Page 94 of The Irresistible One
“Do I have your attention?” she said when she answered.
I chuckled, the sound so deep that it rumbled through my chest. “Yes.”
“Good. Because we need to talk.”
THIRTY-TWO
SOPHIE
Ican do this.
I can open up and tell Colson why I am the way I am.
I can make him understand.
Those were the sentences I chanted before I got out of my car, walking up his driveway to his front door. He knew I was here—he had opened the gate for me a few minutes ago—so it wasn’t a surprise that as my feet reached the top step of his entrance, the door opened.
“Come with me.”
There wasn’t any warmth in his face and certainly not in his tone. His eyes didn’t dip down my body like they typically did whenever he saw me. They stayed locked on mine with a look of resentment crossing his features.
He didn’t want me here.
If I were in his shoes, without knowing my side, I would feel the same.
“I don’t want the kids knowing you’re here,” he said. “Ifthey do, you’ll be inundated, and we won’t be able to get this over with.”
“You mean talk?”
“That’s not what I would call it.” He turned and took several steps into his house, looking at me over his shoulder as I closed the door. He pointed at the first room on the right. “We’re going in here.”
Here, I soon found out, was his home office, and as he shut us in, I took a second to inventory the room. Walls that held the company’s accomplishments. Photos of him and Ellie. Furniture that was big and bold and regal. Even the lighting, a masculine chandelier, was fit for a ruler like him.
He took a seat at his desk, rocking back and forth, his hands linked in the center of his chest. “Say what you have to say.”
I was frozen several steps in, unsure of my position. There was a couch against the wall by the door, where I was tempted to take a seat. But I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for comfort. I wanted my message heard.
So, I moved closer, stopping just on the other side of his desk. “Why did you shut me out?”
His head quickly turned several inches, as though I’d just slapped him. “You think you deserve an explanation? Come on, Sophie. You knew why the moment I stopped speaking to you. How can you even question me about that?”
I slipped my fingers into the pockets of my jeans. “Why didn’t you give me an opportunity to discuss the situation with you?”
“There was no need to discuss anything. I already knew the truth.”
“And what’s the truth?”
He hissed out a mouthful of air. “That you did everything in your power to get what you could from my family, pumping the most money possible from us until you couldn’t drain anymore. And for what? So the Gordons could use that money to destroy us.” His exhale was fierce. “Do you know what that makes you?”
I’d assumed this was his stance. That was why I didn’t give up. And when Troy suggested this idea, I knew I had to follow through. I hated getting my daughter involved, but it had been the only way.
“Colson—”
“And you knew the whole time what their motive was.” The dip down my body finally happened, but it came with a look of disgust. “Every moment we spent together, every conversation we had—all of it was bullshit. At any point, was your deceit eating at you? The guilt chipping away at your fucking soul?” His chair stilled. “How in the hell were you even able to sleep at night?” He pounded his fist on top of his desk. “Walker warned me about you. He told me that no matter how much you loved my dick, your loyalty would always lie with the Gordons. I fucking hate that he was right.”
I winced at the conversation he’d had with his brother. An accusation that was partially true and equally so far from it.
“Yet for some reason,” he continued, “I justified our situation in my head, and I didn’t listen to him. And look where that got me. It got me fucked, just like the last time.”
