34. Cole

Hold on.

My mind stopped. Sunny is moving? To New York?

"Figured you must have decided to go ahead and stop letting Cole hold you back from living your dream." Max answered Sunny"s question with a shrug. "You look done with all this bullshit, and Cole just looks like shit."

He shook his head at me. "Bro, don"t know if anybody"s ever told you this before, but you really do not have the coloring to pull off scruff. Leave that bad boy aesthetic to me."

"You"re moving to New York?" I asked Sunny, turning away from Max.

Now she shrugged. "Don"t worry, I"m still going to pay you back. If it takes my entire lifetime."

"Pay him back for what?" Max asked.

We both ignored him. "Sunny, this isn"t about the money. I don"t care about the money. It was never about that."

"Then what was it about?" she asked. "The power? Is that why you"re upset about me taking back mine and making my own decisions?"

"I"m guessing it was about the power," Max interjected, raising his glass.

"Max, shut up," I commanded without looking away from Sunny.

"Sure," Max agreed amiably before turning to look at Sunny as well. "Hey, Sunny Delight, wanna dance?"

"No, thank you." Sunny avertedher eyes from mine. "We"re just waiting for Nora to get out here. She"ll make the big engagement announcement. Then we"ll take a few pictures, and this will be over."

Over. The word pierced my heart like a nail hammered in. How had we been so happy three days ago, only to end up so miserable now? Love.

"That might take a while." Max took a sip of his bourbon. "When I came downstairs, Grandma was having a deep conversation with some old dude from the board. Looked intense."

Alarm warning bells sounded in the back of my mind. "Which board member, exactly?" I asked Max.

Max shrugged again. "Hell if I know. All those gray hairs look alike to me."

I was about to press him for more details when Sunny said, "Okay, I"m just going to leave now."

Fuck.All thoughts of the mystery board member dropped away, and I took her by the hand."Sunny, wait!"

"Please let go of my hand." She tugged to get it back from me.

But I didn"t—I couldn"t—let go.

"Stay."My voice sounded dangerously close to pleading. "Stay at the party. Stay in Vegas. Let me fix this. Fix us."

"Cole, there is no fixing us!" Sunny expelled a shaking breath, her icy mask fading away. "I can't do this with you. I can't pretend to be in love with you when I'm really in love with you. I can't stand there while Nora makes some fake engagement announcement when you don't feel the way I do. I thought I could, but I can't. Please, I know you want me to be a robot, but I'm not. I'm a woman. With a heart and feelings—so many feelings—and I can't pretend to be with you like that anymore."

I was losing her. She was leaving Las Vegas. My heart raced with the terror of never seeing her again.

"Listen, Sunny, I get where you"re coming from. And I can"t say the words you want to hear from me, but I truly?—"

I cut off. My weak heart threatening to give out in this new territory I suddenly found myself in.

"You truly what, Cole?" Sunny asked, shaking her head.

I stopped. Swallowed down the fear. Opened my mouth to tell her?—

"Coleridge Niall Benton!"a voice behind me screeched.

I turned to see my grandmother bearing down on us like a vengeful red-haired harpy. With Jasper Whittaker right behind her.

"You've been going behind my back, trying to get me kicked off the board? Threatening my friends and their family members to get your way like some kind of bully? Why would you ever do that?"

I inwardly cursed, then glared at Jasper Whittaker, the board member who"d apparently run like a crybaby to my grandmother.

"So that's what you were up to?" Max said, raising his glass of bourbon to his mouth like he was sipping on cola at a dramatic movie. "Man, that's cold, bro."

Sunny, who"d never met Jasper, just looked confused.

"Nora," I said, keeping my voice level. "We'll talk about this in private."

I glanced at Sunny. "Sunny doesn't need to hear this."

"Oh, I think she does, grandson of mine. I set her up with ye, thinking she"d melt yer cold heart!" Nora chided with a scoff, her Irish brogue growing thicker. "Hah! Joke"s on me, it seems! Clearly, I didn"t reckon yer heart had already turned to stone. It"s Sunny needs saving from ye, not the other way "round!"

"Nora, you didn't set me up with her!" I exploded. "You threatened to take away my company—the one I'd worked like a beast to save after your son left it in shambles—if I didn't marry her."

Sunny gasped. "What?"

"Well, I had to figure out some way to get ye to take me seriously, didn"t I?"Nora swiped a hand in the air, as if threatening to hand over the company I'd rebuilt to my derelict brother was a minor thing."And is it my fault the only way to get through to you is to make it about business?"

"Wait a minute," Sunny said, looking between the two of us. "Nora, obviously something has been lost in translation. If Cole's ousting you from the board, it's because he knows it's what's best for you. I know you want to live your last few months on earth fiercely, but it's important that you rest and take care of yourself."

Too late, I realized that Sunny had reverted to her old habit of assuming the best of everyone.

