Chapter 9
“Ember, I’ll be back for you.”
Blake dropped that creepy line and bailed.
I dragged Kieran over to fix up his busted face.
“You didn’t need to say that stuff.”
“I wasn’t kidding around. I really am into you, Ember.”
Kieran’s out–of–nowhere confession totally threw me.
My mind went completely blank. I dabbed some inedicine on his cuts and basically bolted.
The whole love thing was the absolute last thing I wanted to mess with right now.
For the next few days, I kept looking over my shoulder expecting Blake to pop up, but he never did.
Guess my threat actually scared him off.
Right after Blake finished his little stalker routine, his company called with some emergency and dragged his ass back home.
Blake’s pharmaceutical company was completely screwed.
Lila had been throwing her weight around, trying to stick her nose into everything.
She’d made the whole mess ten times worse.
When Blake got back, she threw herself into his arms.
“Blake, I didn’t mean to! I was just trying to help you!”
Looking at the hundred–million–dollar loss on the reports, Blake was ready to have a stroke.
He slapped Lila hard across the face and called an emergency board meeting.
He took back every single share he’d given the Morrison family.
Lila was crying and begging for forgiveness, but Blake was so done with her bullshit that he had security drag her and all her crap out of the building.
After cleaning up the disaster back home, Blake flew back to Atlanta and got down on his knees in front of me.
Begging me to save his company.
“That company is our life’s work, Ember. Can you really stand watching it fall apart?!”
“I walked away with nothing. Not my problem anymore.”
“We’re still married!”
“The court papers will be here in two days. Then you’ll be the one with nothing.”
Stand In I una’s Rice Round in My Twin’s Name, Freed in My Own
29.5%
Blake’s eyes went red as he yelled at me
“Are you really gonna destroy me completely?!”
I stayed calm.
“But isn’t thus what you chose?”
The day before the court summons arrived, Blake finally signed the divorce papers.
Walking away with nothing? Yeah, he couldn’t handle that.
The day after I got my divorce certificate, Project 707 officially launched.
Time flew by, and five years passed in a flash.
With all the researchers working their asses off, we finally cracked the new drug formula.
News from the outside world would trickle in here and there.
Blake kept showing up and making a scene for a while.
But since we were on classified government work, nobody would give him jack shit about where I was.
The worst incident got him thrown in jail for two weeks.
After that, he never bothered coming back to Atlanta.
Without me keeping his company afloat, Blake’s business crashed and burned in just a few years.
Dude’s buried in debt now.
Working his ass off day and night just to pay back everything he owes.
Blake ended up spilling all the dirt from back then. Lila borrowed a ton of cash to buy into his company, got in way over her head with debt, and threw herself off a building.
My artist dad had a stroke, and Lila’s mom just grabbed whatever money she could and bailed on him.
I was stuck dealing with him legally.
Threw him in some cheap nursing home and never went back. That was all I could manage.
These past five years, Kieran never mentioned the whole liking–me thing again.
But he always looked out for me.
I started thinking people should get past all the shitty stuff and go for something better.
Can’t let the jerks mess things up with people who actually care about you.
