Page 5 of The Rival’s Obsession (The Black Ledger Billionaires #3)

I ’ve been staring out the window for hours.

The city keeps moving like it always does—horns, sirens, the occasional helicopter slicing through the June haze—but I don’t really see any of it. Just a smear of noise and glass. Distraction pretending to be focus.

Dante left Wolfe Tower in some dramatic storm-out. Didn’t say where he was going. Typical. Theatrics over substance. He’ll probably show back up whenever it suits him with that smug, untouchable air like none of this matters.

It matters.

It all fucking matters.

And he keeps treating it like a game.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to ease the pressure building behind my eyes. The headache’s been creeping in since we left Damien’s office. I haven’t even opened my laptop since we got back. Haven’t returned a single call. Because I don’t know how the fuck we fix this.

Two knocks on my door make me inhale deeply.

I don’t have to look. Only one person knocks like that—like she belongs here, but she’s still polite enough to ask.

“Come in,” I say, already softening.

Corrine steps inside, holding two foam cups with plastic lids and striped straws.

She gives me a faint smile and sets one on the edge of my coffee table without waiting for an invitation.

Banana milkshakes. She always brings them after visiting her mom, despite the fact that I’ve told her a hundred times I hate bananas.

She still forgets. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she just likes the ritual of it.

“How was she today?” I ask, stepping away from the windows.

Corrine pauses mid-sip, then shrugs. “She blinked.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was me being hopeful.”

I nod, even though I don’t know what to say. Corrine never expects comforting words. She’s been through too much for anything I could offer to make a dent.

Her story is tragic—objectively so. And I know people say that about all trauma. That pain is pain. But hers?

Hers carved trenches.

A murder-suicide. Well—attempted suicide.

We were fifteen when she stumbled over to our house. I remember the blood first. Then the way her hair stuck to her cheek. The gash above her eyebrow. She didn’t cry. Just stood there, shell-shocked and silent. It was my mom who coaxed a few words out of her.

I remember the way my mom went still. The way she sent my dad sprinting across the lawn without another word.

Corrine’s mother had caved in her husband’s skull with a riding trophy—one of the dozens that lined the shelves in Corrine’s room. Beautiful, heavy things she used to polish after school.

Corrine was dropped off early when her riding lesson was canceled, and her mother came after her too—but whatever drugs she had taken kicked in, and all she managed was the gash.

Took five stitches.

Her father died. Her mother lived.

If you can call her current condition living.

Now she sits in a psychiatric center uptown. Catatonic. No speech, no eye contact. Just a slow, rhythmic tap of one finger against the armrest of her wheelchair. Over and over. Like she’s stuck in a loop no one can break her out of.

The doctors say she’s aware. That somewhere in there, behind the slack face and unblinking eyes, she knows what’s happening.

Corrine visits her every week, like clockwork.

And then she comes here, drinks milkshakes with me, and pretends it doesn’t gut her.

I pick mine up and swirl it, if only to give my hands something to do. It’s already melting, so I put it back down.

“How’d it go with Wolfe?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Dante fucked it up, and he’s off licking his ego somewhere.”

She lifts a brow. “Want me to key his car?”

That gets a smile out of me. “Not yet.”

But maybe.

We sit in silence for a minute. The city hums outside. Her straw squeaks as she takes another drink, and I lean back in my chair, suddenly tired.

Not physically. Not even emotionally, really.

Just tired of carrying the weight of a partnership that feels more and more like a war.

She keeps holding her breath like she wants to say something but doesn’t.

Halfway through her milkshake, she changes the subject—but I know this is not what she really wants to talk about.

“Hey… do you know what those recurring charges under Dante’s codes are? Started showing up again this quarter—small line item but steady. Something about educational disbursement?”

“Yeah. That’s legitimate.” I set my cup down. “It’s for that intern, Collins, from last summer.”

Corrine looks off, as if remembering. “The one from the scholarship program?”

“Yeah.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Kid was sharp. Showed up every day, outworked half the team, and never asked for a damn thing. Dante’s been covering his tuition ever since. We tried to set up a board-managed trust, but they shot it down.”

Corrine nods slowly. “So, Dante just… paid for it himself.”

“Yeah. Quietly.”

She doesn’t say anything for a second. “Alright. I’ll bury it under consulting services. If the auditors ask, we loop it in with diversity initiatives and mentorship. No one needs to raise eyebrows.”

I meet her eyes. “Thanks.”

She offers a little shrug like it’s nothing, but her fingers tighten slightly around the foam cup. A few more deep breaths that pause at the beginning of a word she never says.

