Page 71 of This Might Hurt

ANDREW

It’s been raining nonstop since my plane landed in New York.

I’ve had meetings all week at the Innes Group company headquarters, while I stay in my rarely used apartment in Lower Manhattan.

It’s always freezing, and it feels like living in a stranger’s house.

I didn’t even recognize the furniture when the staff removed the white dust covers.

I catch myself instinctively searching for stupid things—is the elevator wheelchair accessible, could Jude smoke on the balcony, would he enjoy sharing this bed with me, stretched out naked in the gray morning light.

I can feel the security staff in the lobby of the Innes Group high-rise watching me curiously as I swipe through the turnstile.

I ruined the merger, disrespected my grandfather’s memory, and now I’m traipsing around preparing to take over.

I’m an oddity and a scandal all at once, and everyone wants to know what I’ll do next.

My plan was to duck upstairs and confirm a scheduling question with the executive assistant, but Colin is waiting outside the elevator on the top floor like a fucking jumpscare. “Your office is ready, sir,” he announces, mimicking the subservient tone of our office manager.

He’s been exactly like himself since I got back, but with a dangerous glint in his eye like if I so much as breathe wrong, he’ll be at my throat.

I haven’t seen Archie at all. Colin says he went to Boston to meet with Daxton’s family, but I can’t convince myself it’s not a mind game.

Every time I hear footsteps behind me in the halls, I spin around with my heart racing.

“What office?” I shift my satchel from one shoulder to the other, trying not to look uneasy. “I’m using the one downstairs until October.” When the interim CEO steps down and I take over, I’ll occupy a suite on the top floor. Until then, I’d rather be torn to pieces by wolves than work up here.

“We can’t have the favorite boy knocking around with the bottom feeders.” Colin shakes his head chidingly. “You belong up here with us.”

My heart sinks as he strides away, leaving me no choice but to follow.

He leads me into the C-Suite that I’ll be sharing with the two of them in my own living hell.

He shoves the door to Grandfather’s office open without ceremony, and I suck in a breath.

It’s been stripped bare, fifty years of mementos and documents and history reduced to a generic room you could find in any building.

“We threw all his shit in the garbage to make room for you,” Colin explains. “Archie said that’s what you wanted. Enjoy.”

I know they’d never destroy Hugh’s things, but it still hurts.

I didn’t want to erase him. Or maybe I did.

I don’t know anymore. There’s only one path for me, one straight line of cause and effect that led me here, but I’m starting to lose track of where it started and where it’s taking me.

Even though I have power now, there’s something hopeless about this place that I didn't feel when I was powerless.

He leaves me there, like he wants me to wallow in it.

The bastards even took the magnificent hardwood desk and replaced it with some laminate veneer monstrosity.

Skirting it, I study the incredible view down Water Street, streaked over by rain on the glass.

Soon I’ll know every detail of this scenery until it’s too boring to even glance at.

The room is so gloomy I can barely see from one side to the other.

“It’ll look better in the sun,” I say out loud to myself.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I wrench it out so fast I almost send it flying across the room.

If it was a text from Jude, I could make it through another day.

But just like all of the last week and a half, it’s only an alert for my next meeting.

He hasn’t answered a single one of my texts.

I can’t stop worrying about how the last two still show as unread.

I jump when someone knocks quietly on the door frame.

“Your grandfather had these great things called light switches,” a gravelly voice offers from behind me.

“I know you’re trying to reinvent the company, but us old men still have some good ideas.

” As if to illustrate his stupid joke, Rex, the chairman of the board and interim CEO, flicks a switch that floods the room with artificial light.

I study the craggy, dour man assessingly.

He’s old guard, one of Hugh’s closest colleagues.

He’ll try to use his board seat to block every change I make, the same way I’m trying to block Archie.

There are so many powerful men scheming in this drab skyscraper that I’m not sure how anything gets done.

It would be comical if it wasn’t my life they want to ruin.

“I never said I’m trying to reinvent anything.

” I cross my arms and perch on the edge of the empty desk, because that’s a power move I’ve seen a thousand times and it’s the only thing I can think to do.

“Oh, Archie told me all about what you’re going to try and do.” He smiles thinly. “Dismantle legacy projects, start a sustainability branch, push your weight around. We’ve been here a long time, son. We know everything you’re going to try, probably better than you do.”

“Just like how Archie knew I wouldn’t be at the funeral?”

He coughs out a bitter laugh. “I’m talking about business. If you want to embarrass yourself publicly, that’s your own problem.”

I watch him, my face betraying nothing as I shut my brain off and slow my breathing until the fear eases.

Once I got a taste of revenge, I thought I’d never have to do this again.

In less than a week I’ve crept back to it like I never left.

