of doing something so vile. I scoff and shake my head. She might as well have reached into my chest and torn out my fucking heart. I guess it’s better to know that now, before I told her I loved her and asked her to stay.
I pace around the office, caught between a rock and a hard place. No way, no way in hell would I ask Kira to sell, and no way was I getting close to her to get my hands on the studio. But the fact remains—if I don’t secure the land, I can’t build the process plant and boost this town’s economy. After all the shit Hooked had done in the past, these people deserve that much from me.
My father left after the run-in with Kira, warning I needed to get this shit done or else. I guess “or else” meant losing my job. But if I get fired, everything goes down the drain—the business, the jobs…everything. He told me not to bother calling him until I had this fixed.
His lack of belief in me would have bothered me in the past. Now I don’t give two fucks what he says or thinks. What he did to Kira’s mother is unspeakable, and no fucking way am I a chip off the old block. I don’t want to be anything like the men in my family.
I’d always told Kira I was no different from the guys in my family, that I had no staying power, and the truth is, her not knowing my real position and then finding me at the studio must have looked pretty damn suspicious. I take a second and put myself in her shoes, and my stomach instantly clenches.
Goddammit. She’d been hurt in the past by men using her for one thing or another. Is it any wonder she jumped to conclusions, especially after what my father had done to her mother? She struck out from fear, from past hurts. Like me, Kira has always been afraid to put herself out there, to let someone in. But she let me in, and I let her in. I cringe to think of the way I shot back at her, but it gutted me to hear her say I was using her to get the studio.
Fuck me.
I grab my phone. Christ, man, we need to talk, but we need to do it face-to-face. If Kira would just hear me out, let me explain that I had no idea she was the owner of the cottage, it might smooth things over for us, but words are simply words. I somehow have to show her what she means to me, prove I would never hurt her.
The gut-wrenching sadness on her face when she walked away, killed me. I fucking let her go when I should have gone after her, because I was too goddamn stupid to understand where the crushing sense of betrayal was coming from.
Fuck, what can I do to get her to give me a chance?
What if she never gives me one?
My stomach squeezes, and the toast I choked down this morning threatens to make a second appearance. I take a drink of my cold coffee to wash down the thickness coating my throat. My phone pings, and I snatch it off my desk, but it’s Oliver telling me Kira keeps refusing the offers. I shake my head, and a garbled sound comes out of my throat. Of course she has. Some things are more important than money, and Kira has proven that over and over again. I text him back and tell him to stop the offers.
Someone kicks my door, and it burst open, hits the wall with a loud thud. I glance up and find Izzy, Jason, Sam, and Cody storming into my office, fists clenched, eyes enraged. Cody steps up to my desk and drops a box onto it.
“We’ll ship the rest to your place,” he says. “We only brought this because we needed to see you.”
I climb from my chair for the shit-kicking I’m about to receive.
“You hurt her, and you said you wouldn’t,” Izzy says.