Chapter 26: Chapter Twenty-Six

“Stop! You can’t go in there!”

Trenton heard Hollie’s shrill voice moments before his office door swung open and Alan Lange thundered across the threshold.

Hollie rushed ahead, her slight frame of no more than five feet two, at most, attempting to block his progress to no avail. She nearly got mowed down. “I told you to wait outside!” she wailed. “I’m calling security.”

Quickly rounding his desk, Trenton drew her behind him. “Hollie, it’s all right.” Lange making a personal visit was no surprise, though Trenton had expected a phone call filled with the customary, You bastard. You’re an asshole. You’re a piece of shit.

“You blocked my bid in the Dubai partnership!” Alan raged. “You fucking bulldozed me out, you piece of shit!”

And there it is. “Yes, I did.” Trenton kept his tone dispassionate. He hadn’t tried to hide his actions. “I made it clear that I’d pull out of the transaction if you were part of it. Since I’m funding sixty-seven percent, the decision was easy for all involved. Your money is dirty, Lange. I know where it comes from, and I want no part of it.”

“And you think your house is spotless? Your name is stamped on a number of questionable transactions. You may have looked into me. Well, I’ve watched you. The payoff.” Alan delivered a hard nod. “That’s right. I know what you did to steal the D.C. Wharf land bid.”

Trenton’s calm veneer slipped as he delivered a stark warning. “Before you go making claims against my name, you’d better have proof.”

Alan let out a deep breath and glanced at Hollie peeking from behind Trenton. “Look, we’re both in the business of making money. I know we’ve had our differences, but I need in on that deal. It hasn’t been a good year for Lange Industries. Participating in the partnership can change that.”

That was unfortunate. Nevertheless… “Like I said, I won’t get in bed with the likes of the alliances you’ve chosen. If you come to the table with backing that isn’t of Feliks Vasilyev’s sort, I’ll reconsider.”

The man’s face screwed down into a formidable scowl. “I’ve worked hard to get to where I am. You wouldn’t know anything about that. Daddy handed you the company. Now you think you can have it all…destroy all I’ve built, all I’ve worked hard for.” He turned and stalked off. “You think you’ve won. You’re going to know what it feels like to lose something you hold dear. You just wait.”

With surprising speed, he grabbed the hand-painted porcelain elephant off the bookshelf and swung out with thunder-hurling force. Trenton pulled Hollie into his chest, ducking her head within the circle of his arms while jerking them out of the way. The object hit the brass desk lamp, shattering to pieces.

Son of a bitch!

Dominic charged in. “What the hell!”

Alan shoved him on a tear out of the room. Dominic took off after him.

“Dom, get back here!” Trenton shouted. “Dom!”

He appeared within the frame of the door, anger simmering in his icy glare. “Has the man lost his damn mind? You can’t let that shit go. That motherfu—”

“Dom, enough.” Trenton unfolded Hollie from his arms. She clutched onto the lapel of his suit coat like a lifeline. He gently prodded her trembling hands free. “Are you okay?” She bobbed her head, yet her wide eyes spoke to the contrary. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Her voice shook. “Should I report him to security?”

“No. He just needed to blow off some steam. Things like this only happen on Wednesdays. You’ll get used to it.” At his attempt to lighten the tense moment, she cracked a smile. “He’s all bark, that’s all.”

Hollie straightened her blouse and glanced at her watch, hands shaking. “Your meeting in Herndon, Virginia, is in an hour. Should I call your personal security and text Jackson to have the car ready out front in about ten minutes?”

“I won’t be needing Elliott, but yes, have Jackson bring the car around. Then take the rest of the day off. The remainder of the week, even. I won’t be back the rest of the day, and I’ll be at Chase Investments through Friday.”

“I’ll have someone clean up this mess,” she remarked as she stepped carefully through the sharp shards to the door.

“Oh, and Hollie?” She turned, a touch of disquiet still reflected in her blue eyes. “Before you go, set Miss Chase’s number so it forwards to my cell.”

“All right.”

When the door closed, Dominic turned to him, his features a lot less harsh. “You did it. You cut that bastard out of the Dubai partnership.” He came up to the desk. “Now that’s the big bro I know. Thought you’d gone soft when you took on that Chase Investments rescue. But I see now you’ve taken that charity on because you got the hots for Kennedi Chase. By the way, she told me to tell you to check your attitude before tonight’s conference call, or else.” He laughed. “I wasn’t feeling this whole thing between you two, with her father stealing from his own company and all, but after finding out that the man’s ill, and seeing how she’s trying to handle things”—he shrugged a shoulder—“I think she’s growing on me. As for Lange, glad you shot down his bid. That fucker needed his feet kicked from under him.”

