Vows of Treachery: Claimed by His Ruthless Brother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sixty-One Floors Up

In Rhys's penthouse Annika sets her terms and he agrees too fast, until Emmett walks in with security and a notarized proxy she never signed.

The driver held the car door open, and I got in because my legs were shaking too hard to walk to the curb.

Rhys got in on the other side and said nothing at all.

My phone lit up in my lap.

Forty-one messages from Emmett. Nine from Delphine.

The top one said: Annie, please, you know I'd never. It's been edited.

I blocked them both and turned the phone face down on my knee.

"You didn't ask where we're going," Rhys said.

"You told me to get in the car."

"People usually ask."

"People usually don't get a recording of their husband laughing at them in front of four hundred strangers," I said. "Where are we going?"

"My building. It has a guard in the lobby and a lock on every floor."

"Your building is the same building as his office."

"Yes," he said. "That's why he won't think to look there."

Carrow Tower stood on the river, black glass with the name lit in white.

The elevator took us to the sixty-first floor without a stop.

His penthouse was large and bare. Gray sofas, one lamp on, a wall of glass over the dark water.

Nobody lived there who wanted to be visited.

I stood in the middle of the floor with my shawl still on my shoulders.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked.

"I'm not helping you." Rhys poured a glass of water and put it in my hand. "I need your vote on Monday. Not your gratitude."

"You haven't said ten sentences to me in two years."

"I said what I had to."

"At my wedding you looked at me and said, He's paying too much." I had never told anyone I heard it. "I was standing six feet away."

His face did not change.

"I was talking about the venue," he said.

"You were looking at me."

"Do you want the vote or the argument?"

I put the glass down.

"The vote," I said. "These are my terms, then."

He waited.

"I get my own lawyer, not one of yours. My mother's thirty percent stays in my name, today and after Monday. And the divorce gets filed Monday morning, before the board meets."

"Agreed," Rhys said.

I stared at him.

I had come in ready for a fight over each one.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Why Monday morning? You'd want me married until the vote."

"I want you free before the vote," he said. "If you're still his wife when you cast it, he can say he spoke for you."

That was exactly the kind of thing I would not have thought of.

"There's one more thing," Rhys said. "Don't revoke the proxy tonight."

"He's going to try to use it tonight."

"He's going to try to use it Monday. If you revoke it by phone now, he has two days to wave a new paper at the board and call you confused. Revoke it in the room, in front of the directors, with the company counsel recording."

"And until then?"

"You stay here. Nobody who knows you will think of this floor."

I looked at the black water and the white lights on the far bank.

"I'm in your debt," I said.

"You're not," said Rhys, and went to the kitchen, and I heard a cupboard open and close.

The guest room had a made bed and a closet of unworn bathrobes. I sat on the edge of the mattress and took the chain off over my head.

The cracked steel watch lay in my palm.

The glass had been broken since the fire. The hands stopped at 11:52.

I had kept it for two years because I could not bring myself to throw away the last thing I held before I woke up.

Emmett had called it junk.

I put it on the nightstand and washed my face at the sink.

Down the hall, a phone rang once and Rhys answered it in a low voice.

"Yes," he said. "Not yet. Keep him out of the lobby."

I stood in the doorway and listened.

"He's already in the garage?" Rhys said. "How?"

The elevator chimed.

I heard it open, far down the hall, and I heard the footsteps of three men.

Rhys came out of the kitchen with his jaw set.

He moved to stand between me and the front door.

"Annika," he said. "Go back in the room."

"No."

The front door opened.

Emmett walked in, still in his tuxedo, with two security men behind him and a folder in his hand.

His wedding ring finger was bare. His hair was wet. He had been crying, or had wanted me to think so.

"Annie," he said, and held up the folder. "I have a proxy you signed tonight, at the table, before the film. It's notarized. It says you gave me full power to act for you while you were unwell."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend