Page 10 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Eight

Nathaniel

T he cold from the ice is penetrating the thick glass in my hand, the chill seeping into my skin.

Instead of taking that as a sign that my brain isn’t functioning on high, I set down my glass on the kitchen island and mix myself another gold rush.

Drunk seems like the best idea, really. Why not?

No one except me is going to care if I’m hungover tomorrow.

Besides, cold hands are better than the shaky ones that gripped the steering wheel earlier, the funeral home in the rearview mirror. I had to get out of there. Going in the first place made me the stupidest person on the island, possibly the planet.

But last night, I dreamed of the funeral, Hollyn collapsed at the front, and it was so vivid that I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong.

In my dream, I picked her up. She curled into me and sobbed against my chest, clutching on to me like I was the only tree strong enough to withstand her own personal hurricane.

When I woke up, my arms still felt heavy with the weight of her, of her grief, as though it was possible for my subconscious to still remember, even after all these years, the shape of her, the feel of her pressed against me.

After my dream, I had to see her. No matter what happened all those years ago, I could never know she was in that much pain and do nothing.

Before I arrived and saw her, standing tall at the front of the room, my heart was a mangled mess, sure that my dream was some sort of premonition, sure that Hollyn needed me .

Then at the funeral, it felt like she delivered the whole fucking eulogy just to me, and I hadn’t been able to look away. Enthralled. Trapped, once again, in Hollyn Davis’s spell. Or maybe I never really got out of the original spell, which is what Sawyer and Maren keep telling me.

Magic is really the only way to explain her effect on me.

The connection to her has never made sense, but I didn’t care about sense in high school.

Had no need for it. I loved her, and she loved me, and the rest of the world could go fuck themselves if they thought they had any part in that equation.

The first time we met, her hair reminded me of the rising sun—like I was waking up for the first time—a splash of deep red across the sky. Breathtakingly beautiful.

The wake-up call wasn’t a blessing. It was a warning, or it should have been, of what was to come.

Danger, Nathaniel. She’ll rip your fucking heart out without a second thought.

No matter what, I’m not giving her a second shot. Her hazel doe eyes and the vulnerability I still see in her won’t crack my resolve.

Thank god she’ll be leaving the island soon so all this stirred up angst over the past can get covered over again. No matter what my subconscious or unconscious or whatever this nagging sensation is, wants to believe, Hollyn doesn’t need me, and I sure as hell don’t need her.

I take another long gulp of my drink as my phone lights up on the island.

Posey’s name and picture are on the display.

For a beat, I consider answering it. Two drinks ago, I would have.

Now? I’d probably make no sense and say something I’d regret.

It’s not her fault she’s calling while I’m wallowing in emotions I shouldn’t even feel anymore.

She’ll be calling about the TV show, and I don’t feel like having another conversation about how we could press to make the concept work with just her as host. My voicemail picks up the call, and I wait until a beep signals that someone left a message.

I pour myself another drink and swirl the contents of my glass around, staring into the melting ice, contemplating whether I should have gone to work out instead of getting drunk.

That would have been the healthier, more productive choice.

It’s been a while since I let myself sink this deep into my feelings.

Not for the first time, I pick up my phone to search whether it’s possible for hypnosis to erase a person from your mind, your memories. I scan the results. Still a no on that, apparently.

The one time I went to see a hypnotist, they said we’d have to tackle each memory individually to change my thought patterns, and nothing would be erased.

Despite how short our relationship was, I have so many fucking memories of Hollyn.

Going after each recollection to figure out which one has caused this lingering ache in my chest seemed harder, more painful than drinking or working out each time a memory surfaced.

One way or another, I could dull the pain, even if I couldn’t vanquish it.

Luckily, as with anything, the further I’ve gotten from the night she left, the less the memories float to the surface.

Or that was true until I found Verna on the floor of her apartment, and whatever dam I’d built in my mind, around my heart, cracked.

Now those memories aren’t just floating passively in the depths of my subconscious.

They’re surfacing, creating waves, crashing against my resolve to keep the past in the past.

My phone pings on the island, and I finish another drink before setting down the glass and trying to read the message. The font is blurry, and I squint, trying to decide if I’m that drunk or I suddenly need glasses.

Probably drunk.

I open the message, and it’s a video from one of the producers, Felipe.

Another message arrives before I can start the video, declaring that they’ve found their second host. With a frown, I click the video to have it play at maximum size on my phone screen.

Posey starts on camera first, and it’s the same script I’ve seen what feels like a thousand times.

Bold banter that no one but Posey seems able to carry with any believability once the camera starts rolling.

But when the second figure comes into frame from the right, my stomach shoots to my feet, and I have to brace both hands on the island.

No fucking way .

With clumsy fingers, I stop the video before it even gets to the part that must have swayed the others.

Then I try to type a reply, but I keep garbling the letters, and the autocorrect is on makes-no-sense mode.

A second squint reveals that I cannot send anything I typed.

