Cheat [MxM] (Carter Brothers Book 1)

Chapter 11

A/N: Date night Pt1

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EZRA ▪︎ POV 

I stared down at my laptop, cupping a mug of coffee in my hands to keep them warm. I felt the tension in my face as I stared hard at the financial report on the screen, my brain making mental calculations, risk and benefit analysis and of course, moral evaluations. I told myself repeatedly that I couldn't be emotional while I did this, and of course it would be stupid if I didn't ask for a second and third objective opinion, but right now, I let my brain work over the facts. 

I scrolled through the accounting books, then the annual reports over the last six years. I compared them, double checked them, went back and forth between files and feedback over the period from our business executives. My chest was tight, my eyes focused and I was completely lost to my persona as a business man as I got swept up in the task at hand. In the end, I slumped back, letting out a tense breath of air. 

It could work. We could do it. 

If I was going to divorce Renee, I had decided that I needed to cut all unnecessary ties to her aside from Ollie, and right now, the biggest connection between us was the partnership between Evan and I's company and her father's. It was a huge decision, one I couldn't make by myself and would have to take to the board of directors, but it was something I could certainly look into as one of the owners so that I was ready when it was time to make my case. 

I couldn't use my divorce as an excuse to make such a big decision, but the facts were there. Over the past two years, the direct benefits from the partnership were minimal and as we were the larger firm, my father in law's company was benefiting more out of our exposure and size, than we were from them. There was nothing their firm was giving us that we weren't already doing or doing better. It was like we were powering through and leaving gifts behind for them along the way. The 'partnership' was not at all equal - it never had been.

I realised as I looked over the accounts, that my father's decision was based purely on his friendship with Renee's father and our marriage. It was networking and crowd pleasing, not smart business strategy at all. Well, I was hoping to change that. There was the legal side breaking out of a contract would lead to, but I could take care of that when the time came. Right now, my options were to buy out the company and do a complete takeover, or just break the contract all together. 

I was leaning towards the former. It was brutal, but what business wasn't? It took out the competition and we could expand our direct workforce, while also cutting out the bureaucracy that came with consulting in a partnership. Our business had the investment funds to do so and I believed the benefits would outweigh the risks in the long term. The only problem would be that Renee's dad would loose ownership of his company and their higher ups would be out of a job to mine. 

But... in the end it would always be my business over theirs and... I could finally get rid of the connection that got me in this mess with Renee in the first place. They manipulated me for the money and all these years, they'd been winning, but I finally felt like I could take back control. I smiled, closing the laptop screen, feeling a little less caged in. 

This move would be a big fuck you to my parents and hers and some sick part of me looked forward to seeing their shocked faces when they finally found out about this. I couldn't allow them to string me along anymore. I had to fight back. 

Tonight I had my date with Jae and I was looking forward to seeing him after the long second half to the week I'd had. Sometimes, I found it a little bit intimidating how much I thought about him during the days and nights we were apart. His upbeat personality, his smile, his touch, his everything. I wanted to be around him more and more and that sort of longing was admittedly scary.