I Hate That I Still Want Her

Chapter7

Chapter 7: The Paperwork

For a moment Ethan genuinely could not speak. The words filed the paperwork hung in the air between them like something radioactive, and he watched Marcus's face for any sign of a bluff, any small tell that might suggest this was empty posturing designed to rattle him in a moment of weakness. He found nothing. Marcus looked exactly like a man who had spent five years waiting for this precise combination of circumstances and had simply been patient enough to let the world hand it to him.

He thought, absurdly, of a dinner three years earlier, the two of them celebrating a shipping contract Ethan had just closed, Marcus raising a glass and calling him the brother he'd never had. He had believed it. He had let that toast settle into his chest as one of the few genuine warmths he still allowed himself in those years, proof that not every relationship in his life had to end in ruin. Standing here now, watching the same man calmly describe the paperwork that would strip Ethan of everything his father had built, he understood that the toast had never been anything more than a tool, carefully deployed at exactly the moment it would do the most damage to Ethan's guard.

You can't do that, Sophie said, standing now, her voice shaking with a fury Ethan had never heard from her before. Amelia is in the middle of a medical crisis right now, Marcus. She's downstairs getting a scan that could determine whether her cancer has come back, and you're standing here talking about board seats?

Something flickered across Marcus's face at the word cancer, gone almost before Ethan could name it, replaced instantly by an expression of practiced, hollow sympathy. That's exactly why the timing matters, Sophie, he said gently, as though explaining something obvious to a child. If Amelia's health has deteriorated to the point of hospitalization, the board has a fiduciary responsibility to consider succession planning immediately, not after the fact. I'm not the villain here. I'm the only person in this room thinking about what happens to Cross Designs and everyone who depends on it if the worst happens.

You're disgusting, Sophie said, and Ethan had never in five years heard that particular tone from her, something low and vicious that suggested every ounce of the little sister sweetness he remembered had been burned away by five years of watching this man circle her family like a patient predator.

Marcus's eyes flicked to her, cool and assessing, and Sophie held his gaze without flinching, some new hardness in her posture that told Ethan she had spent five years quietly rehearsing exactly this moment without ever admitting it to herself. You used to bring me birthday presents, she said quietly. Every year, since I was twelve. I used to think you were the closest thing to an older brother I'd ever have. I keep trying to reconcile that man with the one filing paperwork against my sister from a hospital parking lot, and I can't do it, Marcus. I genuinely cannot understand how a person becomes this.

Marcus's eyes flicked to her, cool and assessing, and for just a moment the mask slipped entirely, revealing something underneath that made Ethan's blood run cold, not anger, not offense, but a kind of clinical, almost bored contempt, the expression of a man who had simply never considered either of the Cross sisters worth the effort of genuine cruelty because he had never once doubted his own eventual victory.

I'd watch how you speak to me, Sophie, he said, his voice still pleasant, still warm, which somehow made the words land harder than if he had shouted them. I hold enough combined leverage over both your family's company and Ethan's to make either of your lives significantly more difficult than they currently are. I'd suggest gratitude, not hostility. I could have done this quietly, through the courts, without ever setting foot in this hospital to check on a woman I've known since she was a teenager. I came here because I still, despite everything you clearly think of me, care what happens to her.

Get out, Ethan said again, his voice dropping into something flat and final that finally seemed to register with Marcus as something other than empty bravado. Get out of this waiting room, and if you file one more piece of paperwork before I have had the chance to review every clause of that contract with my own legal team, I will make sure every reporter on the eastern seaboard knows exactly how patiently and how deliberately you have spent five years engineering a hostile takeover of two grieving families.

Marcus studied him for a long moment, some calculation moving behind his eyes, and then, unexpectedly, he laughed, a short, genuine sound that somehow chilled Ethan more than any threat could have. You know, he said, buttoning his coat with unhurried precision, I actually respect this version of you far more than the one who spent five years quietly hating a woman who never deserved it. It's almost a shame we're going to be enemies now, Ethan. You might have made an excellent partner, if you'd only figured all of this out five years earlier, before it stopped being useful to me.

Ethan said nothing, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response, and something about that silence seemed to please Marcus more than any argument could have possibly managed.

He turned and walked back toward the automatic doors, pausing just before they slid open to glance back over his shoulder with an expression of theatrical, almost affectionate regret. Give Amelia my best, he said. I do hope the scan comes back clean. It would be such a shame to lose her now, right when things are finally getting interesting.

