went off in my head. Emilia had once called me on my work addiction shit, but Jordan's words made me realize that I had no addiction to work.

  I had an addiction to control. And all this time I'd been treating the by-product—long work hours and preoccupation with everything to do with the company and my business—and not the root of the problem.

  If I didn't get a handle on this, it could ruin everything good I had going in my life. It would erode my professional relationships, my personal friendships. Possibly, eventually, my marriage.

  I rubbed my jaw to cover for my shock at this conclusion. Jordan was watching me closely. I gestured to his chair and sank back into mine. "You've been a really good friend. And I couldn't have asked for a better CFO."

  My voice sounded…off. And I desperately needed some time alone to think this shit through, but Jordan moved to his seat, sinking into it. He sat in silence, swiveling nervously on his chair. Then he cleared his throat and spoke. "I couldn't have asked for a better friend, Adam. Thank you."

  We both looked at each other, a bit stunned at the emotion of the moment. Then Jordan shook himself and blinked. "Fuck, what is this, a therapy session? Am I about to grow tits?"

  I shrugged. "Well, that would certainly be convenient."

  He ran a hand through his hair. "Goddamn. I feel the need to use power tools while simultaneously barbecuing a side of beef and guzzling whiskey."

  I laughed. "Maybe we should take Liam up on his offer to fight it out with swords and armor."

  "Yeah, that's old-school macho. Why not?" We chuckled, the weird moment finally broken. Jordan leaned back, scratching the edge of his jaw, and flicked a glance at me. "So I have to ask—"

  "It's handled," I interrupted. "We're hammering out the document now. She'll sign it when we're satisfied."

  His brow twitched. "Glad to hear it. Hope it wasn't too stressful for her."

  "It wasn't stressful at all. She completely understood."

  If we had not had the previous uncomfortable conversation, I would have expected the next words out of his mouth to be I told you so. Mercifully, they weren't.

  Jordan nodded. "She's a smart one. I'm glad it wasn't a problem."

  "It forced us to open up to each other about a lot of important things. It's been good."

  He hesitated and then nodded. "I'm not going to pretend I know everything you're going through or your circumstances."

  "You will, soon enough."

  He shook his head. "April and I already discussed it, and it's a non-issue for us. There will be a prenup—when the time comes."

  I suppressed a smile. So my suspicion that all his anti-marriage talk was mostly for show was correct.

  He shrugged. "I haven't even popped the question."

  "Yet."

  He shot me a sly smile. "You're my guinea pig. I'm going to observe and see how the married state treats you." I laughed, and he sent me a sheepish grin. "But speaking of all this…I made mistakes, too. I assumed that everyone approached a given situation the same way I would. I don't know much about your childhood, but what I do know…" He shook his head, shrugging. "Growing up, I lived a privileged and sheltered middle-class life. I shouldn't have assumed. So I am sorry. There. Now snowballs are waltzing through Hades at this very minute."

  I nodded. "Thanks, man. Appreciated."

  He bounced his foot some more, shifted in his seat, then leaned forward to get up. "Well, I'd—"

  "I've got one more thing for you."

  He stopped. "Shoot."

  I laced my fingers together on the desk in front of me. "Will you be my best man?"

  He blinked. "Define 'best.'"

  I laughed. "What about best asshole, then?"

  He nodded. "I can do that."

  "Good. I'd say you've more than earned the slot over my cousin."

  "I'm sure he's glad he's off the hook for the toast." He grinned.

  "Also, I want to thank you for the quest. That was legitimately impressive."

  He laughed and rocked in his chair again. "Ah, the highest form of compliment from the master of quests himself. I am deeply honored." He put his hand over his heart. "I only wrote the storyline. I commandeered Tony in development to implement it for me."

  I shook my head. "Should I sue you for stalking? How'd you know all those details about my and Emilia's relationship?"

  "I was around for most of that stuff at the beginning, and also…girls talk. Mia told April everything. April helped me write it all out and put all the romantic fluff into it."

  "Maybe I should demote you as CFO and put you in charge of creative, then? It's gotta be more interesting than financial reports."

  He glared. "Says you. Financial reports get me hard. Spreadsheets make me—"

  I held up a hand. "TMI."

  "True story." He laughed. "Lucas told me you put him on the spot in play testing when you were digging to find out who was behind the quest. The guy almost shit his pants and was practically hyperventilating when he came to me. I paid the poor bastard a bonus out of my check to make up for it."

  I laughed. "I'll make sure to apologize to him today. Thanks for taking the best man gig. No bachelor party, though."

  "Overruled. But don't worry; there won't be a stripper." I rolled my eyes. "Don't think I haven’t figured out what you're up to. Putting me in a tux to stand next to you at the altar? All to give April ideas."

  "This will probably be the first wedding you've attended where you don't bang a bridesmaid."

  He got up from his chair. "I'll be shagging the hottest chick there—aside from the bride, of course. That's my consolation."

  "Better get that diamond ring picked out." I winked. "A wedding is the perfect place to pop the question."

  He made it through the door, but not before flipping me the bird.