“The man’s a lunatic.” Trenton’s cell phone chimed a text. He grabbed it from the desk and cringed. “Shit.”

“Who is it?”

“Claudia.”

Dom sighed. “What has she concocted now, promising never to be heard from again…until the next time her ass surfaces? Another car? A house? It’s not enough that she has her family believing the separation came out of nowhere, that she was blindsided by you. How convenient of her to leave out that you caught her screwing some dude and now she’s pregnant and you don’t even know if it’s yours. And that one-month counseling bullshit… You divorced her ass, even filed a bifurcation to expedite it. You’re free of her in that regard. More to the point, does she think you two spending time together will make you forget what she did and remarry her? She has some fucking nerve to want you two to go to counseling. And using the kid as a reason for reconciliation is a dirty trick. You should tell her people what really went down.”

“You’re done?”

“I’m just saying it fucking sucks. It’s too bad Mom was hating on Dad back when Shaw Enterprise had started to tank and wouldn’t give you the money to save it. If she had given you the money, you might never have met Claudia. Think about it—you wouldn’t have attended that venture capitalist luncheon looking for investment funding and wouldn’t have met Claudia there ready to spend her daddy’s money.”

Trenton agreed on all fronts. “I just want to put a close to it all. I even handed over two properties to her, one of which was mine before the marriage, but she wanted it.”

“Not the Paris apartment?”

Trenton nodded.

Dominic hissed a curse. “Then maybe you should meet with her like she wants, just to get her to go away.” He shuddered. “After what she did, even that would be hard for me to swallow. But it would put an end to this shit.”

Opening the text and seeing a long-winded message, Trenton deleted it without bothering to read it. He sighed, having long since grown weary of the whole damn situation. “Look, I made mistakes too in the marriage. I just want to get through with settling the assets. As for Lange, if he wants to do business with a known criminal, that’s on him. His behavior here today is what I tried to get Kennedi to recognize. But all she sees is a bouquet of flowers from that dick.”

“Are you sure about that? Maybe you’re not giving her enough credit. I think she sees Lange for what he is. Bro, if Lange cock blocking is what you’re really worried about, why not step up and take it forward with Kennedi? Might as well, since you two are already hitting it.”

Trenton recalled how good it felt to wake up spooned within the warmth of Kennedi’s naked body and how much he wished he was in a position to have all of her. “The whole situation with my ex is a shit show right now. I can’t bring Kennedi into it. As for Lange, those flowers were more of a warning to me. That’s what Kennedi doesn’t understand. I’ll bet he sent them after learning that I’d shut his ass out of the deal.”

“What’s up, fellas?”

Their heads snapped to the door to see Vincent entering. He started forward but the crackling beneath his buffed wingtips brought him up short. He looked down at the shards of ivory porcelain and over toward them standing at the desk. “What the hell happened here?”

“Lange decided to use Trent’s figurine as a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball. He came here pissed over getting blocked out of the Dubai partnership.” Dom glowered. “He’s lucky I didn’t clock his ass.”

“If I hadn’t pulled Hollie out of the way, it surely would’ve hit her,” Trenton added.

“Are you fucking serious?” Vincent’s steps crunched on the trek forward. “We could file charges against him.”

Trenton shook his head. “Only if he drums up some asinine complaint.”

“Where’s Hollie? She wasn’t at her desk.”

“I gave her the rest of the week off. She was pretty shaken up.”

“No doubt.” Vincent sat between them on the front edge of the desk with arms folded across his tailored charcoal-gray suited chest. “So Trent, how’d it go with Kennedi Chase? Was she accepting of the agreement you put together?”

“Trent nixed the discussion. I had it ready, but he got annoyed after Lange sent Kennedi flowers,” Dom supplied.

Vincent turned his head to Trent. “Why is Lange sending Kennedi Chase flowers?”

“They were meant mainly to piss off Trent. He and Kennedi are kicking it.”

“Dom, would you shut the fuck up for once?” Trenton’s annoyance revved sharply.

Vincent flashed a grin. “You and Kennedi Chase? Really?” He shoved Trenton at the shoulder. “Dude, it’s about time you got back out there. Does she know about Claudia?”

“No. I think I need to take a step back until I finalize this shit with my ex. As for the offer, I’ll talk to Kennedi tonight.”

His cell phone buzzed a text. At the same time, a knock came against the open door. They all looked over at the janitor standing at the threshold with a portable vacuum strapped to his back.

“I was told there’s some broken glass.”

“Come in.” Trenton checked his text. “Jackson’s out front.” With Dom and Vincent flanking him, they headed out.