Chapter 142 More anger
Greyson
My phone vibrated on the café table, the buzz cutting through Ella's voice mid-sentence. She'd been telling me something about Sophia's preschool a story about finger painting and a minor catastrophe involving glitter glue and I'd been half-listening, nursing my third espresso of the morning and watching the street traffic roll by. I was asking Ella about Cassie's grandmother's ring that got lost and the design .
It was one of those perfect New York autumn mornings, the kind that made you forget about the brutal summers and the punishing winters. The air was crisp, the sky impossibly blue between the buildings, and the sidewalk café where Ella had suggested we meet was doing brisk business with the breakfast crowd.
When I saw Cassie's name flash across my screen, my heart did this stupid, hopeful leap that I'd been doing for the past twenty-four hours. She'd been radio silent since she'd left Cape Town no response to my calls, my texts, my increasingly desperate voicemails. I'd known she was traveling for work but hadn't known where, and the silence had been eating at me.
Maybe this was her finally responding. Maybe she was telling me where she was, inviting me to meet her. Maybe we could finally have the conversation we'd been dancing around for weeks—the one about where this relationship was actually going.
Then the image loaded, and my blood turned to ice.
It was me and Ella, captured from a distance but unmistakably us. The angle was damning her hand on my forearm, both of us leaning in close, smiling. To anyone who didn't know the context, who didn't understand that this was just coffee between two people who shared a complicated history through no fault of their own, it looked intimate. It looked like a date. It looked like betrayal.
Cassie's caption was a knife between the ribs, twisted with surgical precision: "I see you've moved on to the next Hunter sister. Congratulations."
"Damn it," I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. The coffee in my stomach turned to acid. My chest constricted with a sick, hollow feeling that radiated outward until my fingers tingled with it.
Ella leaned forward, trying to see what had caused my reaction.
"What's wrong?"I turned the phone toward her wordlessly. Watched as her blue eyes Cassie's eyes were warmer and darker but somehow completely different scanned the image and the text. Watched as understanding dawned, followed immediately by guilt.
"Oh." She bit her lip, that familiar Hunter trait of catastrophic understatement. "Cassie has a flair for the dramatic. She always did." ven as she said it, her voice lacked conviction. She reached out, touching my forearm again in what was meant to be a comforting gesture but now felt like damning evidence. "Greyson, we were just having coffee. She'll understand once you explain. You just need to call her and tell her the truth."
I knew she wouldn't understand. Not after what Ella had done. Not after Dante. Not after the rehearsal dinner that had ended in a coat closet and resulted in a beautiful little girl who would forever be a reminder of the worst betrayal Cassie had ever experienced.
The history between these sisters wasn't just complicated it was a minefield, booby-trapped with pain and resentment and the kind of wounds that never quite heal. And I'd just stumbled right into the center of it, blundering along like an idiot who thought good intentions were enough to protect against collateral damage.
"She's here," I said, more to myself than to Ella. "She's in New York. She took that photo herself. She saw us."
Ella's face went pale. "I didn't know she was coming back. She hasn't been back since... since the wedding." She stumbled over the word, as she always did. The wedding that never happened. The wedding that had been canceled at the last minute because the bride had walked in on the groom and the maid of honor in a moment that shattered everything.
I was already pulling up Cassie's number, my thumb hovering over the call button, trying to figure out what the hell I could possibly say that would make this better. How did you explain something that looked so incriminating? How did you make someone believe in your innocence when the photographic evidence suggested otherwise?
Dante came in with Sophia
"Grey? You need to fix this," Dante's voice was tight, urgent in a way that made my stomach drop even further. "She just saw me and Sophia outside . She looked... shattered, man. Completely shattered. Like she'd been hit by a truck,then I find out you were with Ella? What were you thinking?"
The accusation in his tone, the judgment from a man who had no right to judge anyone when it came to Cassie Hunter, ignited something hot and defensive in my chest. "I wasn't with Ella," I snapped, loud enough that the couple at the next table glanced over. I lowered my voice but kept the edge. "It was just coffee! She called me yesterday, said she needed to talk about something important.l How was I supposed to know Cassie would be in New York? She didn't tell me she was coming! She doesn't tell me anything anymore!"
The last part came out more bitter than I'd intended, revealing a frustration I'd been trying to ignore for weeks. The distance between us had been growing, subtle but unmistakable. The unanswered calls. The shortened conversations. The way she'd pull away when things got too intimate, too real.
"That's not the half of it, man," Dante continued, and something in his tone made me straighten in my chair. He sounded serious in a way that transcended the immediate crisis. "I just got off the phone with Kelly you remember her? She's been working on some maritime contracts lately, doing due diligence for a client looking to partner with Hunter Maritime."
"So?"
