An Understated Dominance novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Two A.M.

Thea corners Colter in the kitchen and learns he is the quiet investor behind her company; he asks her not to sell and will not say why, and a text on his phone mentions his father.

I got home at ten to two, and the kitchen light was on.

Our house sat on a quiet street in Cherry Creek, white brick with a blue door I had picked out myself.

I had driven the whole way with the radio off and both hands strangling the wheel.

Colter stood at the stove with his back to me.

He had changed out of the cardigan into a plain grey T-shirt.

A duffel bag waited by the back door, zipped and neat.

"You're packed," I said.

"You had a lawyer draw up the papers, Thea. I figured the next step was obvious."

He turned off the burner and poured hot water into one mug.

Only one.

That small thing made my throat close.

"You signed a sale document for my company this afternoon," I said. "Before I even gave you the papers."

"Yes."

"As Pine Street Partners."

"Yes."

"You're an insurance adjuster, Colter."

"I was," he said. "I left that job three years ago."

I laughed, and it came out ugly.

"You left your job three years ago and never mentioned it."

"You never asked what I did all day."

"I asked you every night how your day was!"

"You asked how my day was," he said. "That's not the same question."

I put my keys on the counter very carefully so that I would not throw them.

"Start from the beginning."

He sat down at the kitchen table, and after a second I sat across from him.

It was the same table where I had eaten ten thousand dinners he cooked.

"Six years ago," Colter said, "you came home and told me the bank had turned you down for the fourth time."

"I remember."

"You said Fieldwell would be dead by Christmas."

"I remember what I said."

"You cried in the shower where you thought I couldn't hear."

My face went hot.

"I had some money from my grandmother," he said. "More than I told you."

"How much more?"

"Enough to start a fund. I called it Pine Street, after the street my office is on."

"Sixty thousand dollars came in March, through a lawyer," I said slowly. "The mystery angel. I wrote that person a thank-you note."

"I read it," he said, and almost smiled. "It was a good note."

I stood up so fast the chair scraped.

"The second round, the third round, the factory line in Aurora, the lease on the warehouse."

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"Most of it. You earned the rest yourself. The orders were yours."

"Don't you dare be generous about my own company."

"I'm not being generous. It's true."

"You watched me fall apart over payroll for six years," I said, "and you let me think I was alone."

"You were never alone."

"I was alone in my head!"

My voice cracked off the cabinets.

"Do you know what you did?"

"I think so."

"You made me small. You made every win mine and not mine, and I never knew the difference."

"That's why I never told you."

"Because I would have said no?"

"Because you'd have stopped," he said, "and you'd have been right to."

That silenced me for a moment.

Then I got angry again, because it was easier than the other thing.

"And tonight," I said.

"Tonight you sat in that ballroom and watched me announce a divorce, with your name on my company's biggest deal, and you said nothing."

"You wanted to say it out loud."

"I wanted you to fight me!"

"You'd made up your mind."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got that isn't a lie," he said.

I stared at him.

He looked tired in a way I had never let myself see.

The lines beside his mouth were deeper than I remembered, and the grey at his temples had spread.

When had that happened?

"Fine," I said. "Then here's what happens."

"Harcourt closes in sixty days."

"You co-sign, because your name's already on the page."

"Then we're done, and I never have to see you again."

"I'll sign," Colter said. "I'll sign anything you want, Thea. But I'm asking you for one thing, and I've never asked you for anything."

"What?"

"Don't sell to Harcourt."

I actually laughed again.

"It's a hundred and forty million dollars!"

"I know the number."

"It's three hundred jobs, and it's the best offer in the history of this company."

"It's not a good offer," he said. "It's a trap."

"Whose?"

He did not answer.

"Colter. Whose trap?"

"I can't tell you tonight."

"You can't tell me."

"I will. I just need a few days, and I need you to trust me."

"Trust you," I said. "That's the funniest thing I've heard all week."

I picked up his duffel from beside the door and held it out at arm's length.

"Get out of my house."

He stood.

He took the bag without a word.

His phone sat face-up beside the mug where he had left it, and it lit up as he reached for it.

I wasn't trying to read it.

It was just there, glowing in the dark kitchen, with the first line big enough for anyone to see.

The contact name at the top said Dad.

Colter had told me his father was dead, on our second date, six years ago.

He had told me his mother died when he was nineteen and his father went a year later.

I had held his hand across a restaurant table and said I was so sorry.

The message under the name read, "Congratulations on the divorce, son. Now come home."

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