  ***

  A couple weeks later, Emilia signed the finalized prenuptial agreement. No commentary. No resentment. No pomp and circumstance. We had witnesses document the occasion for us and certify that there was no coercion on either party's part. We were signing of our own free will and accord.

  When we returned home, she found the document that I'd left for her. It sat in the middle of her desk in an antique-looking envelope, sealed with a red wax seal and ribbon, all official and old-fashioned like.

  Once she noticed it and sank slowly into her desk chair, I made myself scarce. I'd written her name in blue fountain pen on the outside. She'd know immediately it was from me. If not from my writing, then definitely from the fact that no one else called her by her full name.

  A week before, I'd typed out the rough draft.

  I, Adam Drake, hereby give my prenuptial promise to Emilia Kimberly Strong, the woman who will soon be my wife. And that's forever… So the promises I make here are the promises I make for that forever.

  There is no "if" or "when." There is only us.

  Together, we've created a new, unique program. A code that only you and I could write, giving our lives to each other. The test will be when we compile—and set that code to run. And yes, every day will be a trial run. But we can make those a triumph. Every day.

  I went for a walk—since I wasn't cleared to go running yet. The doc had declared my spleen still swollen, though much improved. She wanted to give it another week or so, to err on the side of caution. And Emilia was watching me closely to prevent me cheating. I had privately nicknamed her the Enforcer.

  But the doctor said I'd be fine in time for the wedding. Thank God.

  Any more hurdles getting
this woman to the altar and I'd lose my mind. Not long now.

  After hitting the end of the beach this side of the jetty, I turned back toward the house a half-hour later. I caught sight of her running toward me down the paved walkway and bike path that lined Newport Beach. She must have used her phone app to locate me.

  Once she caught up to me, cheeks flushed and out of breath—and more beautiful than ever—she might have tackled me were she not overly concerned for my delicate spleen. I stopped, facing her, and she gazed up at me, all round-eyed. Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around me, snuggling close. I returned the hug and kissed the top of her head, overcome with feelings as strong as if I'd been toppled by one of the waves currently pummeling the shore. Love. Pride. Peace. Satisfaction.

  "Wow. I should have waited to give you that next week when I'm cleared for sex," I murmered said into her hair, breaking the sappy sentimentality of the moment. "I think I wasted a great way to get you in the sack."

  She gazed up at me, grinning. "Oh, don't you worry. Nowadays, merely glancing my way would get me in the sack."

  "Good to know. One more week and you aren't going to be able to keep me off you."

  She smoothed her cheek against the fabric of my shirt, her arms gripping me tighter. "I'm counting on it."

  "So I take it you liked the note?"

  She laughed. "You are the reigning king of understatements."

  "I'm an arrogant prick most of the time. I don't know how you put up with me."

  She leaned up and kissed me, but didn't dignify my statement with a reply.

  I hesitated then smoothed a hand down her back. "I want you to know that I'm serious about all of it. About our forever."

  She touched my shaved cheek with her palm. I closed my eyes, relishing the feeling. "Of course, I knew that already. You're always serious about everything, Adam Drake. In fact, some would say you're too serious."

  "But you'd never say that?" I raised a brow.

  She smiled. "I keep you down to earth when you're getting too uppity." She tilted her head, her smile fading only by a small fraction. "It's so weird, but the entire time I was reading that, I kept thinking of the first day I met you."

  The regular weekend crowd had made it to the walking path and were filing around us. I took her hand, and we slowly headed toward the house. "In the game?"

  She shook her head. "No. In person. That day in the hotel conference room."

  I laughed. "That day was an epic miscalculation on my part. I walked in there determined as hell to scare the shit out of you, my one objective." I took a deep breath. "Instead, I entered that room and saw you, and it felt like I'd stepped off a cliff and was free-falling."

  "And I thought I'd been snapped up into a raging storm." A breeze picked up the ends of her hair, and they danced around her shoulders as if they'd been imbued with magic. "Hurricane Adam. That's what I mentally nicknamed you."

  "That storm was the future, smacking us the face. And we weren’t aware."

  "I keep wondering when I first knew it. Like…knew it without admitting it to myself."

  I could answer to that for myself, but said nothing. Instead, I pulled her hand up to my mouth and kissed it.

  "Maybe it was our first date," she mused.

  I laughed. "What exactly are you calling our first date?"

  "That night in Amsterdam." She winked up at me.

  "Oh, huh. That night. The night I realized I was in a lot of trouble where you were concerned."

  "Really? Tell me more."

  I hesitated, wondering how she'd receive any new information regarding that entire trip, especially that night. The night that started it all. But after these past few weeks and the way she'd taken everything else in stride, could I ever be anything less than completely honest with her?

  Time to find out. "Well…you remember that phone call?

  She took a few steps in silence. I picked up scraps of other conversations around us and the ever-present call of gulls on the beach. "Of course. That phone call is the whole reason that things went on and on between us. If it hadn't been for that call, we would never have— Well, I mean, I know now that you had no intention of…" Her voice faded out when she saw the expression on my face. "Now you've got me wondering if that was more than a mere random occurrence."

