She was leaving. Things might never be fine again. “You can’t fix this, Oliver.”
“The hell I can’t,” he said and slammed his mouth down over hers.
He meant it as a kiss of possession. Renee knew that. He wasn’t going to let her go without a fight, fool that he was. But Renee knew the truth.
This was goodbye.
She wasn’t going to cry.
Once upon a time, the Lawrence family had shown her what love was. They’d given her another life, one where people were sweet and loud and messy and loved. So, so loved. If she hadn’t had that second childhood with Chloe, she didn’t know how she’d have survived.
Oliver might not ever realize it because, knowing him, he’d look back at this moment and see nothing but a failure to fix everything just so. But he’d given her the same gift again. Love and happiness and a glimpse into a future she might one day have. He’d let her find her own way and made her laugh again.
She’d be forever grateful for this month.
But she couldn’t tell him any of that without breaking down into sobs and she knew damned well that if she so much as wavered, he’d do something stupid like bust out the high-powered attorneys and call a press conference and all but announce to the world that he’d been sleeping with the pregnant Preston Pyramid Princess, and that?
That would be his downfall.
So, when the kiss ended, she pressed her lips against his cheek and gave him one final hug. “Goodbye, Oliver.” Then she grabbed her solitary piece of luggage and hurried for the door before she changed her mind.
“Damn it, Renee, I can fix this! I just need more time,” he said, sounding half-mad with desperation. “By the time the FBI is done with whatever they need you for, I’ll have this figured out—I promise.”
No, she couldn’t be his problem.
So she kept walking.
She didn’t look back.
Fourteen
Goodbye, Oliver.
Fuck that shit.
After nearly running over two photographers staked out by the garage entrance, Oliver stepped off the elevator. The door to his father’s condo swung open seconds later, making it clear that Milt Lawrence had been waiting for him. Just when he thought the day couldn’t get worse...
“Beer?” Milt said, holding up a longneck, and Oliver knew he didn’t have much say in the matter.
He supposed this wasn’t a surprise. Renee’s brief appearance three days ago at the All-Around All-Stars Rodeo—brought to you by Lawrence Oil—in the company of Oliver Lawrence, head of Lawrence Energies, had made headlines less than an hour after Renee had been whisked back to New York in the company of the FBI’s finest. The whole debacle was exactly the sort of thing that would draw Milt out of his hunting lodge and into the city.
Not for the first time, Oliver wished his father hadn’t bought the condo next to his for those rare trips into Dallas. Being called in for a lecture had a way of making Oliver feel like he was twelve again and about to be grounded for another prank gone wrong.
Except this time, it wasn’t an elevator and a bunch of balloons filled with shaving cream. This was the family business. Their livelihood. He’d risked an international energy company and his family’s financial safety and well-being for...
For Renee. Who’d walked away without a look back.
God, it hurt.
It turned out that Brantley Gibbons, Brooke Bonner’s manager, had lost a lot of money to the Preston Pyramid. In fact, he was under investigation because several of his clients claimed he’d inappropriately invested their funds with Preston’s firm. Brooke had stuck by him because Gibbons was her uncle.
Family. Was there any bigger blessing and curse than that word?
“Here,” Milt said, handing Oliver a beer and motioning for him to sit on the leather sofa overlooking the skyline. Unlike his hunting lodge, Milt Lawrence’s condo was as impersonal as a hotel. Probably why he only spent maybe ten nights a year here. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do you’ve got yourself into.”
Oliver gritted his teeth. “Do you think that, just once, we could cut the cowboy crap, Dad? Because I’m not in the mood to hear about how I look lower than a rattler’s belly in a wheel rut.” He took a long pull on his beer. It didn’t help. “No offense.” Oliver braced himself to be dressed down because with that attitude, he deserved it.
But that’s not what happened. “I take it she’d been with you since you first asked if I’d heard about the scam?” To Oliver’s ever-lasting surprise, there was less drawl in his father’s voice. Still a little bit, though.
It was enough. “Yeah. A month.” A good month. One of the best he could ever remember having.
Because Renee had been there. For the first time in years—maybe decades—Oliver had done something more than look at the family business or his family as just problems waiting to be solved.
He wasn’t able to go back to who he’d been before Renee.
“Do you know where she is now?”
“New York.” She wasn’t responding to his texts, beyond the bare-bones information to let him know she was fine. Everything, apparently, was fine.
He was not fucking fine.
“She said she had to leave because she’d ruin me. I think she actually believes that,” he said before taking another long swallow of his beer. It still wasn’t helping.
“Hmm,” Milt said noncommittally.
“She said...” He had to swallow a few times to make sure his throat was working right. “She said she wouldn’t let her family ruin mine or my business like they ruined her.”
“Ah,” Milt unhelpfully added.
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? Hmm and ah?”
“I was going to say something about rattlers but that didn’t seem to be the way to go.”
“Jesus, Dad, are you mocking me?” There were days when his father was every bit as irritating as Flash—and worse.
“Simmer down, son.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not here to fight. If you’re looking to
