Treachery

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Before I can bark the question, Gabriel quickly says, “Have fun on your date. Stay out as late as you need to.”

The line goes dead and my teeth slam together.

I swivel to call him back, but before I can press the button, the intercom buzzes, Lacey’s voice blaring through the speaker.

“Mr. Hughes is demanding to see you now. Can I please send him in so Roxa

I scrub a hand down my face. We found Roxa

But, as usual, the asshole was right. She’s good at entertaining high-power men who are pissed off we’re wasting their time by keeping them waiting. Her low neckline and ample cleavage hypnotizing them as she giggles and twirls her hair.

Keeping Jase away from her has been hell on all of us. Somehow, we’ve managed.

Not in the mood for this shit, I look at the clock and stab a finger on the button to answer Lacey.

“Send him in.”

“Thank God,” she grumbles, although I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean for me to hear it.

Ten minutes pass before Lacey walks through my door with an extremely pissed off Clayton following behind her.

She glares in my direction before turning to leave, the door slamming a little too hard as Clayton takes a seat on the other side of my desk.

He crosses his legs, rethinks it, shifts his posture, then grips his hands over the armrests.

I grin to see how uncomfortable he is.

Leaning back in my seat, I flash him a blank expression.

“Making an appointment is usually recommended, Hughes. My time is particularly in demand and I don’t appreciate people requesting more of it than I’m willing to give them.”

The bastard narrows his stare on me, his teeth grinding as he continues squirming because he made the mistake of pissing me off.

“Yeah, well, I’ve left you over a dozen messages and you don’t seem to be in a hurry to return them.”

“I’m a busy man,” I answer, a slick grin stretching my lips.

Pushing to my feet, I casually stroll across the room to a sidebar on a far wall, the standard pitcher of ice water in place that Lacey knows to leave for me. Grabbing a cup, I glance back at him, smile as if I don’t know he’s dying from a full bladder, and I slowly pour the water in, ensuring the sound of it drives him crazy.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“No,” he snaps, “I’ve already had enough and apparently the bathrooms in this place aren’t working.”

“We have shitty pipes,” I lie before taking a long sip, making sure to slurp loudly before swallowing.

He squirms in his seat again, and I get the feeling he’s about five seconds away from double fisting his dick like a toddler with a potty problem.

“Why are you here?”

“To get my life back! You promised this shit with Luca would be over soon. I never signed up for the fucking time it’s taking for you to get your shit together. I’m with someone else. I want to move on with my fucking life.”

Returning to my desk, I drop my weight in leather executive chair and place the glass of water on my desk.

“Your secretary, right?”

Speaking through clenched teeth, he corrects me. “She’s an executive assistant.”

“Same thing, but that’s not the point. Unfortunately, your wandering dick made the process a little more difficult for me than it should be because you were too stupid to keep Luca from knowing.”

His eyes widen, butt squirming again as his thighs slam together and push apart. The fucker is about to piss himself, and I smile to see it.

“Should have kept your dick in your pants or hid it better,” I say, scratching my jaw. “Nobody likes a cheater.”

Shooting forward, his expression twists because his belt must have cinched in the wrong place to be comfortable. He slams a fist down on my desk, a stack of papers rattling from the force of it.

I cock a brow, daring the bastard to do it again.

Thankfully, he’s not that stupid. He pulls his hand away and sits back in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.

“You should seriously deal with that crotch itch, Clayton. The wiggling is getting on my nerves.”

“I have to piss!”

“Sure you do. From where I’m sitting, it looks more like chlamydia, which means I’ll have to burn that fucking chair now that you’ve infected it.”

Clayton growls, and I ignore it, my eyes snapping to the clock to see my meeting with Daddy Dearest is coming up soon.

Gaze back to him.

“Listen. You fucked your own game by sleeping around and getting caught. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

“I didn’t have a choice!”

He stands up suddenly, regrets it, his thighs tense as he wiggle walks back and forth in front of my desk, pain evident in his features. The asshole must have drank an entire carafe of coffee before coming into my office.

“I wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you. I owed you two favors. I paid one of them by marrying Luca and bringing her back to the city. And I paid the second when you told me to divorce her and I filed the fucking paperwork. You said you would handle this shit, and now I’m staring at a loss of four million dollars-“

“Three point seven,” I correct him, not giving a fuck what he stands to lose.

“What the fuck ever, Ta

And that is something that can never happen. It’s the reason Luca never stopped ru

It’s also the reason she will never be anything more than a few nights in bed because I have a sneaking suspicion she won’t forgive me if she ever finds out.

Yes, I’m a bastard.

I’ve accepted that.

Made peace with it.

I’ve sacrificed everything that means something to me so that I can get revenge on our families.

The decisions I’ve made about Luca haven’t been easy, but they were fucking necessary, and I’ve been suffering the consequences ever since.

It wasn’t all for selfish reasons, though. I knew our families were going after Luca’s father. I also knew that they would eventually kill him if he didn’t give them what they wanted.

I needed her out of the crossfire, and the only way to accomplish it was to get her out of Georgia. Since the likelihood of her listening to me about leaving was slim to none, I had to come up with creative measures.

No, it doesn’t excuse my sins against her, and she’ll still hate me if she ever finds out. But my intentions weren’t all bad.

I can be a decent guy about certain things.

Straightening the cuffs on my sleeves, I lean back in my seat, lift my feet to the desk and stare at the idiot who thinks this will go his way.

“You’d ruin your chances of wi