I was shocked by how long I’d kept my mouth shut while Arthur was trying to put his hands down Heather's pants. They'd danced for only a few minutes before she returned back to the table and held Max on her hip. It was no surprise that Arthur followed shortly after, then tried to be all cute with Max to gain brownie points from Heather. I'd been clenching my jaw right from the beginning, hoping that Heather would recognize his intentions. Maybe she did and didn't care that he wanted to sleep with her. Could I blame her? Things had been weird between us both, and we weren't technically in a relationship, so there was nothing stopping her from doing anything that she wanted to with another man. That, however, didn't change the intense rage that I felt taking over me. I knew Heather way more than she thought I did, and the woman was also oblivious to the fact that she was sexy as hell. I was well aware that men like Arthur Bridge would flock around her if she put herself out there, and it'd killed me to tell him that we weren't together, thereby giving him the free pass to hit on her.

But when he extended his arms to take Max from her, something came over me and all I wanted to do was lift him up and throw him into the wall. But instead, I settled on asking him to keep his hands off Heather. They both turned their heads toward me like I'd spoken the unthinkable. Kelly and Scott, too, were staring at me. I noticed that Scott had a bit of a grin on his face. The guy was known to take pleasure from stupid shit that involved other people. I ignored all the attention that I'd garnered and fixed my gaze on Arthur, who was now moving closer.

"You said you weren't with her, man," he said, and I responded with silence.

He held up his hands and turned around. I assumed that was the end of it. He would now be on his merry way and leave us alone. Arthur was a good friend, despite his reputation with the ladies, and I was certain that we'd sort through it later.

But then, to everyone's surprise, he was at it again. He offered his index finger to Max and let him wrap his hand around it. When I noticed that he’d raised his other arm to place on Heather's waist, I sprinted toward him before he'd had a chance, then held his wrist and twisted it.

"What the fuck man," he yelled, yanking on my shirt. I held on to his collar and our faces were so close together that I could see the pupils in his eyes.

"Hey. Hey!" Scott ran toward us. "Okay, that's enough."

Heather had moved away with Max, who'd started crying. She was swinging side to side, trying to calm him down, when I looked at her. She swallowed and didn't say a word when I moved my head around and noticed that most people's eyes were on us.

Arthur groaned and approached the door, and for that, I was instantly thankful. But I knew I'd fucked up.

Danielle and Zander got back to the table and glared at me. Danielle and Kelly started talking to Heather while I stood with Scott and Zander, trying to explain myself in vain.

"He was being inappropriate."

I gritted my teeth. There was no point.

Heather had left the hall already and I had no good explanation for what had just happened. The best one was that I was jealous. The one word that didn't exist in my vocabulary until I met the woman who’d wrecked my world. I was jealous and protective of her, not wanting another man to as much as touch her.

Friendships were important to me, but I didn't think twice before butchering my rapport with Arthur if it meant that he would back the fuck off. But that wasn't what I felt bad about. I'd probably come across as an angry motherfucker in front of Heather's friends.

She'd been excited for me to meet Danielle and Kelly for the first time, and she couldn't have been happy about the negative impression that I was leaving them with.

Zander placed his hand on my shoulder and nodded, giving me the impression that he got why I did what I did.

"Come on. You're going to need this before you go out there to talk to her."

He ordered a tequila shot and handed it to me.

"Aren't you having one?"

He filled his chest with air.

"Nah. Never been a fan of alcohol, and now I've got to take care of my health."

The man was built like a brick, his shoulders were broad, and I could very well mistake him as a professional athlete. I assumed he was just a health freak before he told me that he had minor heart issues that were now under control.

He looked at Danielle, who was not-so-subtly checking to make sure that no drop of alcohol touched his lips.

"She used to be quite the partier." He grinned. "Things change when you're in love. I'm sure you know."

I smiled and shrugged, then raised the shot of tequila.

"Cheers."

"To love," he finished, then nodded at the door, on the other side of which Heather was sitting and probably hating me.

"And for the record, Heather's got a whole lot of patience and she's extremely loyal. I should know. She put up with me for years."

For a little while, I'd forgotten that he used to be her boss until a year ago. I told Zander that we'd have to catch up and have a chat sometime. I wanted to hear more about Heather's adventures in a corporate setting. Scott invited himself to the conversation and said he'd love to join as well. I didn't want to be rude, so I played along. I'd already been enough of an asshole for one day.

When I pushed the door open, I found Heather sitting by the café in the lobby and placing a kiss on Max's head.

She stiffened when she saw me.

"Hey," I said awkwardly.

"Hey," she responded and looked away, rubbing the back of her neck. It was her nervous tic.

I pulled out the chair across from her and apologized.

"I could have handled that better." I was only regretful of the way that things had gone down in there. But I didn't regret the fact that I'd reacted to whatever it was that Arthur was doing.

Heather needed to know that I was possessive about her, that I cared if another man touched her or tried to get close to Max with an agenda to eventually get to her. Maybe this wasn't an extreme example, but I could see a lot of men doing exactly that. As smart as she was, Heather would sometimes not see people's true intentions. It's what I happened to like about her too, her pure heart and the fact that she always saw the good in everyone.

She pressed the inner corners of her eyes and refused to look at me.

"I knew this would happen."

"If you knew that it would happen, then why did you have to go dance with him?"