When he shrugs and disappears, I realize my jaw is clenched so tight my teeth hurt.

I’ve gone to bed every night this week with a throbbing headache in my temples.

I run late to all my meetings the rest of the day, enduring everyone’s veiled insults, then escape to meet Grant at the curb.

Since it’s Friday night and my uncles are too busy to go home, my bodyguard is driving me up to Carrick so I can catch my breath and visit Sid.

Even that excitement feels tainted, because I can’t stop wondering if Sid would have enjoyed moving out west.

“Evening, sir.” Grant always seems taken aback if I sit in the front next to him instead of behind, but tonight I don’t care. My miserable body needs to be as close as possible to someone who doesn’t hate me. “Good day?”

I shake my head, then sit back and study the dark, rain-soaked street as he navigates expertly through evening traffic. My stomach growls, and I realize I don’t remember if I’ve consumed anything besides coffee since lunch yesterday.

My head almost bangs the window when Grant takes a sudden left and pulls into the parking lot of a tiny health food store. “No, I’m fine.” I slide down in my seat and pull my jacket up around my cold ears. “But feel free to get something if you want.”

Grant shakes his head firmly, glaring out the window in the faint yellow overhead light.

“Then why did we stop? We’re already not going to get there until midnight.” When I look around, I realize we’re a few blocks away from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, which leads east toward the airport.

Grant sighs, then lifts his chin. He doesn’t just glance at me—for the first time I can remember, he searches my eyes with his piercing blue ones.

It’s more than a little intimidating, and I’m the first one to look away.

“That day you disappeared,” he rumbles haltingly, “I didn’t make you go back.

I would have taken you anywhere you asked. ”

My heart sinks. “Grant, don’t start this.”

His massive jaw flexes with determination, and I realize he’s not listening to me. “There’s a plane ready at LaGuardia; you can pick the destination. The exit’s right there. Tell me that’s what you want, and I’ll take you.”

“Absolutely not.” The answer comes quickly. I want to be here. I have no other desires or dreams. The man I love will come back to me, because I’m right. I’ve repeated it to myself every day like a mantra until it starts to sound true.

Grant leans back in his seat, letting go of the wheel for the first time. I can’t read his face, because it literally always looks the same, but his body language seems disappointed. “I understand. But sir—Andrew. I’m afraid I have to resign. I’m sorry.”

My jaw drops. He could have said any combination of words in the English language and it would have made more sense to me. “What?”

He opens his door and gets out of the car.

“Wait, what the fuck?” I scramble frantically over the center console, struggling with my long legs, and catch the door before he can shut it. “What are you doing? You can’t just leave me here.”

“I’m not.” He holds up his phone. “Your family’s driver Martin is in the city. I’ll call him to pick you up and wait with you until he arrives.”

“Let’s go inside and get a coffee or something and take a breath. Whatever melodramatic point you’re trying to make, you’ve made it.” I sound panicked, like a small child melting down as their parent walks away.

He crosses his bulky arms, blinking as rain hits his face.

“Respectfully, sir, I have made my decision. I’ll speak to your uncle tomorrow about my security de-briefing and any contractual penalties.

” Taking pity on me, he comes back to the open car door and lowers his voice.

“I’ve given you everything I can, but I cannot watch them do this to you. ”

“No, you don’t understand.” I grab his arm, as if my puny grip could somehow stop him from walking away. “I chose to come back. I have a plan to ruin them.”

He shakes his head stubbornly, his eyes searching my face.

“I’ve always admired you, Andrew. No matter what they did to you, you always stayed kind and funny and good.

They didn’t have any power over you. Now they have what you want, and they will use it to drag you around until there’s nothing left of you. I can’t watch you disappear.”

I don’t think he’s ever said so much at once in his life. And maybe that’s why, out of everyone who has tried to explain, who has begged me to understand, who has taunted me with it, these are the words I finally hear.

“Grant…” My voice cracks apart into an embarrassing, choked sob.

I want to look away, but I don’t have anywhere to hide.

“I’m scared. They fucked me up. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.

” Without thinking, I throw my arms around him and bury my face in his bulky, comforting shoulder.

He stiffens, then eases up a little and hugs me back with the awkwardness of someone who hasn’t embraced another human being in decades.

“I know,” he says quietly. “You did your best. You’re stronger than any of them.”

Maybe it’s true, but right now I feel like the most fragile thing in the world, damp and small and shivering as the last pieces of who I thought I was drain away into nothingness. There might be freedom waiting on the other side, but I’m too busy breaking down to find it.

“Andrew?” he asks, resting his chin on top of my head. “Do you want to go to Wyoming?”

I nod frantically against his shoulder. “Please.”