Page 7 of Price of Victory (The Saints of Westmont U #5)

I turned away and started pulling on my clothes with more force than necessary, trying not to think about the way his voice went rough and low when he was being deliberately provocative.

The sixth time I hated Aiden was last year, when I’d been home for winter break and my father had been ranting about some new acquisition Whitmore Entertainment was pursuing. They were trying to buy out one of our smaller competitors, he’d said, probably to use as a launching pad for bigger moves.

“Richard Whitmore is like a snake,” my father had said over dinner. “He slithers around in the grass until he’s close enough to strike. And when he does, he goes for the throat.”

My mother had tried to change the subject, but I’d seen the worry in her eyes. The way her hands had trembled slightly when she’d reached for her wineglass. The Morrison family had survived one attack from Whitmore Entertainment, but that didn’t mean we were safe from another.

And through it all, I’d thought about Aiden. Wondered if he knew what his father was planning. Wondered if he cared. Wondered if he saw our family as just another obstacle to be removed, just like he seemed to see me.

Aiden was getting dressed now, and of course he made that look effortless, too.

His clothes were expensive. Not flashy expensive, but the quietly expensive that whispered old money and good taste.

His jeans fit like they’d been tailored specifically for his body, and his sweater was probably cashmere and cost more than most people’s rent.

He ran his fingers through his damp hair, and it fell into place like he’d just stepped out of a photo shoot. It was disgusting how effortlessly beautiful he was, how he could go from naked and dripping to looking like he’d been arranged by angels in the space of ten minutes.

But it was the seventh time I hated Aiden Whitmore that really burned in my chest, the memory that made my hands shake with rage even now.

It was when my father came home from work looking like he’d aged ten years in a single day. He’d called a family meeting, something he’d never done before, and sat us down in the living room with the kind of gravity usually reserved for funerals.

“Richard Whitmore is trying to buy us out,” he’d said without preamble. “Hostile takeover. He’s been quietly acquiring shares through shell companies for months, and now he’s made his move.”

The words had struck me in the belly. Our company wasn’t just a business. It was my grandfather’s legacy, my father’s life’s work, the foundation of everything our family had built. And Whitmore was trying to steal it.

The next few months had been hell. Lawyers and accountants swarming through our house at all hours, my parents whispering in hushed tones when they thought I wasn’t listening, my mother crying in the kitchen when she thought no one could see.

I’d watched my father work eighteen-hour days, calling in every favor he’d ever earned, leveraging every relationship he’d built over thirty years in the business.

I’d seen my mother lose weight from stress, seen the way my parents’ marriage had strained under the pressure of possibly losing everything.

And through it all, I’d thought about Aiden. Wondered if he knew what his father was doing to my family. Wondered if he cared that his father was trying to destroy everything my grandfather had built from nothing.

We’d survived, eventually. Dad had managed to fight off the takeover, but it had cost us. Money, time, relationships, trust. The company had never been quite the same afterward, and neither had my parents.

“You’re brooding again,” Aiden said, and his voice was closer than I’d expected. I looked up to find him fully dressed and standing just a few feet away, that infuriating smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Just thinking about old times,” I said, pulling my own shirt over my head.

“Anything interesting?”

I wanted to tell him about the takeover, about watching my father’s hair go gray from stress, about my mother’s tears. I wanted to make him understand what his family had done to mine, what he represented just by existing.

But instead, I just shrugged and turned back to my locker, because what was the point? Aiden Whitmore had never cared about anyone but himself, and he wasn’t going to start now.

“You know,” he said, and there was something different in his voice now, something softer and more uncertain than his usual cocky confidence. “If you ever want to talk about those old times, I’m around.”

I looked at him then, and for just a moment, I saw something that might have been vulnerability flickering in his green eyes. But before I could decide if it was real or just another manipulation, it was gone, replaced by his usual mask of amused detachment.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, even though we both knew I wouldn’t.

He nodded and slung his bag over his shoulder, heading for the door. But he paused at the threshold and looked back at me, and there was something in his expression that I couldn’t quite read.

“For what it’s worth, Morrison,” he said quietly, “I never wanted any of this to be complicated.”

And then he was gone, leaving me standing there with my heart racing and my hands shaking and the terrible, treacherous thought that maybe there was more to Aiden Whitmore than the privileged asshole I’d spent nine years learning to hate.

But that was a dangerous thought, and I pushed it away as I finished getting dressed. Because no matter what I might have seen in his eyes, no matter how my body reacted to being near him, the facts remained the same.

Aiden Whitmore was my enemy. He always had been, and he always would be.

Even if sometimes, in moments like this, I forgot why that had to be true.