Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Favorite color?
Black would be the sexy answer, right? Though lately I’m partial to frost-blue.
First car?
Never had one. I lived in Brooklyn.
Biggest fear?
That one I leave unanswered. Some truths need wine and darkness to emerge.
I type out one last message:
Eight o’clock. I’ll be ready and hungry. Don’t work through dinner.
Her reply comes instantly:
I have protein bars.
Not dinner. Don’t be late.
Then I close my messages, letting the calm settle over me. The one I’ve perfected over years of boardroom battles. Julian mistakes my silence for weakness. His first of many errors.
The car turns onto Madison Avenue. Time to remind him why that’s always been a mistake.
Chapter Nineteen Cole
My office door opens without a knock. Julian’s never respected boundaries. Not in the decade we worked together, and certainly not now.
“Making me come to you?” He drops into the chair across from my desk, sprawling like he owns it. Like he still owns any part of this. “Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
I continue reading the document in front of me for another thirty seconds before looking up. “You’re the one who wanted a meeting.”
“In the boardroom. With the full board present.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’ve always preferred to handle things . . . privately.”
“Some conversations shouldn’t have witnesses.”
He laughs, but there’s an edge to it. “Always so cautious. So controlled. It’s that control I’ve come for today, Cole.”
The morning sun catches on the steel and glass buildings outside my window. I’ve had this office for fifteen years, watched the skyline change, watched empires rise and fall. But Julian didn’t come here to admire the view.
“I want what’s mine,” Julian says, his voice deceptively calm. “Claire’s designs. The case.”
“We’ve been over this,” I say. “Nothing in that case belongs to you.”
His jaw tightens. “She was my wife.”
“Unfortunately.”
“You have no reason to hold on to that case.”
“How about Claire wouldn’t want you to have them. She gave them to me.”
“Claire is dead. I’m her husband so they belong to me.”
I take a deep breath, determined to not lose my shit in this exchange. “She was going to divorce you, and you and I both know it.”
“Only because you got into her head.” He rolls his eyes. “The Boy Scout. Always doing what you feel is right. And then you got her on your side.”
“We wanted nothing to do with blood diamonds. Smuggled goods! And you fucking knew it. You tried to taint her name and her brand. I wasn’t going to allow it. And when she found out, saw you for what you are—”
“You shouldn’t have gotten involved!” Julian’s face turns red as sweat beads on his temples, a tell that I’m getting to him.
I lean back in my chair, letting him see how little his words affect me. “Are you done? You’re starting to sound like a B-rate movie villain.”
“You think this is funny?”
“I think you’re a problem I need to deal with before my nine o’clock.” I check my watch. “But maybe I should reconsider my priorities.”
The tension in the room thickens. Julian’s always had a way of filling a space with his anger, letting it seep into every corner.
“Five years, Cole,” he says, his voice tight. “Five years since her accident, and you’ve kept her final collection locked away where no one can see it. Where I can’t touch it.”
“That’s how it has to be.”
Julian goes quiet, his eyes fixed on something distant. When he speaks again, his voice has changed, almost soft with memory.
“Remember when I found you? Barely twenty-five, brilliant but broke.” His voice shifts to something almost nostalgic. “You had that pathetic little office in Brooklyn. I knew you had the eye for this business.” He smiles thinly. “I made you, Cole. I brought you into our world. Into Claire’s world.”
“You saw an opportunity,” I correct him. “Don’t pretend it was charity.”
Julian’s eyes drift to the desk between us.
“You insisted on keeping this exact desk. The one where we made our first real deal.” His gaze shifts to the right drawer. “The one where you started keeping the gun, after Moscow.” He meets my eyes. “Still in there, isn’t it? Still loaded?”
I don’t answer. We both know it’s there. The weight of it has been a constant reminder of what this business used to be. What I used to be.
“But you’d never use it, would you?” Julian’s voice drips contempt. “Not the great Cole Asher. Too civilized now. Too weak.” He stands, planting his hands on my desk. “I built this business with you. The real business. The one that got us here. While you were playing with spreadsheets, I was getting my hands dirty. Making the hard choices.”
“You mean killing people who got in your way.”
“I did what was necessary. What you couldn’t stomach doing yourself.” He straightens.
“I want that case, Cole. Those designs are my legacy.”