Seven Nights To Surrender

by Jeanette Grey

  He’d given up on his life and his family, on the company he’d helped build—and so what if it hadn’t been his choice? He was the one who’d let himself be corralled down his father’s path.

  He was the one who could salvage something from its ashes.

  But he’d given up on himself, too.

  With his blood roaring in his ears, he took his father’s ring, and he set it down. Let the chain that had tethered it to him for years fall by its side, and then he stared at them both on the ground.

  It was time to stop romanticizing people who’d been too flawed to save themselves.

  There was something worth saving. In his life. In his work.

  And with the girl who’d opened his eyes to all of it.

  With Kate.

  It didn’t seem to matter how hard Kate tried. Nothing was working.

  Her frugality was the only thing keeping her from tossing the stupid canvas in the trash—or better, lighting it up. Well, her frugality and her vague goal of trying to come across as sane to the others in her program. Pulling her earbuds from her ears, she glanced around the studio. No one else was paying her any attention. Still, she suppressed her groan of frustration as she dropped her brushes in the turpentine and covered her face with her hands.

  The semester had only just begun, and she was already starting to wonder if she’d made the wrong decision.

  No. That was her father talking again.

  She mentally slapped herself, pulling the brushes out of the soup and swabbing them off on her wad of paper toweling. Stabbing a little harder at it than was really a good idea for the health of the bristles, but whatever.

  She belonged here, dammit all. She was as good as the rest of the students in her cohort, and she’d worked just as hard for her spot. Sacrificed as much, if not more. She was just in a rut, was all. A big Rylan-shaped rut.

  Her heart gave a little pang, and she tightened her grip on the paint-soaked towels.

  Three months it had been since she’d left him. Since she’d walked away from him and all the amazing, incredible things he’d done for her life and her confidence. He’d made her body and her art come alive. And then he’d torn her damned heart out.

  She’d tried to paint him. Tried to process the mess he’d left of her chest in charcoal and oil. Working from grainy cell phone photographs and out-of-focus candids she’d snuck while he wasn’t looking, she’d traced the outlines of his face. And every time she’d tried to sketch in those lips or those soulful eyes, she’d just about broken down.

  She’d tried to destroy him, in her paintings. Taken him apart in a completely different way from how she had in that perfect hotel room on that perfect afternoon. Sliced streaks of crimson and black through the lying lines of his smile, blocked out the hollow of an eye and scrawled her anger across his ear as if that could make him hear her.

  Once or twice, she’d tried to worship him, too. Lovingly rendered the details of his brow line and his jaw. But that hadn’t worked for her, either.

  She hated him and she loved him, and if she spent another second dwelling on either, she’d never make it out of this mess she’d made for herself. She needed to move on. Maybe she’d made the right decision, refusing to even so much as hear him out, and maybe she hadn’t. But she’d made her choice, and she had to live with it now.

  And so here she was. Even her pictures of the rest of Paris had been soured by her memories, but New York . . . New York was home. Intent on embracing what she had instead of mourning what she’d lost, she’d taken her crappy point-and-shoot to all the corners of the city and tried to capture it. The people and the dirt and the beauty of the place. She’d tried to see it, the way she’d learned to on her trip.

  Facing her canvas again, she sighed. The city street looked dull, the line work she’d been so close to getting somewhere with in Paris contrived and stupid and pointless.

  She dragged her wrist across her brow.

  Then she picked out a brush. Squeezed a little more cerulean out onto her palette and dabbed the bristles into the paint. She closed one eye and regarded the image.

  Returning her headphones to her ears, she stepped in closer to the canvas again.

  She’d given up on Rylan, but she wasn’t giving up on this. Time healed all wounds, and soon enough, with enough hard work, she’d find her muse again.

  She’d find her self again. Here. On her own. At home.

  chapter TWENTY-SIX

  Home. Rylan turned the word over in his mind as he stared through tinted glass at the streets he’d left behind some fifteen long, pointless months ago.

  At the time, he hadn’t given a shit if he ever saw them again. He’d boarded a plane with his proverbial middle fingers up and washed the taste of the trial and his father and his wasted life away with the burn of airline whiskey. He’d left with the clothes on his back and a couple of books in a knapsack, and he wasn’t returning with a whole lot more. A single suitcase and Lexi’s briefcase.

  Kate’s sketchbook.

  Swallowing hard, he ran his thumb across the cover one last time before tucking it safely back away. He’d have his chance to face that particular bit of smoldering landscape later. First, he had a different set of fires to put out—ones he’d once thought he’d just let burn.

  But not anymore.

  Smooth as could be, the car made the turn onto Sixth Avenue, and he worked his jaw, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. Closing his eyes, he ran through his talking points in his mind.

  It was his first time entering the lion’s den on his own, and that alone made his pulse beat faster. If his father were here, he’d be drilling Rylan, checking with him over and over that he understood the plan. Rylan would’ve stared out the window as he nodded, silently stewing all the while.

  He’d put in the time. Earned the degree his father had demanded of him, worked the long hours and sacrificed everything else. The least he could ask was to be trusted to know how to do his job.

