Page 80 of Broken Brothers

33

More than anything, when I got home, the feeling of everything that I had done and was working on caught up to me.

I’d spent the past few weeks in a deal-making blur, starting with Burnson Investments and now making my way off to Virtual Realty. I was meeting friends, enemies, enemies-turned-friends, businesswomen-turned-romantic, and everything in between. I had barely allowed any time for myself, and when I did give it to me, I inevitably wound up using it with the mindset of recovering for another deal.

I wouldn’t call it burn out, but I would call it sheer exhaustion.

Thus, when I got home, I didn’t even bother taking my clothes off. I just headed straight for bed, shut my eyes, and fell asleep before I could even think to turn the heat on.

When I awoke, several hours had passed. The sun was beginning to set, and it was just after 7 p.m. My first reaction was sweet relief and feeling a million bucks better.

My next reaction was to hope that nothing urgent had happened in the last few hours. Unlikely, but in the world of deal making and negotiating, things could change on a dime without any notice. It wasn’t fair to assume that just because Saturday had whirled around that the world had also slowed down.

If anything, this was when the men separated from the boys.

Assuming there was anything to separate them, at least.

In what seemed like a rather unusual move for me, I opened my email first. I deleted the usual marketing messages from clothing companies and other places I liked to shop and found a recent email from Morgan with the title “VR.”

“Dad is boasting more about VR. Thinking he might have made moves. I think we need to get you out to SF. I can fly you out first thing tomorrow at 6 a.m.”

Well, didn’t have much choice in the matter now, did I? And even if I had a choice, I would have requested Morgan to send me as soon as possible. Like my brother, I was desperate to get this deal completed. I needed Edwin Hunt to know why I had declined his offer and why, soon enough, his own son would be leaving the family business. He could stalk me all he wanted, but he needed to know why he had lost—it would be that much more satisfying.

“Done,” I wrote back. “Just let me know airport.”

I hit sent, rolled over, and grabbed my phone. No message from Layla this time, which… I was disappointed by?

I didn’t have much time to feel disappointed, though, because when I read Claire’s message, I knew what was coming.

“Feeling lonely tonight. Mind coming over? 455 50th Street, Apartment D.”

I knew what would happen if I went over there. Only for a few moments did I have the strength to contemplate what to do.

Because in my lifetime, I had learned one thing—a deal that was offered today had no guarantees of being offered tomorrow, no matter how concrete and how definitive those plans looked.

“Sorry, just woke from a nap. Be there in an hour.”

As soon as I sent that message, I headed to the bathroom, grabbed some condoms, and brushed my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror, thinking that with the fact that I hadn’t shaved in some time, I looked awfully scruffy. But maybe that was what was especially hot about me to Claire.

However it went, I was happy to acquiesce. We were on the same wavelength at least, and for that, I was eternally grateful. I just had to hope Claire, in a moment of honesty, didn’t confess something about her company that I couldn’t have known. I didn’t want to be in the same spot Layla was in or the same spot Edwin liked to be in—one where they could take advantage of others.

I checked my email one last time before walking out the door. Morgan had already replied.

“JFK.”

Well, at least I got the good airport.

I headed out the door, locked it tight, and made me way over to Claire’s. I scanned the streets as I moved, feeling like a wanted man on the lookout for people checking him out. I could never be too careful, even for something as innocuous as sex.

Then a terrifying thought crossed my mind. What if these goons went to Claire and questioned her?

Sadly, it wasn’t out of the question. If the “villain” doesn’t talk, go for his “sidekicks” and get them to sing like a bird. I could easily see one of them pressuring Claire to divulge information that Edwin could use against me.

Maybe I was overthinking the whole thing, and that would have been more believable if not for the bullshit move of calling me with a masked voice. I wasn’t overthinking it. Edwin was a sad, pathetic man who was the worst loser I had ever met in my life short of maybe John Burnson—not a coincidence the two were such close friends. It would bring me great joy to see them go down when MCH took off.

I came to Claire’s street and checked behind me and ahead of me. I didn’t recognize anyone following me, so I kept moving forward. I came to her apartment, buzzed at her intercom, and got let in. I walked up four flights of stairs before coming to her place. I took a deep breath, told myself that our honesty with each other allowed for this to happen, and knocked.

From that moment at which I knocked to when I heard footsteps, the paranoid thought that Claire had done this as a test and would disown me cross my mind. It was not even the first time this season that a woman had manipulated me to test my business acumen—who the hell knew if this was the same thing? The silence was long enough that I contemplated it as a real test.