Man of the House: A Dark Bad Boy Romance(50)

Sure, he was my fake stepfather, but that didn’t matter. It was almost over. I believed him when he said that he was going to finish it. Good or bad, victory or defeat, I was with Carter. I didn’t love him for his money and his connections. I loved him because he was brilliant and powerful despite all of that stuff.

He was his own man and he was going to be my man.

I stood, stretched, and climbed off the stool. When the song finished, I turned off the turntable, put away the record, and straightened up the room. I smiled to myself the whole time.

I loved him and he loved me. Now he just needed to finish it once and for all.





26





Carter





I lingered in front of Evelyn’s desk, not wanting to go through with it.

I hated this plan. I hated every part of it, even though I couldn’t see a better way out. I hashed it out with Evelyn all the night before, and Emily even came up to offer her opinion. Neither of them wanted me to do it, but they both understood why I felt like I had to. As far as I could tell, there were no other good choices. No matter what I did, someone got hurt and something got destroyed. This was just the path that hurt the fewest people, and even gave me some measure of revenge.

Still, it was a disgusting and worthless thing to do. I was going to hold my nose and go through with it, but that didn’t mean I was going to like it.

“You’ll be okay,” Evelyn said.

“I know. I’ll get through it.”

“He’ll gloat. He’ll be an ass. But you’ll survive.” She grinned at me. “And then you’ll get your revenge.”

“I can handle the gloating and shit,” I said. “It’s the fact that he’s going to think he won that bothers me.”

“That’s okay, Carter. This is just one small thing in a larger plan. Once this is over, you can go on living your life and leave this all in the past.” She shrugged. “Who knows, maybe you’ll start a new company as good as Valor or better.”

“That’s unlikely,” I said. “I’m too old these days.”

“Old,” she scoffed. “You’re barely in your thirties.”

“I’m mid-thirties,” I pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a baby. You’ll do something great.”

I smiled at her and nodded. “You’re right as always.”

“Good. You’re learning.”

“Learning what?”

“Your wife is always right.”

I laughed. “Says the gay woman to the straight man.”

She grinned. “Figured it out?”

“Emily told me.”

“I knew you’d never notice on your own.”

“What can I say, that sort of thing doesn’t matter to me.”

“Sure. That and you’re totally oblivious.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, okay. I’m about to go eat shit for a few minutes, so lay off.”

“That’s fair. Good luck. Try not to swallow.”

“Don’t worry. I never swallow shit.” I nodded, waved, and headed to the elevators.

The board was called into an emergency session the night before by Bruce and me. Only part of the board was going to be present, but there would be enough people to form a quorum and to make all business official.

There was no avoiding this part. If I wanted to do what I had to do, I was going to have to get up in front of the board and resign.

Resigning from my own company was the last thing I wanted to do, and I kept thinking about all of the sacrifices I made over the years as I rode the elevator toward the boardroom.

I missed out on a normal adolescence. I was too busy starting a company as a kid to really have a lot of close friends. Because of that, I still didn’t have many close relationships, and a lot of what I did have were based on work. My life had been Valor Tech from the very beginning, even back before Valor was a thing. I worked my ass off in those early days and barely did anything but code and market that code to whoever would look at it. I got lucky and all that hard work paid off, but there were many sleepless nights where I thought that would never be the case.

Many, many good things came of Valor. I got laid, found myself, gave millions to charity, and traveled the world. People knew my name because of Valor. For every sacrifice, there were probably two or three benefits, and that was why I didn’t want to let it go.

Valor defined who I was. Running the company, or at least engaging in research and development gave me a sense of purpose. It was my whole life, and now I was about to step away from my life into uncertainty. I hadn’t been unsure of what I was going to do in a very, very long time.

I wasn’t saying it out loud, but Emily was the reason for all of this. I knew it, she knew it, and Evelyn knew it. If I was ever going to have a chance at a normal relationship with her, I was going to have to step away from Valor and give up on that part of my life. Things had gotten too bad, too complicated, too f*cking broken. I could sit around and fight all I wanted, but eventually Bruce was going to somehow find a way to destroy me, or worse, to destroy Emily.

I couldn’t let that happen. Maybe a stronger man would fight harder to keep his company, but I thought I was making the realistic, most difficult sacrifice imaginable. What I was doing was honorable and noble and right. I was giving up a dying dream in exchange for love, which was something I never imagined for myself.