  There was no one telling him he had to be here now. Well. There’d been Lexie’s entreaties and the board’s demands, but at the end of the day, this was Rylan’s decision.

  The first one he’d made about his life in so long.

  At last, the car slowed, and he took a deep breath, opening his eyes. There it was. Bellamy International. His goddamn name in big red letters on the side of a hundred-story building, and it made something squeeze in his chest.

  No matter how much his father had ruined, this remained. It bore his name, so it was his.

  It was well past time he acted like it.

  As the driver came around to get the door, Rylan checked his watch. Five minutes to spare. Exactly as he’d planned.

  Grabbing Lexie’s briefcase, he adjusted his tie and his cuff links. Did up the button on the jacket of his suit.

  Showtime. The door swung open. And he stepped out onto the sidewalk not just Rylan, but Theodore R. Bellamy III. And like it or not, he was home.

  The whispers started before he’d made it halfway across the lobby. Tightening his grip on Lexie’s briefcase, he ate up the marble-tiled space with long, measured strides, gaze forward. He recognized one of the girls at the visitors’ desk and gave her a nod, holding a finger to his lips when she did a double take and reached for the phone. He didn’t need to be greeted, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be announced. She narrowed her eyes at him but moved her hand away from the receiver. Good girl.

  At the executive elevator, he got a whole different sort of a look from the operator. “Mr. Bellamy. We weren’t expecting you today.”

  He raised a brow and stepped into the waiting elevator car. “Good to see you, too, Marcus.”

  “Didn’t say it wasn’t good to see you, sir.” Marcus pressed the button to close the doors. His reflection in the mirror smiled. “Just didn’t know I’d get the pleasure.”

  “Ninety-fifth floor, if you would.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Rylan’s ears finally po
pped around floor eighty-two. When the doors slid open, he gave Marcus a salute. He waited until the elevator was gone before turning around to face the hall.

  Because if he hadn’t, he might’ve stepped right back into that car.

  Jesus, but it was his dad’s tastes personified. Red carpet and dark wood and all the little tricks he swore reminded your visitors that they were on your turf now.

  It was the furthest thing from home Rylan could imagine. But considering the closest he’d gotten to having one in the last ten years had been a tiny hotel room on a bread-scented rue in Paris, maybe that wasn’t saying much.

  Squaring his shoulders, he took the first step forward.

  By the time he reached the conference room, it was two p.m. on the dot. The door stood all but closed, just a crack of space revealing the room within. Silently, he nudged it wider and peeked inside.

  The scene was familiar enough. Spread out around the giant oak table were men old enough to be his father. There, at the head, was that bastard McConnell. Meanwhile, Thomas had been relegated to a seat maybe two-thirds of the way down. Rylan noted a half dozen other friendly faces and a couple of new ones. More than a couple of unfriendly ones, too. He cast his gaze wider, taking in the rest of the room. Behind the board members, in chairs pulled up to but not quite at the table, were their bevy of secretaries and PAs, and—

  And Rylan had always known it looked bad. But in the past, he’d been at the table himself, not looking in.

  Not seeing his crazy, fierce-as-hell sister sitting all alone in the corner of the room, lacking even an old white guy of her own to justify her presence there.

  A nonvoting member. That was the status Lexie had been relegated to. The shortsighted assholes. The day she came of age or Rylan figured out a way to work around the charter to get her a spot on the board, they were going to be wishing they’d never pissed her off. Because she was going to own them.

  Literally.

  Only . . . only, she didn’t look entirely her imperious self right now. Rylan tilted his head to the side, watching. Her gaze went from her notes to the head of the table, then to the clock and back again. Her chin was lifted high, her posture straight, because she wasn’t giving an inch of ground, oh no. But there was something resigned about her. Not even disappointed, but like disappointment were a foregone conclusion. Like she’d already been disappointed so many times before.

  But today, she wouldn’t be. At least not by him.

  Up at the front of the room, McConnell cleared his throat. “What do you say, gentlemen? Time we got started?”

  That was probably Rylan’s cue to make his presence known, but he smirked as he leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. Biding his time. Never let it be said he didn’t know how to make an entrance.

  “Let’s come to order then. Let the record show that this meeting of the board of directors of Bellamy International began at 2:02. Members in attendance include . . .” McConnell rattled off the names of all the gray-haireds at the table. He swept his gaze around the room, purposely passing Lexie over. “Is there a representative of the Bellamy family?”

  And there it was. He paused to the count of three, just long enough for Lex to grit her teeth and open her mouth. But before she could get the first word out, Rylan pushed the door open.

  “Why yes, there is.” He projected his voice across the room as he swept into it. A dozen heads swung around to gawk at him, and he took them all in at once. Caught the split-second of surprise on McConnell’s face before he schooled his expression. Caught Lexie’s grimace turning into what was, for her, in this room, the closest thing to a shit-eating grin Rylan had ever seen. “Two of them, actually,” he said, raising a hand in greeting to her. “Hey, sis.”

  She nodded back, eyes triumphant but smile restrained. “Theodore.”

