Page 14 of The Rival’s Obsession (The Black Ledger Billionaires #3)

T he sun is a little too bright this morning.

It slants across my office like it has something to prove, spotlighting the untouched glass of orange juice on my desk and the two aspirin beside it. I haven’t taken them yet—still deciding if I want to fix the headache or lean into it.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to quell the pressure building behind my eyes.

On my laptop screen, Eve’s media contact has delivered a masterpiece.

And it’s fucking glowing.

The piece looks like it belongs in Forbes or Fortune —clean, compelling, curated to within an inch of its life. Pictures of Dante and me standing shoulder to shoulder on the white carpet she staged in the gallery. The lighting makes us look golden. Polished. Powerful.

Exactly what we’re supposed to be.

Partner CEOs. Aligned and unshakable.

Which would be easier to believe if my phone screen didn’t currently show the exact opposite.

I glance down at the tabloid still open in my other hand, jaw clenching. That prick Corrine let hang around the charity golf event—some influencer with an orange spray tan and teeth too white to be real—the one hiding paparazzi in the damn trees.

The result is grainy, unflattering shots of Dante looking like he’s about to murder someone. Or fuck someone. Or both. And none of it screams stable corporate executive .

I exhale hard and scan the headline again:

“CEO or Savage in a Suit? Dante Marchesi Rage Stroke on the Greens.”

Fucking perfect.

My thumb hovers over Dante’s name, brushing the edge of the screen like it might summon the courage I don’t seem to have this morning. The call I should’ve made last night. Or the night before.

Movement outside my office draws my eye.

The glass double doors open, and he walks in escorting Eve with a hand at the small of her back. A guiding touch that should be polite. Should be professional.

But it isn’t.

Not when that hand drifts lower—inch by inch—sliding down until he’s nearly cupping the curve of her ass like he fucking owns it.

She lets him.

Eve struts in six-inch heels like she invented gravity, the curve of her pencil skirt a goddamn weapon. As she passes in front of him, she runs a pointed fingernail down the center of his tie, eyes flashing like a dare.

She looks like sin.

And they fucked.

They absolutely fucked.

It’s written in every languid movement, every teasing glance, every subconscious brush of skin against skin. My jaw ticks as the image forms without my permission—Dante’s body glistening with sweat as it moves over hers. His mouth, his hands, his control.

Eve’s face, blissed out and unrepentant.

My pulse surges—and suddenly I’m there. Not watching.

Participating.

Right next to him.

My hand sliding down the smooth skin of his back. Gripping his ass as we both?—

I blink. Once. Twice. Like it’ll clear the static.

When my vision refocuses, I catch movement again—Corrine, standing across the bullpen, watching them too. But then she turns, catching me in the act of catching them.

Her expression says everything she doesn’t.

I told you so.

When Corrine makes a beeline for my office doors, I decide it’s as good a time as any to pop the aspirin. Washed down with what’s left of my orange juice—now lukewarm and useless.

The door opens without a knock. Closes with a soft click.

“We need to talk,” she says, about to launch into what a piece of shit Dante is. Crap I’ve heard before.

But I don’t give her the floor. “We do,” I agree.

I tap the screen of my phone, flipping it toward her across the desk. The headline stares back in tabloid-bold font—obnoxious and impossible to miss.

“What the hell is this?” I ask, tone sharp. “Because it sure as shit doesn’t look like nothing.”

Corrine’s eyes take it in like she didn’t see it before she got here. “I haven’t seen that,” she says, but her fingers lift to toy with the solitaire diamond on its thin gold chain around her neck.

It’s the necklace she wears every day. And she always fiddles with it when she lies.

“This kind of press doesn’t just hurt him,” I say, voice low and hard. “It hurts me. It hurts the company. You want the board to take me seriously, but this? This doesn’t help.”

She seizes the opportunity like I handed it to her on a silver tray.

“Well, let’s talk about Dante then, shall we?” She gestures toward the glass, to the empty space where he and Eve stood moments ago. “You saw it just like I did. What do you think that’s about?”

“She’s doing her job,” I snap. “She’s a consultant, Corrine. She was brought in to clean things up—make us look like the united front we’re supposed to be.”

God knows I can’t tell Corrine what other specialties Eve comes with.

“You really believe that?” Her tone is soft but scathing. “Grant, you’re being naive.”

I grit my teeth.

She leans in slightly, eyes locking with mine.

“Dante’s making his move. Probably the exact one I told you to make.

Only now, he’s a step ahead. What if he brought her in to distract you while he and that woman throw down a marriage certificate in front of the board? What if they vote to push you out?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” I argue.

But something twists in my gut.

A sliver of pain at the thought. Would Dante really do something like that to me?

He is the one that holds the contract with Eve, and I never asked to look at it. I scold myself for the oversight.

I should have asked to see the terms.

Then again, if he were trying to steal the company from me and use a Ledger Companion to do it, they certainly wouldn’t write that in the comments section of the agreement.

Corrine watches the doubt flicker across my face like she’s been waiting for it.

She reaches for my hand, the movement slow, careful, and measured. I move it to the side, pretending to reach for a pen.

Her hand ends up on my knee instead, rubbing gentle circles like she’s comforting me.

“Your mother believed in you, Grant.”

My stomach turns.

“She always said you were the son who would lead with vision. The one who could change everything. You need to be that man now. Be the man she saw when you didn’t even know yourself yet.”

I hate when she does this.

Reaches for my mother’s memory like it belongs to her. Like she has the right to summon it as leverage—to wrap her voice around something sacred and wield it like a blade designed to cut through all my resistance.

But the truth is—Corrine doesn’t know who my mother saw when she looked at me.

No one knows that but me. The secret I’ll take to my grave because it sent my mother to hers.

That vision—whatever it was—died with her. And the man left standing in her place has never been sure if she would’ve loved him if she’d lived long enough to process what I had done.

It flashes then—quick, but sharp.

The intake of breath.

The way the door had slammed behind me, closing in what was about to happen.

The sound her body made when it hit the floor—softer than I expected.

The blood that spread across the marble like ink in water—slow, blooming, irreversible.

My jaw clenches, and I force the memory down, shoving it into the same dark corner I always do, where I keep the worst parts of myself out of reach. But it still hums beneath the surface, no matter how deep I bury it.

I glance toward the bookshelf like I’m looking for something to anchor me, and my eyes find the photo of her. My mother. Framed in silver, frozen in a moment that feels like another lifetime.

She’s smiling in the picture. Her eyes are soft, touched with warmth that’s almost maternal.

Almost.

Not like the last time I looked into them.

That final stare—wide, startled, not yet accepting the truth of what was happening—haunts me. I watched the light fade from her gaze, saw the exact moment her soul slipped away. And I’ve carried it with me every day since, like a bruise that never heals.

The anniversary is coming soon. It always makes the ghosts louder—more vivid—like they’ve been saving up their strength all year just to drag me back into the worst day of my life.

It was the day I stopped being a son.

The day I became the kind of man who knows exactly what blood feels like on his hands.

The kind of man who built his life on the memory of his mother’s last breath—and the secret I bury that took it.