“Just spit it out, Corrine. What do you keep stalling to bring up?”

She snorts a laugh, looking at her straw like it’ll say the words for her. “You always could read me.”

“Yeah, which is why I know you’ve got something running through your mind—so spit it out.”

“Fine,” she says, dragging the word out a little too long. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something. Sort of… personal. But also… not.”

Corrine shifts in the chair, drawing a soft pop from the leather cushion. She plays with the milkshake’s straw, giving herself more time.

“The board’s two-week mandate. That clock’s ticking.”

I nod, dragging a hand down my face. “Yeah. I’m aware.”

“You know as well as I do that Dante is not going to help you fix this,” she says—not unkindly, just matter-of-fact.

She thins her lips, looking at me like she’s still debating this next part.

“Just spit it out.”

There is only one more second’s hesitation before she rushes through, “Maybe you don’t need him to.”

“What are you getting at?” Something in her tone makes me lean forward, brows pinched.

“You know the escrow clause. But there are also shares reserved for legal spouses.”

My breath hitches, and I close my eyes. I know exactly where she’s going as soon as she says the words.

She lays it out cleanly, like a business proposal. “A marriage gives you the swing vote. You’d have majority control. You could vote him out. Salvage what’s left.”

I stare at her, trying to read the fine print on her expression.

“A contract. No romance,” she adds. “No sex. Just strategy.”

I look away, toward the glass coffee table in front of us and the worn silver frame sitting on it.

It holds a photo of us as teenagers at one of my mom’s charity galas.

Corrine had just moved in with us. Her head was still bandaged, and her smile was too small, but she held on to me like I was the only stable thing in the room.

Corrine picks up the frame, brushing a thumb over the glass.

“She always said we were a good match.”

I exhale through my nose, and she hands me the frame.

I hesitate, then take it.

“I just…” I pause, turning the photo over in my hands like it might give me a different answer. “I never thought it would come to this.”

Corrine sets her cup down and gives me that I feel sorry for you smile people give. “I know this is the farthest thing from what you wanted.”

“I spent years building this thing with him—even when he made it hell. And now I might have to burn it down to save it.”

That’s all I can say. But she’s looking at me like she’s expecting me to pull a fake engagement ring out right here and say, Let’s do it.

“There’s got to be options. Some loophole we can use to force the board. Draw out the time frame.”

“Grant, I’ve already looked into every possibility. Short of a miracle—which would be Dante suddenly becoming a new person—this is your best choice. Quick and effective.”

Corrine watches me for a moment, then looks at her watch and offers a soft smile.

“I’ve got to run to my next meeting, but… think about it.” She stands, putting my untouched milkshake closer to me. “You don’t have to decide anything right now. Just… if it comes to that, you’re not alone.”

She squeezes my shoulder gently as she passes. Then she’s gone, leaving the door half closed and the weight of what she’s offered sitting squarely in my palm.

I’m still turning it over in my mind as I walk to the bookshelf behind my desk.

Sixteen years. That’s how long it’s been. The same age I was when she died. The day I swallowed down more than just grief. The day I learned how to bury secrets deep enough they stopped clawing at the surface.

I slide the photo of Corrine and me behind the one of my mother—just as the door opens behind me.

“Miss me, Glowbug?”

Christ. Dante’s voice carries like smoke—smooth, self-satisfied, and always a little flammable.

It rolls down my back like fire, and though I wanted to ignore him, I turn anyway.

And there he is. All long legs and swagger, like he owns the oxygen in the room.

But it’s the woman on his arm who stops everything.

Red dress. Perfectly tailored. Poised. Confident. Unreadable.

She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t fidget. Just takes in the room like she’s already figured it out.

Ledger Companion. I know it the second I see her.

Not just because of the way she carries herself—like a secret with legs—but because I’ve seen the uniform before. Red dress, sleek and unmistakable. Worn like armor by the women who work for The Black Ledger .

Dante’s had plenty of them. Paraded through events, meetings, after-hours functions like they’re accessories. Men too, in their all-black ensembles—every one of them polished, trained, contract-bound.

This isn’t new.

What is new is him bringing one here.

To our office.

To me.

Dante’s grin widens like he’s been waiting for me to put it together.

“Grant,” he says, tone overly polite and fucking annoying, “this is Eve Sterling.”

She extends a hand with effortless grace. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Harrow. I understand you’re the rational one.”

Of course he did it. Of course he went around me, took Wolfe’s advice, and made a move while I sat here doing nothing but thinking.

He’s got a plan.

And I have nothing.