The entire time I’d worked on this damn project, I’d feared a resurgence of those divorce papers. We hadn’t ripped them up. They were in a drawer. I’d tossed them in with the Scotch tape, the screwdriver, and the extra batteries I never knew were good or dead. The junk drawer. Where the papers deserved to be if they weren’t going in the shredder.

Kate had been quiet for the last month. I hadn’t come right out and asked her what was wrong, but something was. We talked. We had sex. A lot of it. But a part of her was distant from me and I wasn’t sure how to ask. The problem in our marriage had been me not sharing. What did I do when it was Kate?

The words “meeting adjourned” rang through the room. I slammed my laptop shut and stuffed my notes inside my tablet sleeve.

Grams stood at my side, her fingertips pressed into the table top. “This company was supposed to remain a family company. For you and your brothers.”

My patience snapped. I gave her a hard look. Her brows rose, and she studied me. I was so carefully neutral around Grams, and I should still try to be. She hadn’t directly crapped my plan out of existence, but she didn’t like it. She didn’t want to change, but the main difference was that now I was ready to.

I needed this to be different. All of it. “You can’t create a company by devouring everything around you and then act shocked when that company starts devouring itself.”

She recoiled. I didn’t know if it was from what I’d said or the heat in my tone. I didn’t care.

I gathered my things and stalked out of the meeting. I had work to do. No matter what, that didn’t change.

CHAPTER 20

Aiden

Parents filtered out. One of the last tournaments of the season always drew a large crowd, but now it was done. I had watched the whole damn thing. I’d gone into work early to wrap up some reports and then met Kate here before the first match started. Those reports still weren’t done, but the will to stay in my office wasn’t there. I had more important places to be.

I’d seen Corbin wrestle. Violet too. She’d even waved at me, grinning with her little headgear over her ears, as she strutted onto the mat. Ada had warned me that Violet would hit me up for an after-action report of her performance.

Kate left the gymnasium with Violet so the girl could change out of her singlet. Ada had to go to work, but Kate said she’d wait with Violet until Matt picked her up.