  Ugh. He’d get her back for that later.

  Putting a little extra swagger in his step, he headed straight for the front of the room, lifting an eyebrow at the guy who’d been presumptive enough to sit in his seat. The dude went red in the face, a battle clearly going on inside him about whether or not to budge. Thomas added the weight of his stare, and the chair-stealer finally caved. Leaving his PA to pick up his stuff, he scooted a few feet down, and Rylan dropped himself into the open spot.

  Opening the briefcase, he pulled out a folder and set it on the table.

  Ever since the day his father’d been led away in handcuffs, Rylan had been fighting who he was and where he came from, afraid he’d gone too far in becoming the man his father had wanted him to be. Into a copy of himself. But in that moment, there at that table, he remembered. The rush of it washed over him. He was good at this. He’d trained at it all his life.

  He let the energy of confrontation fill him up, and then he banked it. With his posture that of a man completely at his leisure, he leaned back in his chair, twirling his pen and nodding along as McConnell fought to recover his balance and start working his way through the agenda. One by one, the other board members got over his unexpected appearance in their midst.

  Right up until he asked his first question. Then all the heads in the room turned as one.

  “What?” He pointed to the part of the document they’d been discussing. “I did the reading.”

  McConnell made a strangled-sounding noise with his throat.

  Fortunately, Thomas jumped in before McConnell’s eyes could actually pop out of his head. “Mr. Bellamy does bring up a good point.”

  Rylan swiveled back and forth in his chair as the discussion shifted. Over the course of the next hour, he left the running of the meeting to the people who’d been there all along, but he managed to keep things pointed in the direction he wanted them to go.

  The direction Lexie had laid out for him.

  He looked over at her as the tide started to turn in their favor, quirking one eyebrow in a silent question. Good enough for you?

  She made a show of heaving her shoulders as she sighed, but her smile belied it all.

  After what felt like about a million years, the meeting neared its close. Just one item left on the agenda.

  McConnell looked around the room, and Rylan could see him counting in his head. Well, Rylan had done his counting, too. “As for the matter of reversion of the Bellamy family’s controlling interest . . .” His gaze went to Rylan.

  The bastard wasn’t sure he had the votes to stay in control. Honestly, Rylan wasn’t sure he had enough support, either.

  But there was one motion he was sure he could get through.

  Rylan cleared his throat and stood. “I’d like to call for a ninety-day grace period before the vote.”

  Relief fairly rippled through the room. McConnell’s shoulders even lowered a fraction. “The motion stands,” he said. “Simple majority.”

  Hands went up in the air to the tune of aye, and Rylan sank back into his seat.

  Ninety days. Ninety days to shore up support, to devise a strategy.

  To decide exactly how far he wanted this all to go, and whether or not he was prepared to take the helm.

  The meeting adjourned shortly after, and Rylan stretched his arms over his head with a sense of satisfaction. There was still a lot to figure out, but he’d taken the first step, at least. He’d shown up. Claimed his place. And declined to let Rome burn.

  Standing, Rylan packed up the briefcase, holding off the couple of folks who seemed to want to strike up a conversation by nodding toward his sister. He made his way over to her while she was still finishing her notes.

  “So?” he asked. “How’d I do?”

  “There’s room for improvement.” She closed her folio and set her pen down. “But I think you’ve got potential.”

  He smirked. She’d begrudged him his father’s favor for so long. Even that admission felt like a triumph. “Glad to hear it.”

  Rising, she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You cut it a little close there with the timing.”

  The corner
of his lip threatened to twitch up, but he held steady, expression blank. “Sorry. Traffic across the Atlantic Ocean was a bitch.”

  “Asshole.” Her frown held for another few beats. Then all at once, it fell away and she held out her arms.

  He stepped into the hug, scooping her up.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said into his chest.

  “Thanks for the push.”

  He held her close for a long minute. There weren’t going to be any big emotional declarations here. Hell, already they’d said more than they usually did. That was how they worked. But all the same, it was apology and forgiveness. Approval and acceptance.

  Letting her go, he stepped away.

  “So,” she started, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “You want to grab a drink or something? Dinner at Ai Fiori’s? I can probably call in and get Dad’s table. God knows he’s not using it.”

  He jerked his thumb toward the door. “Nah. Just got into town this afternoon, and there are some things I need to do.”

  “Pfft. It’s been a year. No one’s going to care if you put them off another day.”

  “But I will.”

  She gave him an appraising look, and not for the first time, he felt like she could see right through him. After a second, she glanced away and shrugged. “If you say so. You have a place to stay?”

  God, he hoped he did. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Well, if you don’t . . .”

  He shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’m good.”

  “Suit yourself. Later this week, though, let’s catch up. We need to talk strategy going forward for handling all of this.” She gestured at the board table.

  “Sure.” He half turned away, one foot already edging toward the exit.

  She stopped him before he could go. “Rylan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m glad you’re home.”

  His heart did something strange and complicated inside his chest at that word. Home. “Yeah.”

  “It’s just—I don’t have a lot of people left who I can count on. Who I can trust. It’s nice to know you’re one of them.”