Page 105 of Shattered Throne
When I pulled back, I rested my forehead against hers.
"Tomorrow," I said. "Tomorrow, this will all be over."
She nodded, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw.
I held her for a long moment, breathing her in, memorizing the feel of her in my arms. Then I went back to the living room, sat on the couch with Zoe, and watched two episodes of her cartoon while she explained the elaborate backstories of each character with deadly seriousness.
Later, after Zoe was in bed and Kim was curled against my side on her small couch, I stared at the ceiling and ran through the plan again.
It had to work.
It would work.
Because the alternative was losing everything, the company, my family's legacy, my chance to finally prove I was more than the spare.
More than the mistake.
More than the son who should never have existed.
I refused to let that happen.
Not now. Not when I finally had something worth fighting for. Someone worth fighting for.
Two someones, actually
19XAVIER
I woke before dawn.
Kim was still asleep beside me, her face soft in the gray light, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. I watched her breathe for a moment, memorizing the peace in her expression, the way her lashes fanned against her skin.
Today would change everything. Or destroy it. Possibly both.
I pressed a kiss to her cheek, so light she didn't stir, and slipped out of bed like a thief, which, considering I was about to con a con man, felt appropriately ironic. My clothes were scattered across her floor from the night before, but I gathered them quietly and let myself out without waking her or Zoe.
The drive to my apartment took twenty minutes. The city was just beginning to wake, delivery trucks rumbling down empty streets, the first joggers appearing in Central Park. I parked in my building's garage and took the elevator up, my mind running through the plan one more time.
Get Cole talking. Let him gloat. Record everything.
Simple. Clean. The kind of plan that sounded brilliant at 2 AM and increasingly suicidal in the light of day.
But it was the only plan I had, so.
I showered quickly and stood in front of my closet, water still dripping down my back. For the first time in my life, I didn't grab whatever was closest. I chose deliberately. Charcoal suit, perfectly tailored. White shirt, crisp and unwrinkled.
The tie Sebastian had given me last Christmas, the one I'd shoved in a drawer because it felt too serious, too corporate, too much like admitting I wanted to be taken seriously.
I knotted it now with steady hands. Or mostly steady. Close enough
The silk slid through my fingers, loop over loop, the motions automatic from years of reluctant practice. I pulled it tight, adjusted the length, and studied my reflection in the mirror.
The man looking back at me wasn't the Xavier who stumbled home at dawn with lipstick on his collar. Wasn't the Xavier who treated business meetings like inconveniences to be charmed through. Wasn't the Xavier everyone expected, the spare, the screwup, the one they wrote off before he even opened his mouth.
This man had something to fight for. Someone to protect.
Two someones, actually. Three, if you counted me.
Which I was finally starting to do.
