Page 73 of Colton

I turn on my heel, walking straight into the drawing room, and allowing the door to slam shut behind me. There she is, sitting in a chair, sipping on milk tea – her favorite – and looking up at me when I enter.

“Colton,” she says, without standing up to greet me properly. She places the cup back onto the saucer, straightening in her seat. “Sit. It’s not a social call.”

“It never is with you,” I drawl, sitting across from her. “What did you tell Avalon?”

A small smirk tugs at the corner of her lips. “The truth. I merely introduced myself as your wife.”

You could’ve heard the pin drop.

“You did what?”

“What?” She smiles innocently. “I wasn’t exactly lying.”

My jaw clenches. “We’ve been divorced for fifteen years. Have you lost your goddamn mind? You’re married with children, Kat! What was the point of this?!”

“You kept me waiting,” she shrugs. “And I got bored. I thought why not have some fun? She’s adorable, exactly your type, too. But it’s sweet you’re counting the years we’ve been divorced,” she winks, and I want to strangle her to death.

Kat and I married when we were twenty. It was an arranged marriage, and although there was no love involved, we had an understanding – which was to get our families off our backs. We developed several successful businesses together over the years we’ve been married, and as soon as Kat had enough money to stand on her own two feet, she filed for a divorce.

It was a mutual decision. She realized down the line that she was into women, and staying in a marriage with a man was definitely not something she wanted, and I wasn’t willing to spend the rest of my life with a wife who hated me.

“Speaking of her,” I say, trying to keep calm. “Does your wife know you’re here?”

“Obviously,” she scoffs. “Tina sends her regards. Now, I’ll set the record straight with Avalon if you want, I just wanted to have some fun first.”

“No need, you’ve done enough already.”

“Shame,” she pouts. “Anywho, I’m here for business.”

Her tone shifts, and so do I. As much as I’d like to go and run after Avalon, it’s better to let her cool off before I start offering any explanations for Kat’s deranged behavior. Since Kat always sends her assistants in her place, the fact that she’s here herself speaks volumes.

“What is it?”

“Our stocks dropped by fifteen percent in the past two weeks,” she says, and I freeze for a moment. “Two of our major investors want to pull out.”

“What? Why?”

“What the fuck did you do to Maxwell, Colton?”

The accusatory tone lands like a well-delivered slap. That goddamned night replays in my head, and I have to close my eyes for a moment to keep myself from getting angry. I knew he’d speak out eventually, I didn’t think it’d be this soon.

“Nothing much,” I say, trying to shrug off the terrible feeling that’s sinking in my stomach. “We may or may not have tried to extort information out of him using less-than-savory means.”

Kat narrows her eyes at me. “Elaborate on that.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I wasn’t asking,” she grits out, hands clenching on her lap. “Colton, I don’t care what you do, as long as it doesn’t harm the business. This, evidently, is harming it, and I need to know.”

“It wasn’t legal,” I breathe out. “I don’t want you implicated in any of this.”

She leans back into the chair, closing her eyes for a moment. Then, she stops speaking altogether for what seems to be an eternity. The silence stretches around us, thick and uncomfortable, and I’m barely struggling to hold myself back from going and killing Maxwell and getting it over with.

When Kat opens her eyes, it’s something akin to resignation behind them. She sighs, straightens up in her chair, and grabs her cup of tea, the liquid gone cold already.

“Why would you do that?”

“There are certain pieces of evidence that suggest Maxwell’s behind the robberies and the murder.”