Page 84 of Broken Brothers

I set my alarm and leaned back down.

“I appreciate what you do, Chance.”

I chuckled and tried not to sound inappropriate.

“I’m glad I could do what I did.”

“I don’t mean here, although, yeah, that too,” Claire said with a laugh. “The truth is, all of our other investors got scared off by my age and inexperience. You saw the numbers. They all make sense. But no one else was willing to gamble on me. I am so glad you and Morgan decided to risk it.”

We’re the only ones.

Which means we have leverage.

Which means…

I didn’t respond, choosing instead to scratch her hair as a sign of affection. It was a good thing, too, because if I said anything, it would have been, “Why the fuck did you just tell me this?”

Now I had two opposing obligations, neither of which would please the other. If I told Morgan this, Claire would be devastated and hate me forever. Not that I could blame her, having been on the other side of the coin and knowing what it felt like to get used.

If I didn’t tell Morgan this and he found out, he would question my loyalty to the company and choosing what was nothing more than a casual fling over our long-term success.

I just kept my mouth shut, because I knew no matter what I could say, it would only create even more problems. One side was going to lose badly, and I had no idea which side it was going to be yet.

Claire’s.

Or Morgan’s.

“Thank you, Chance,” she said.

She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. It felt like a tender kiss, which worried me even more. Maybe this was just casual still, and maybe tomorrow, Claire would realize she was acting a little too doting and take a step back. But this kiss…

It felt too intimate, too close. If Claire developed feelings, I would feel even more conflicted. I was smart enough to pull away from Claire if that happened, but then it would make screwing her over on the business side of things even worse.

And it’s not like I had a clear side to lean to. Even by the minute, my thoughts on the matter changed. One second, my duty to the company bearing my name seemed to take precedence—it would just a lesson Claire would have to learn the hard way.

The next, I reminded myself how bad Layla’s experience had treated me and how I had only gotten back on my feet because of my connections to Morgan. It had taken being adopted by a billionaire family to overcome something so devastating. Claire, as best as I could tell, did not have such luck.

I just closed my eyes until the alarm went off. By then, I had gathered my bearings enough to crack a few jokes about making Claire wait for the moment, and when she saw me off, her kiss was much shorter and much less passionate.

But the damage had already been done.

The question, it seemed, was to who.

35

Ibarely slept that night. Even knowing I needed all the energy I could muster in the morning, I just couldn’t fall asleep with everything running through my head.

Instead of sheer anger—well, other than toward Edwin Hunt—I just felt a massive amount of confusion. Where did I really stand with not just Claire but Layla? Why was I allowing myself, again, to sleep with a business associate I really should not have? Why did I believe I could have mixed business and pleasure and not have it be an issue?

Why was I such a fucking moron?

Why did I keep repeating the same mistakes?

The only difference—probably not the only, but the only one I could think of—was that I was now in control of my own career destiny. Whereas before, what I had done with Layla was subject to the whims of John Burnson and Craig Taylor, what I did with Claire was subject to, well, my whims. Morgan’s maybe a bit, but not to the extent that I feared any reprisal.

Still, this bore really poorly for my ability to separate the two. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt now, but if it happened with a muchlarger company, or it came out many years later that I had slept with Claire and I’d have to resign…

Sadly, in this day and age, I had to assume it would come out, and when it did, it would not remain regulated to the sidelines. Someone would pick it up, public pressure would ensue, and then I’d have to save face or resign in some ugly fashion.