A Righteous Man - Jay Crownover Page 0,33

to sell them a portion of the business, I think we need to accept whatever they offer. We’ve already had twice the amount of investor interest since the rumor got out that Piper was interested.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as a familiar figure with a head of dark, shiny hair slipped through the crowd of people and headed down a hallway. I didn’t know that Maren was attending this event, but I wasn’t surprised. She was big on philanthropy. Always had been.

She wore a shimmery dress made out of a material that caught the light and was balanced on a pair of insanely high heels that made her tall figure stand out even more. She seemed to be by herself, and she brushed off more than one greeting as she headed wherever it was she was going.

“Are you listening to me?” My brother’s voice was sharp in my ear.

I snapped my attention back to Jeno and gave him a crooked grin. “Not at all. I think I just saw Maren.” I flinched as his fist solidly knocked into my shoulder. “Ouch. What was that for?”

“You told me you were done obsessing over her. I already warned you that you were trading your fixation on substances with a fixation on her. Neither is healthy and both will end with you in a world of hurt.” He sounded mad.

I rubbed the sore spot and lifted an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t say I was going to go after her; I just said I saw her. I didn’t know she was going to be here tonight. Did you?” The last question was asked with a slightly accusatory tone.

Jeno scowled at me and pulled his phone out of the pocket of his dress pants. “I’m not answering that. It shouldn’t matter one way or the other. Now that you’re trying to be active in the industry, you’re bound to run into one another on occasion. You need to keep your shit together either way.” He held up the phone and showed me that he had several missed calls from his mom. “Let me go call her and see why she’s losing her mind this time.”

Jeno’s mom was the opposite of mine. Where mine liked to pretend I didn’t exist unless she needed money, Jeno’s wanted to control every single aspect of his life. She was such a helicopter parent, it was amazing he was allowed to pick out his own clothes most days. The woman hated me with the fire of a thousand suns and fully blamed me for her only child’s rebellion against her. She didn’t want Jeno to work for me. She hated how close we were, and it had little to do with the acrimonious divorce from my father. She thought I was a bad influence on her baby boy, and she was right. Luckily, Jeno was a kid with a mind of his own and loyal as hell. Our relationship, both personal and professional, often put him in a tight spot, but he was always willing to fight tooth and nail for me.

I was planning to find a dark corner to hide from the cougar who was still sending me very obvious signals from across the room when I noticed another familiar figure follow in the direction Maren just disappeared.

I didn’t know much about Maren’s ex-husband, other than the fact he was a washed-up rockstar of some kind. I knew he’d been caught cheating on her in a pretty spectacular way, and that he’d dragged their divorce out for way longer than he needed to. When I was in rehab, I made it a point to check up on her and see what was going on in her life on the rare opportunities I was allowed access to the Internet. I told myself I was just keeping track of all the things I needed to apologize for once I straightened myself out. The list was long.

I couldn’t believe she married a slimy adulterer. Not after she escaped that scumbag agent who screwed her over. I would’ve sworn that she’d developed a better sense of people after all she’d been through at the hands of others, but apparently not. The guy looked like a douche, and I knew there was no good reason for following Maren now that their split was finalized.

Realistically, I didn’t think the dude was stupid enough to confront her or cause a scene in a place with so many industry people and press

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