POV Jaxson
Some letters should be burned the moment they're read, but I've never been good at letting go of things that hurt me.
The paper has grown soft at the creases from being folded and unfolded too many times—a thousand readings, maybe more, each one excavating wounds I should have let scar over years ago. Richard's handwriting slopes across the page, every word chosen with the care of someone who knew this would outlive him.
I should have destroyed this the day James handed it to me. Tossed it into the fireplace and watched my stepfather's final manipulation curl into ash. Instead, I keep it in my nightstand like a teenager hiding love letters, pulling it out whenever I need to remember why I hate myself.
Richard Sloan was a bastard who shipped me off to another continent the moment I became inconvenient. He was also the only man who ever tried to teach me how to be something other than my father's ghost.
The memory surfaces without permission—Richard teaching me to tie a Windsor knot before my first school dance, his hands patient despite my fumbling. The way he stayed up reviewing my college applications even though I am sure he knew Italy was the plan. The quiet pride in his voice when I closed my first real estate deal in Milan, a phone call I never told anyone about because admitting Richard and I still talked would have shattered the narrative I'd constructed.
You weak, sentimental fool. He threw you away like garbage, and you're still seeking his approval from beyond the grave.
My phone shatters the silence with a ringtone I've been dreading—the specific vibration pattern I assigned to calls from Italy, calls that never bring good news.
"Daniel." I answer without greeting, already knowing this conversation will cost me peace I don't have.
"Jaxson, finally." Daniel's voice carries the particular strain of a man standing too close to a cliff edge. "I've been trying to reach you for three days. Where the hell have you been?"
"Family obligations in Boston." I fold Richard's letter back into its worn creases, tucking it into the nightstand drawer. "What's the emergency that couldn't wait until reasonable hours?"
"The Popescu account." His breathing comes faster now, the sound of someone pacing in a small room. "Constantin discovered discrepancies in the property valuations we submitted last quarter. He's asking questions, Jaxson."
Constantin Popescu. Romanian industrialist with enough connections to the Eastern European underworld to make even seasoned criminals nervous. The man whose money we've been cleaning through Italian real estate for the past four years, transactions that made me wealthy and exposed me to a world where disagreements are settled with bullets rather than lawyers.
"What kind of discrepancies are we talking about?" I move to the window, needing distance from the bed where I can still smell Harper's perfume from when she passed my door this morning.
"The kind where the numbers don't add up to what he expected." Daniel's laugh holds no humor, only barely controlled panic. "He wants a meeting, Jaxson. In person. In Bucharest. By the end of the week."
"That's not going to happen."
The silence on the other end stretches long enough for me to count three of my own heartbeats. When Daniel speaks again, his voice has dropped to something approaching a whisper.
"Did you hear what I just said? Constantin Popescu wants to meet with you, and you're telling me no? These aren't people you disappoint, Jaxson."
"I'm aware of who we're dealing with."
"Then you know what happens to people who refuse his invitations." Daniel's composure cracks, desperation bleeding through the professional veneer. "I've seen what's left of men who thought they could ignore Constantin's requests. There wasn't enough remaining to fill a shoebox."
The graphic detail lands exactly as intended, painting images I've worked hard to keep abstract. The Italian real estate ventures started as a way to build wealth independent of Richard's influence, a path to proving I could succeed without Sloan money or Sloan connections. Somewhere along the way, the clients got darker and the money got dirtier, and I told myself the distance between Boston and Bucharest was protection enough.
"I won't be returning to Italy for at least three months," I say, keeping my voice steady despite the cold spreading through my chest. "Possibly longer. You'll need to handle Constantin yourself, or find someone else who can smooth things over until I'm available."
"Three months? Have you lost your mind?" Daniel's voice climbs to frequencies that suggest hysteria isn't far behind. "What could possibly be more important than keeping yourself alive?"
Movement in the driveway below catches my attention. Harper emerges from the house with Preston trailing behind her, his hand reaching for her elbow in that possessive way that makes my teeth grind. She pulls away from his touch, her body language radiating irritation visible even from this distance.
"Find someone else, Daniel. Promote one of the junior partners, bring in outside counsel, I don't care. But I'm not leaving Boston."
"Jaxson, listen to me very carefully." Daniel's voice drops to a register reserved for delivering death sentences. "If you don't show your face in Bucharest by Friday, Constantin will assume you're avoiding him because you have something to hide. And when Constantin assumes the worst about someone, that someone tends to stop breathing shortly thereafter."
Harper gestures sharply at Preston, her mouth moving in words I can't hear but can easily imagine. She's magnificent when she's angry—all sharp edges and barely contained fire, nothing like the controlled ice queen she tried to sell me last night after our encounter in the study.
You're not special, Jaxson. You're just another bad decision I won't be making twice.
The words still burn, but I saw her face when she said them. Saw the tremor in her hands she tried to hide. Saw the way her pupils stayed dilated with arousal even as her mouth shaped lies designed to push me away.
She felt everything I felt in that study. The connection, the hunger, the terrifying recognition of finding yourself reflected in someone else's eyes. Her denial is armor, not truth, and I've spent seven years learning to tell the difference.
"Send my apologies to Constantin." I watch Harper yank open the car door, climbing inside before Preston can open it for her. "Tell him I'll make myself available as soon as my family situation allows. Offer him whatever reassurances you need to offer, but understand that I am not getting on a plane."
"You're signing your own death warrant." Daniel's voice goes flat, the acceptance of someone washing their hands of responsibility. "When Constantin's people come for you, and they will come, don't say I didn't warn you."
"Noted." I end the call before he can deliver any more prophecies of doom.
Below, Preston's car pulls out of the driveway with the aggressive acceleration of a man who knows he's losing an argument. Harper's profile is visible through the passenger window, her jaw set in that stubborn line I've memorized from a thousand photographs.
What are you doing, Jaxson? Choosing a woman who claims to hate you over your own survival?
The answer rises from somewhere deeper than logic, somewhere that still clutches Richard's letter like a lifeline.
I pull the folded paper from the drawer one more time, skipping to the final lines I've read so many times they're branded into my memory: Take care of my daughter, but remember—she's stronger than both of us ever gave her credit for.
Richard saw through both of us. Saw the weakness I hide behind cruelty and the steel Harper hides behind compliance. He knew that throwing us together would either destroy us completely or force us to become the people he believed we could be.
Harper's car disappears around the corner, taking her toward whatever errand has her fighting with Preston on a Tuesday morning. Constantin Popescu's threat hovers at the edge of my consciousness, a shadow I'm choosing to ignore because the woman I've loved since I was eighteen is finally within reach.
If Romanian hit men are the price of staying close to her, then I'll pay it gladly.