"So the deal Cassie closed with Aiden Massa? It wasn't for some mid-level marketing position like she told everyone. Her father promoted her, Grey. She owns the entire Maritime Division now. She's the head of the whole damn thing. The marketing title was a front, a cover story. Cassie isn't just a corporate player working her way up the ladder. She's the goddamn board. She's been the board for months now."
The words hit me like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs and leaving me gasping.
All this time—all these months we'd been together, all these conversations we'd had about work and stress and career goals—I'd thought I was the one with the real power. I'd thought I was the successful one, the one who'd made it, the partner who could offer her guidance and support as she navigated the treacherous waters of her family's business.
I'd pictured myself as her rock, her support system. The stable, successful attorney who could help her manage the pressure from her demanding father. I'd felt... important. Needed. Like I was the one who had his shit together while she was still fighting for recognition and approval.
How many times had I offered her advice about corporate politics? How many times had I explained business strategy to her over dinner, mansplaining concepts she probably understood better than I ever would? How many times had I talked about my cases, my victories, my career progression, while she'd smiled and nodded and asked all the right questions?All along, she'd been running a division worth hundreds of millions. She'd been commanding shipping routes across the entire southeastern United States, the Caribbean, parts of Latin America. She'd been closing deals.
She'd been playing in a league I couldn't even comprehend, and she'd let me believe I was the one who'd made it. She'd let me condescend to her. She'd let me feel superior.
Why?
The hurt from her message that accusatory photo with its biting caption—curdled in my chest. It mixed with this new betrayal, this revelation of a fundamental lie, until it became something toxic. Something hot and sharp and consuming.
It became anger.
Not the cold, calculated kind of anger that I used in courtrooms, the kind I could control and wield like a scalpel. This was messy, wounded anger. The kind that clouds judgment and burns bridges. The kind that makes you do things you can't take back.
"Grey? You still here?" Dante's voice pulled me back to the present.
"Yeah," I said, my voice hollow and distant. "I'm here."
"Look, man, I know this is a lot to process,you need to talk to her. Explain about Ella she probably jumped to the worst conclusion, which, given our history, is understandable. And maybe... maybe don't lead with the promotion thing. She probably had her reasons for keeping that quiet. Valid reasons that have nothing to do with you."
I was already standing, already throwing a fifty dollar bill on the table to cover our coffees and a generous tip. My chair scraped against the pavement, harsh and jarring. "I have to go."
"Greyson, wait—don't do anything stupid"
I walked . Ella was saying something, concern creasing her delicate features, but I barely heard her. The words were just sounds, meaningless noise against the roaring in my ears.
I needed to see Cassie. I needed answers. I needed to understand why the woman I'd been with for eight months the woman I'd started to imagine a future with had lied to me about something so fundamental. Had made a fool of me. Had let me parade around like I was someone important while she was the one with real power. I waited for the next day.
The walk to her building should have cooled me down. It was only about ten blocks, and the morning air was crisp enough to clear heads and calm tempers. I passed the same New York scenery I'd walked through a thousand times the coffee shops, the boutiques, the dog walkers and joggers and businesspeople hurrying to their important meetings.
Instead of calming down, I felt the anger solidify with each step. It became something cold and hard in my chest, displacing everything else the love I'd felt for her, the concern for her wellbeing, the desire to understand. All of it got pushed aside by this toxic sense of betrayal.
By the time I reached her building in Tribeca, I'd constructed an entire narrative in my head. She'd been playing me. Using me. Maybe I was just a placeholder, someone to pass the time with while she focused on her real goals. Maybe our entire relationship had been a joke to her, a bit of slumming with someone she thought was beneath her station.
The thoughts were unfair, irrational, fueled by wounded pride more than any actual evidence. But I was too far gone to recognize that.
Timothy the doorman, looked distinctly uncomfortable when I walked through the doors. He'd seen me dozens of times over the past months, had always been friendly and professional. Now he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
"Is Ms. Hunter in?" I asked, my voice clipped and professional.
"Ms. Hunter said she wasn't taking visitors, Mr. O'Malley." He stood a little straighter, putting himself subtly between me and the elevators. Protecting her from me, which should have been a wake-up call but instead just made me angrier.
"Is she here?" I pressed.
He hesitated, clearly torn between loyalty to a resident and whatever rapport we'd built over the months. I saw him glance toward the security camera in the corner, checking if he was being recorded. Saw him calculate the risks.
"The gym," he finally said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Private facility on the third floor. But Mr. O'Malley, I really don't think..."
I was already walking toward the elevator bank, already pressing the button. "Thanks Timothy."
I caught his reflection in the polished brass of the elevator doors as they slid shut. He looked worried. He looked like a man who'd just made a decision he'd regret.
He wasn't wrong.