The casual cruelty of it, delivered with the same warm smile he had worn at a hundred dinners and a hundred toasts, settled into Ethan's chest like a blade slipped quietly between ribs. He had spent five years believing he understood exactly how much damage one person could do to another. Watching Marcus walk away, unhurried and untroubled, he realized he had underestimated that particular lesson by a significant margin.

The doors hissed shut behind him, and the waiting room fell into a silence so complete that Ethan could hear his own pulse hammering in his ears. Sophie sank back into her chair, her hands shaking visibly now that the confrontation was over, the adrenaline that had carried her through it draining away and leaving something far more fragile behind.

I keep replaying every dinner, every holiday, every single time he sat at our table and smiled at us, Sophie said quietly, staring at her own trembling hands. How many years was he already planning this? How many birthdays did I celebrate next to a man who was already counting down to the moment he could take everything from us?

For a moment neither of them spoke, both still staring at the doors through which Marcus had just vanished, as though he might reappear again at any second to deliver some final, devastating blow neither of them had yet braced themselves for.

He's going to destroy us, she said quietly. Both companies. Everything our fathers built.

No, Ethan said, sitting down beside her, forcing his own voice into something steadier than he felt. He's going to try. There's a difference, Sophie, and I intend to make sure he learns it the hard way.

Before Sophie could respond, Dr. Chen appeared at the far end of the corridor, her expression carefully neutral in the particular way Ethan was already learning to dread, the practiced blankness of someone about to deliver news that could break in either direction. She approached slowly, a tablet held against her chest, and Ethan stood so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor.

In the space of those few seconds before Dr. Chen reached them, Ethan found himself praying in a way he had not prayed since his father's final week, wordless and desperate, bargaining with a universe he had spent five years insisting he no longer believed in. He thought of every version of the future he had once planned with Amelia, the house near the water, the two dogs she used to insist on naming after obscure Renaissance painters, the version of himself that might have existed if none of this had ever happened, and he understood, watching the doctor's careful, unreadable face draw closer, that he wanted that future back more than he had ever wanted anything in his entire life.

Is she alright, he asked, before Dr. Chen had even fully reached them. Please, just tell us she's alright.

The scan is finished, Dr. Chen said, her voice measured, careful, giving nothing away. There is something we need to discuss, and I would rather do it with Amelia present, since it's her body and her decision how much detail she wants shared with either of you. But I can tell you this much now. The scan shows an area of concern in her lymph nodes that wasn't present at her last screening six months ago.

Sophie made a small, broken sound beside him, one hand flying to her mouth, and Ethan felt the floor tilt beneath him in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion.

Is it, Ethan started, and could not finish the sentence.

It is currently too small to say definitively whether it represents recurrence or simply reactive inflammation from the anemia and exhaustion that caused her collapse, Dr. Chen said. We will need a biopsy to know for certain, and given her history, I would like to schedule it as soon as possible rather than waiting for a routine follow up. I know that is not the clear answer either of you were hoping for. I am sorry.

When can we see her, Sophie asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

She is being moved to a room upstairs now, Dr. Chen said. Give the nurses another twenty minutes to get her settled, and then you can both go up.

Dr. Chen turned to leave, then paused, glancing back at them both with an expression that suggested she had noticed considerably more than she had let on during the conversation. One more thing, she said. When I went over her chart just now, I noticed a note flagged from two years ago, a request from a third party for access to her records that was denied at the time due to lack of authorization. I don't usually mention this kind of thing, but given how tense this conversation has already been, I thought you should know the request came from someone claiming to represent an insurance underwriter for Cross Designs. I never followed up on it at the time. I probably should have.

Do you have a name, Ethan asked immediately, his pulse spiking.

Dr. Chen glanced at her tablet, scrolling briefly. Vale Underwriting Solutions, she read aloud. Requested by an agent named Warren Doyle.

Sophie's hand found Ethan's arm, gripping hard enough to bruise, and Ethan stood very still in the middle of that quiet hospital corridor, feeling the last piece of a puzzle click into place with a finality that made his stomach turn, because now he finally had something real, a name, a company, a paper trail two years old, evidence solid enough to take to a courtroom instead of a private conversation Marcus could simply deny with a practiced smile.

For a moment he allowed himself to imagine it, actually imagine walking into a room with lawyers and regulators and laying every piece of this conspiracy out in the open, watching Marcus's composure finally c***k in front of an audience that could not be charmed the way boardrooms and hospital waiting rooms apparently could. The image steadied him more than he expected. It gave the fear crawling through his chest somewhere useful to go.

Now he just had to survive long enough to use it, because somewhere in this same hospital, in a room he had not yet found, the woman that evidence was meant to protect was waiting to find out whether she even had time

left to see justice done at all.