"Oh, shit!" Max exclaimed, as if voicing my unspoken thoughts. "This is so bad, bro. This is so bad."

"Sunny, can we talk in private?" I asked between clenched teeth.

"What do you mean my last few months on earth?" Nora asked Sunny. "I'm healthy as a horse."

Max bugged his eyes and made a little explosion sound behind his teeth. "Well, that secret's blown."

I bunched my fists at my side. "Max, I swear, if you say another word..."

"You're not sick?" Sunny asked Nora before I could finish my threat.

"Course I'm not sick," Nora answered with an offended jerk of her chin. "My primary doctor says my liver must be made of tank material. I'll most likely outlive all of you."

"But at that dinner before the Benton Girls show we went to—you were hobbling."

Nora sniffed. "Okay, dearie, I'll admit to needing a wee bit of upkeep these days to maintain this fine figure. But do ye think I would"ve been cleared for so very many nips and tucks if I were on my last days?"

Sunny covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes widening with horror.

"Sunny, let's go into the house," I said, feeling desperate and urgent inside. "I'll explain everything in private."

"You told her I was sick?" Nora turned on me. "Why?"

"Apparently, to get me to pose as his fiancée while he worked on getting you kicked off the board," Sunny answered.

No more benefit of the doubt. Her voice rang bitter with discovery.

Nora gasped. "You didn't!"

"You left me no choice,Nora." I glared down at my grandmother. "Benton Worldwide is my life, and I won't have it threatened. Not by you or anyone else. You tried to manipulate me, and now you're going to get exactly what you deserve."

"I can't believe you would use poor Sunny like that."Nora shook her head at me. "How could you?"

My grandmother didn't give me a chance to answer before turning back to Sunny. "I won't let him get away with this. I'll call my lawyer and get the shares transferred before the meeting tomorrow."

Max smirked. "Looks like I'm going to be the new power player at Benton Worldwide after all."

"No, you won't," Nora snapped. "You obviously knew Cole was lying to Sunny—leading her along from the start—and you didn't say anything."

She patted Sunny on the shoulder. "I'm so sorry, dearie, for everything these worthless boys have put you through. That's why I'm going to give you my shares in Benton Worldwide tonight."

"What?!" Max didn"t look nearly as gleeful now.

"You heard me!" Nora answered, her voice sharp as a knife's blade. "You both need to learn that people aren't pawns to be used in your childish rivalry."

"No, Nora." Sunny spoke before I could. "I won't let you do that."

"Sunny, maybe you don't understand." Nora took her hands, her dark-green eyes brimming with pity. "Cole doesn't genuinely have any feelings whatsoever for you. He was just using you to get his revenge on me. You don't owe him anything—nothing at all. Let me do this for you. It's the only way he'll learn."

"No," Sunny said again, even more firmly this time.She took her hands back from Nora. "You were wrong to try to force Cole to marry me."

"Yeah, you were," Max agreed. "I mean, you could have at least opened with a date and gone on from there."

Sunny shook her head. "Even a date would have been wrong. Cole is a grown man, who has worked extremely hard to bring Benton Worldwide back to its former glory—beyond that, really. He has a vision for the company, and you can't just ruin everything he's worked to achieve to get your way, Nora. That's not fair. Or right."

Nora frowned, having obviously never thought about it that way before.

"Maybe that's true," she admitted with a sniff. "But still, he had no business using you the way he did."

Sunny shook her head. "No, this is my fault. He showed me exactly what he was the first day we met—a businessman, first and foremost—and I chose not to believe him. Then I did something even more stupid. I fell in love with him."

Sunny's eyes landed on me, and she didn"t bother to put back on the mask she"d been wearing when she walked into the party. I could see every ounce of hurt and pain my actions had caused her. "Lesson learned."

With that, she turned and rushed away toward the exterior gate door, located just beyond the balloon arch.

"Sunny…" I started to go after her, but Max moved to stand in front of me.

"Let her go with some dignity, bro," Max said. "It's the least you can do."

"The very least," Nora agreed, stepping in beside her younger grandson. "I'll give you my chair position on the board. You don't have to vote me out. But only if you let poor Sunny go in peace. She's right. I was wrong to ever force you on her. I think we can all agree now that you don't deserve her or her forgiveness."

I stopped.

Not because of Nora's offer to give me control of the board, but because of the realization that dropped down on me then, like a ton of bricks.

Sunny had been nothing but good to me. She had forced me to be a better person and even defended me against my grandmother, despite the humongous wrong I'd done her.

I realized that both my brother and my grandmother were right. She deserved her dignity, and I didn't deserve anything.

Especially not her.

I let her go, watching her dash through the party and exit out thegate.

Thanks to Sunny, I'd gotten everything I wanted. But watching her walk out of my life—forever this time—I'd never felt more bereft.