After deleting all of it, I send a voice memo asking where they’re at and telling them I have thoughts.

Then I send a second voice memo to Bill, one of the drivers the Tucker family employs, to see if he can pick me up. He’s quicker to reply than Felipe is, and I tell him I’ll be waiting in front of the apartment.

Felipe replies while I’m waiting for Bill. At least they’re all still together at the studio, trying to hash out some contract points, and nothing has been promised that we can’t rescind.

The logical thing would be to wait until tomorrow to sort this mess out, but I’m at least three drinks beyond logic penetrating my brain in any actionable way.

Instead, I’m running on pure emotion, and while I can recognize that going to the studio might be a bad idea, I’m not sober enough to stop myself.

At the studio, I take the elevator to the boardroom they’ve all convened to, and I try to get my raging emotions under control.

There is nothing I want more than to have Hollyn Davis off this island, and if we give her this hosting job, not only will she not be off the island, but she’ll be in my face every single week for months.

If my worst enemy devised a method of torture, they could not have come up with something more gut-wrenching.

I would face a mountain of physical pain over revisiting the emotional turmoil Hollyn put me through.

Cut off my limbs, but leave my damned heart alone.

The double doors to the boardroom are closed, but I know on the other side is a spacious room with a killer view of the downtown core of Tucker’s Town, even if it’ll be too dark to see anything but bright lights.

Before I can overthink it, I open the door and step inside. Everyone looks up from the papers they’ve been discussing, and Posey comes around the table, a grin on her face.

“Can you believe it? What a stroke of luck, right?” she says.

But I can’t focus on her, because Hollyn has also risen from her chair, and our gazes are locked. I hate the simmer of emotion threatening to bubble up inside me, scald me again. Whatever hold she had on me is still there, and I resent it.

“You’re the other producer?” Her words are tinged with the panic I felt when I saw her on my screen less than an hour ago.

“Yes,” I bite out, unable to say anything else when faced with those doe eyes that make my stomach twist with longing.

“I can’t take this job,” she says, and her wide eyes turn to Posey. “Yeah, this isn’t… this won’t work.”

“No,” I agree. “It won’t.”

“Whatever is going on here,” Felipe says, still seated, wiggling his pen at me and then Hollyn, “unless it involves something illegal, the two of you need to get over yourselves. She’s got the experience and feel we need on camera beside Posey, and you,” he says, trying to catch my gaze, “have the money. Don’t tank this project because the two of you have history. ”

I wish this thing between us felt like history. It would be so nice to look at her and feel nothing but nostalgia.

“If she stays,” I say, “I go.” Ultimatums have never been what I reach for first, but in this case, it’s self-preservation.

“I’m not staying,” Hollyn says, avoiding my gaze as she gathers her things. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come.”

“Wait,” Posey says, stretching her arms wide in a stopping motion. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but we can figure out a way to make this work. We can. Creative thinking is all we need.”

“I have a job. I have a life. It’s not here,” Hollyn says, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

She steps around the table and gives me a curt nod on her way past, as though our act of agreeing that we couldn’t exist in the same space has put us on the same team somehow.

What a joke. She’s almost out the door of the boardroom when the scent of her apple shampoo arrives, having drifted behind her.

Against my will, I close my eyes, and I remember what it was like to have her naked, pressed against my side, my nose buried in her hair. My chest is unbearably tight.

“Are you drunk? This isn’t like you,” Posey hisses from beside me. “What’s going on with you?” She’s searching my face, and I honestly have no idea what she’ll find.

“I think I’m quitting this project,” I say.

“Nathaniel.” She breathes out my name. “Without you, it doesn’t move ahead. The government grant isn’t enough to cover all the costs. We’d have to charge the people for their own makeovers.”

“Maybe this is a sign that the show shouldn’t run at all when the only person you can find as your cohost is the last person on the planet I’d be okay with.”

“You don’t hold grudges, and you don’t dislike anyone except your cousin Hugh, so I don’t…” Then she tilts her head, and understanding lights her eyes. “Oh my god. It’s the opposite of that, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what it is,” I say, suddenly weary. “And I’ve got no desire to find out.”

“If you find someone else,” I say, loudly enough for the other producers to hear, “I’ll come back on board. If you really want her, you need to find another money guy. I’m not it.” At their protests, I merely throw up my hands, rotate on my heel, and leave the boardroom.

As I exit the elevator, I catch a glimpse of red hair ducking into a cab, and I hate how my feet urge me forward, as though they have a mind of their own.

Bill is waiting at the curb, and I climb into the back. We sit for a moment, with him waiting for me to give him some direction. Going home seems even more depressing than being in the back of the car.

“Just drive around for a bit,” I say.

“That, I can do,” Bill says, shifting the car into drive and pulling away from the curb.

As I look out the window, the city zipping past, an idea—not a good one—forms. My alcohol-addled brain latches on to it, and before I can second-guess myself, Bill is headed in a new direction, one that’s sure to lead me straight to hell.