Page 33 of Bargain With The Boss (Crescent Cove: The Moguls #2)

Xavier

“What do you mean she left?”

Jude crossed his arms, barring my entry to his house. “She left. She went back to Seattle no thanks to you.”

“Me?”

Jude’s voice dipped. “Nessa is sleeping, or I’d rip out your tongue.”

I wasn’t sure what his sleeping daughter had to do with my tongue, but I took a big step back. “For what?” I’d wanted to face Sydney and now I had a growling best friend instead. “I wasn’t the one who lied.”

Jude reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder. “Get in here.” He pushed me through the kitchen to his office and closed the door after us. “What the hell do you think you know?”

“I went after you two when Sydney...” I trailed off and cleared my throat. “I heard you talking.”

“Is that right? Couldn’t have made yourself known?”

“I heard enough.” I could still hear her broken voice when she fessed up to Jude about why she’d come back to the Cove.

“I bet you didn’t, you jackass. My mother is three times the fucked up of your parents. You have no idea what Sydney’s been dealing with.”

“She was here to sabotage the business, that’s enough.”

“And yet she didn’t.”

I frowned. “She said?—”

“She said she was sent here to do it. And the part you missed is that she couldn’t go through with it.”

I sat down—hard.

“Would a woman sabotaging our business get those permits through? And troubleshoot all the other properties that Maitland has been blocking?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“My mother blackmailed her.”

“What.” I stood and took a step toward Jude.

“Yeah. Changes things up a little doesn’t it?”

Blackmail . The word sliced at me. “With what?”

“Her people. The ones who work for her department and depend on their paycheck. Not people like you and me who could survive a career change. On top of that, Sydney’s been dreaming up her own offshoot of the company.”

“Plants,” I said quietly.

He frowned at me. “Did she tell you?”

“She didn’t have to. Henry.” I thought back to that day I first showed her the FHK offices. The way her eyes went sad talking about Henry and how he taught her all about gardening. The longing looks at the plant beds until she closed herself down.

This time it was Jude who sat down. “She told you about Henry?”

I nodded. “A little. That he was patient and kind. How he taught her about plants and soil. I got the idea that he made time for her unlike her parents.”

“You’d be right.” Surprise laced his voice. “She doesn’t talk about Henry with anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because when our mother found out she was playing in the dirt with our gardener, she sent her away to boarding school.”

“What the hell?”

“We are fifteen ways of fucked up because of that woman. Either Mother was pitting us against one another or she was finding ways to manipulate us. And when Sydney went to our mother about her ideas for A Garden You Love, she made sure to make a proper proposal. Sydney learned to dot every damn i and cross every t three times before going to the almighty Michelle Keller. Because she was a businesswoman first above blood. There was no nepotism in the company—we all earned our places. Then our mother used it against Sydney to get what she wanted.”

“Sydney would pick her idea for a company over you? That’s fucked up.”

“No.” His voice was sharp and annoyed. “You really are missing the whole point. Remember how I said her team was under fire?”

I paced the room, pushing aside my butthurt feelings.

I knew business. Hell, I ran two of them for fuck’s sake.

A formal proposal could cause a lot of strife if it wasn’t handled properly.

“So, her proposal would need first refusal from the board even if she wanted to leave the company and go off on her own.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

The thing that rocked me back was that a mother would do that to her child.

Even when my parents were at their worst it was more about social appearances and their version of traditional values.

They didn’t act like some narcissistic supervillain.

“Losing a large portion of their staff would hurt the bottom line of the main business.”

“In my mother’s mind, everyone is disposable.”

“Even her daughter?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” he said warily.

“And you let her go off alone to deal with that?”

“I have a newborn if you’ve forgotten. I can’t just take off. Not to mention that it would set a precedent for our mother to continue to do this.”

I paced away from him. He was right. All that woman needed was a tiny show of weakness and she’d exploit it beyond measure. “Sorry. Fuck.” I raked my fingers through my hair. So much made sense now.

Talking things over with Luna had put me on shaky ground with how I reacted to her, but now this? I was on a crumbling cliff. I couldn’t let Syd deal with this alone. I didn’t know if she’d want to see me, but I had to try.

“I have an idea. It’s a big swing.”

Jude stared at me for a long minute. “I’m listening.”

“How attached are you to your shares of your mother’s company?”

“Not at all.”

“Good. I need to make some calls first. I’ll let you know if my idea works.”

I crossed to the back door.

“X?”

I paused at the door. “I love her, Jude.”

“I kind of figured.”

“I’m not going to ask for your blessing. It’s a little too late for that.”

“You have it,” he said quietly. “Just don’t fucking hurt her. She’s had enough people let her down.”

“I’m going to try like hell not to. Think you can hold down the fort with Gavin?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

I nodded and strode out the door. I had a lot of fucking plans to make and not a lot of time to do it.

First, I started with Devon.

I needed him to keep things running at Hastings Financial. Now, I was glad I worked my ass off in a rage. It would cover me for a while. I could do a lot of my job remotely and would work through the flight, but I still needed to get my ducks in a row to help out Syd.

Even if she didn’t want me to. I had to try.

The next few hours were a lesson in patience, and I was already in short supply. I just wanted to get to her. To let her know that I was a moron and hope she’d forgive me for thinking the worst.

It wasn’t my default, but when it came to Sydney I was way off my game in every way.

The emotions were larger than I’d ever experienced. From the first moment, I’d known there was something different between us. I just didn’t realize it would be life changing.

Now, I just needed to juggle my next life-changing goal.

I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

The flight was eternal, but I used every hour to make my plan work. During the connection layover, I made phone calls and called in every damn favor I had.

No risk, no reward.

I was playing for forever.