  I crooked a smile. "You know me. I never leave anything to chance. We weren't going to do anything that night. I'd had some safeguards installed."

  "Safeguards?" Her pace slowed as she chewed on that. "Like what?"

  "In the limo on the ride back from the dinner and dancing, I texted Jordan and told him to call me in an hour." I gauged her expression. "And then ordered him to keep calling if I didn't pick up the phone. Just in case."

  "Just in case you went too far?"

  "Yeah."

  She frowned. "So…there was never an ill-timed emergency?"

  "No." A few more steps. "I invented the emergency. Then I logged into the server to run a routine backup."

  We walked on in silence as she continued the pace, continued to hold my hand, but stared down at the pavement in front of us in deep thought.

  "Does that make you mad?" I asked.

  "No. A little confused. You're not really the type of person who needs to invent an excuse to get out of something he doesn't want to do."

  "The phone call wasn't for you. It was for me. And it wasn't about not wanting to do something. It was about wanting it too much." I twitched the hand I was holding, lacing my fingers tightly through hers. "All through dinner, dancing, I realized this might get a little—or a lot—out of my control. I decided to enact a failsafe plan ahead of time."

  She laughed, and I relaxed, not even realizing that I'd been mentally holding my breath. "It's hilarious that you enlisted Jordan to purposely cock-block yourself ahead of time, from thousands of miles away."

  "Glad you find it funny."

  "I didn't at the time." She sent me a glance from the corner of her eye. "I found it incredibly frustrating."

  A skateboarder, heading straight at us, swerved at the last minute. I cast a scowl in his direction as he passed.

  "That makes two of us. And the beginning of long weeks of frustration."

  She smiled wryly. "Not unlike recent events. I wonder why this keeps happening to us?"

  My hand tightened around hers. "Let's hope we've seen the last of it."

  The breeze kicked up a notch, raising the ends of her hair to form a halo around her head. She released my hand and reached up to grab at her hair, slipping an elastic from around her wrist to form a makeshift ponytail. "It's a small price to pay for the love of a lifetime, right?"

  "We'll make up for it, I'm sure."

  Two more minutes and we were at the gate to the small bridge that led to Bay Island. I opened it for her, and we crossed in silence.

  She stopped at the halfway point over the bridge, gazing down over the water.

  I halted beside her. "What's up?"

  She didn't say anything for another stretch of minutes before letting out a breath I didn't even notice she'd been holding. "Something that wasn't mentioned in your letter. Something I think we need to talk about."

  I turned around to face her, mildly alarmed by her serious tone. She took up both my hands in each of hers. With our arms, we formed a bridge of our own, parallel to the one upon which we now stood.

  Her head came up, and I suddenly perceived that she was on the edge of tears. Resisting a frown, I swallowed, bracing myself for whatever it was.

  "What about—babies?"

  And there it went, the bottom of my stomach. Stupidly, I hadn't expected that question. And I had no answer for it.

  Those brown eyes bored into the back of my soul. "Will there be babies, Adam?"

  Somewhere in the deepest reaches inside of me, someone flipped the switch on a deep freeze. I swallowed again. No. I wanted to say it in the most final of voices. I wanted to put that foot down now. Nothing that threatens your health. Ever. Ever again.


  But I said nothing.

  She blinked, continuing to stare. And those eyes—those beautiful eyes—welled up with the largest, clearest tears I'd ever seen. "Please, Adam," she whispered hoarsely. "I need an answer."

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  Was it my voice that trembled like that?

  The tears breached the rims of her eyes, spilling in thin streams down her sculpted cheeks. How could happiness turn to sorrow in the literal blink of an eye?

  This fabric we'd woven together, this mesh of us, was made of joy, of pure love, of humor, of shared experiences, pain, sex, arguments, discussions, and practical jokes. But there was that one sharp pinprick of sadness that we always seemed to avoid acknowledging.

  That one razor-edged sting that could draw blood with its sharpness.

  That loss.

  "So it will only ever be the one?" Her voice trembled, and she bit her lip then took a breath to continue. "The one lost baby we can never hold? Never watch grow up?"

  Her face, so filled with emotion, highlighted the void inside myself. Like there was a barrier containing my feelings where this issue was concerned. This part of my heart was tucked somewhere far back in a deep, dark corner.

  Resolution filled me. I wanted to answer her in definitive terms. But how could I? Given the tears, given how difficult it even was for her to bring it up, I knew this was important to her.

  This loss still haunted her. In truth, if I could stand to admit it, it haunted us both, even if for different reasons.

  The least I could do was give her hope.

  But I wouldn't give her empty promises, no matter how much she needed that hope.

  So I needed to decide here and now what I would give her. What I could give her.

  "I'm not going to say no," I murmured. No matter how much I want to. The fear, it was rising up again, choking me. Memories of the tears we'd shed during that dark, troubling time. Memories of carrying her, passed out in my arms. Memories of coming that close to losing her. Could I bring myself to face that fear again? I want to say no—but I won't.

  She nodded, lifting one hand to swipe across her cheeks. "For now, I only need that. A promise that you'll keep an open mind when the time comes."