Page 77 of Threaded Lies

“Come on now, guys.” Chad steps out into the hallway from his office and in between us, his hands held up. “Rhett? She’s right. This isn’t your campaign headquarters. You need to get the signs out of here.”

Rhett looks at him with narrowed eyebrows. “Wow.”

“My fiancée.” Chad points to me. “My friend.” He points to Rhett. Then he shrugs and wins me over a little more.

“Thank you,” I say with a nod despite Rhett’s less than thrilled stare.

“Yeah. Sure.” Rhett rolls his eyes. “This was just a stopping place between delivery and placement. It wasn’t like I was going to leave them here.”

“Great. Then they can be gone in the next couple of hours.” I start to walk away and his words stop me.

“When did you become like this?” Rhett asks to my back.

I turn and look over my shoulder. Our eyes meet and I hate the slightest bit of sadness I see in the depths of his eyes. “The same could be asked of you,” I say softly.

I feel their eyes on my back as I walk down the rest of the hall.

“Rowan. Wait up.”

I stop at the sound of Chad’s voice and plaster a smile on my lips for all to see as I turn to face my beloved fiancé.

“Chad. Hi.”

His eyes dart down to my hand holding my purse, almost as if to make sure the ring is still on. It is, but damn if it isn’t hard wearing it most days.

“I got your text,” he says.

“Conference room.” It’s my only response. The last thing I need is for Chad to discuss anything I hinted at in my text to him.

We step inside and he shuts the door at his back. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to say anything that could be overheard.” He sounds offended. I don’t really care.

“So what’s going on with your uncle?” I ask.

Chad glances over his shoulder at the closed door. “He said he needed to take another look at the paperwork again and its wording.”

“It’s his wording. Does he not know what he wrote?”

“I don’t know. It would be way easier if you just told me what it is you’re after.”

I take a leap of faith and give Chad a half-truth. Something to tell him the reason for the expediency and the huge ask. “I have to be married by a set date, and then I have to remain married for a specific time frame before I can take possession of what she left me.” I take care with my phrasing and make it sound like I’m referring to something like Gran’s real estate, rather than the large lump sum of money.

While Chad may be “engaged” to me, I’m more than aware his loyalty to my brother is stronger. The last thing I want him doing is blabbing about any of this, so I made sure not to give him anything more than he already really knows. A time frame.

“Okay.” His eyes narrow as he processes what I’ve said. “And what you want him to throw out is the time frame?”

“Yes.” I glance at Rhett walking past the conference room and looking in at the two of us.

“You want it faster,” he says and then corrects himself, “whatever your inheritance may be, faster.”

“Correct.”

“Because you want to take the money and run?” he asks.

“Because I want to take the money and improve my standing here. Isn’t that why you approached me? So that we could strip away some of Holden’s power and hold on to it ourselves. Create as much of a checks-and-balances system as we can?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He says the words but I still see the man hoping for more with me. Call me a bitch for playing on it. “So it’s longer than six months, then?”

“Just a bit,” I lie.