She tilted her head to the side with a frustrated look.

"It was just one dance, Brad. I didn't see any harm in shaking a leg next to the guy."

I'd balled my fingers into fists by then.

"You weren't just shaking a leg next to him," I hissed. "You let him put his arms around you."

She shook her head, but it wasn't a look of regret that I saw on her face.

"This isn't working, is it? Being friends? I knew this would happen. That's what I meant when I said that. I knew we wouldn’t be able to go back to what we used to be before we jumped into bed together. It's why I wanted to keep my distance from you. To not move in with you. I didn't want to lose you forever."

She was on the verge of tears, and my heart ached to see how worked up she was getting.

I touched the back of her hand. "You will never lose me."

She grimaced. "Don't give me that false story, Brad. Just . . ."

Heather stood and dropped Max's pacifier into her bag.

"I was going to go back inside after a little while, but I think I just need to leave," she said, then pulled out her phone.

"Let me drop you home," I offered, but she called a cab to the hotel anyway.

She slid her bag over her shoulder and said she'd see me later.

I watched her leave, keeping my eyes on her for as long as I could.

* * *

Corey came by the condo later in the evening. He'd asked me if I was home yet because he was aware that I had some personal plans that day. Plans that were cut short due to my rage getting the best of me. I punched a code on the security system when I saw his face on the screen.

He looked around when he entered, his glance landing over a bottle of milk on the kitchen island that Heather had mistakenly left behind. The man was perceptive, and I was sure that a million things were cooking up inside his head. But of course, he didn't say any of those things out loud and simply placed his backpack on my coffee table, sliding out a sealed document.

"This is what the investigator handed me," he said.

I ran my fingers across it then tore it open from the side. Judging from his look, he wasn't expecting me to open the damn thing in front of him because of how personal I'd made it sound to him. Though I was certain that he was dying to know who this Wayne guy was and why he was of interest to a man like myself. In fact, it would be weird if he weren't curious. It wasn't every day that a high-profile businessman showed any interest in the life of a struggling artist.

"So," I said, settling into the couch. "The guy was offered a movie deal a year and a half ago. In Europe, no less."

Corey was becoming fidgety in his seat, still not sure why I was telling him anything that I was reading in the investigator's report. But he didn't complain and was listening with interest.

"Sir, please don't hesitate to let me know what you'd like for me to do next."

"I'd like for you to arrange his murder," I said with a serious face, then laughed and pointed at his dumbfounded expression.

Though, I really wished at the moment that I could have him beaten up. I hated that he'd shown up and torn my relationship apart, and I barely even knew anything about the asshole.

"The movie went to shit, the project shut down, and now he's back in the States." I smirked and tossed the file on the coffee table.

Corey glanced over at the photos that spread across the papers.

“It looks like he's homeless."

I nodded, then leaned forward to pick one up and take a close look. Wayne had a long beard, a lion tattoo on his forearm, and sharp features. If he didn't look like an absolute mess in those photos, I might have been able to see what Heather saw in him, but as of then, all I saw was an utter failure. It was a shame that Max would have to live with the fact that his biological father was a complete nut job for the rest of his life, though I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure the kid would never feel like he didn't have a dad.

It had become clear to me that Wayne needed Heather's help to get back on his feet. If he were indeed homeless like it was indicated in that report, then he was definitely after money, which Heather didn't really have much of. It was expensive to live in the city, and she'd been saving every little penny for her son. But you'd have to be blind to not notice that she was kind and would do anything to help another person out, even if that person was Wayne, who'd broken her heart and left her for shit to run off to Europe so he could become a star or whatever it was that he hoped to become.

I knew exactly what I needed to do and how. I laid out a plan of action and instructed Corey without feeling the need to remind him that it was to be kept under wraps.

After that, the conversation shifted to business when he told me he had some news.

Apparently, Sheikh Azeera's employees had been trying to contact me for days, but they were being told that I was busy. It's what I always instructed Kimberly to do. After a client rejected my firm, they wouldn't get a minute of my time unless it was a matter of life and death or if the client was having second thoughts. I didn't indulge in meaningless discussions with people regardless of who they were.

"I know your time is valuable, sir," Corey said. "But I think it would be worthwhile to have a talk with Azeera's team. I've tried to extract information from them, but O'Leary wouldn't budge. He said that the Sheikh is hell-bent on speaking to you himself.”

I let out a sigh. "I don't like my firm being a client's second choice."

Corey stood and rubbed his hands together. "I completely understand, though something tells me that you're no longer their second choice. My guess is that HC Accounting fucked something up. It's very possible that Azeera's team has concluded that they made a mistake by picking HC over Coleman Advisory. In that case, our firm would indeed be their first choice . . . now."

I gave him a half-smile. The thought of my father fucking up something so huge definitely made me giddy.

"Sure, let's set up a call for tomorrow evening," I said, aware that I was referring to Saturday evening, which most people didn't work on. For some of my employees, however, the concept of weekends wasn't going to exist for a little while longer or until our plans for the massive expansion began to materialize. I wasn't forcing any of these people to work over weekends or extra hours. They'd simply volunteered to because they knew this type of dedication would set them up for future promotions.

"Tomorrow sounds good," Corey said. "I will also take care of withdrawing fifty thousand dollars from the bank tomorrow morning.'

Needless to say, that huge sum of money was meant for Wayne Holt.