NICK LOOKED UP from his computer to find Garth standing in his office. Garth looked tired and drawn, which should have made Nick feel better but didn’t. Regrets weren’t going to help anyone.
“What?” he asked, not really caring. Izzy thought she was the one who had been played, but she was wrong. He’d never wanted to hurt her or tried to get her. Garth, on the other hand, had played him like an old string guitar.“I haven’t told the rest of the board about you resigning,” Garth said, moving to the chair on the other side of the desk and sitting down. “I wanted to see if you’d changed your mind.”
“No.”
“Nick. We’re friends. We’re more than that, we’re practically brothers. She’s just a girl. You can get a dozen more just like her.”
Nick thought about Izzy’s sense of humor, her fearlessness, the way she challenged him, how she cared about the kids and teased Aaron and made every part of life brighter just by being alive. He thought about how she listened, how she trusted and the way she stood her ground and did what she believed was right.
“No. I can’t. Izzy’s unique.”
“All cats are gray in the dark.”
“Izzy’s not a cat and we’re not going to talk about her.”
Garth stared at him. “You’re going to end our decades of friendship because she’s pissed?”
Nick had thought a lot about everything that had happened. He’d tried to see everyone’s point of view to figure out where it had all gone wrong.
“I never got it before,” he said slowly. “When we were in South America, I was so sure I was right about the drilling. You had other reports telling you it couldn’t be done the way I said and when you believed me instead of them, I was determined to prove your faith in me. But I was wrong and three people paid with their lives.”
“We got the oil.”
“Sure. At a price.”
“There’s always a price.”
Nick nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’ve been to hell and back because I was responsible for their deaths.”
“You didn’t pull the trigger. It was an accident. A mistake.”
“My mistake.”
Garth shook his head. “You spent years trying to get someone to punish you, buddy. I don’t know why. You’re doing a fine job all on your own.”
“I’m trying. But you’re not. You don’t care. You weren’t interested in making amends.”
“Francisco and his brothers held us prisoner for months, torturing us every damn day.”
Garth was angry now. Nick could see it in the tension around his mouth and the way he sat in his chair.
“He got his pound of flesh and then some,” Garth continued. “Given the chance, he would have killed us. You made a mistake, Nick. One damn mistake. You’re not God, you didn’t know. You screwed up. And, hey, you’re sorry. So get the fuck over it.”
Interesting. It was almost the same thing Aaron had said, but for very different reasons.
“Are you really so much of a bastard that you don’t care? Or is it too inconvenient to deal with the past?” Nick said.
“What’s to deal with? You went to the governments of both countries. No one wanted to do anything. You spent months trying to find Francisco and his family and you couldn’t. You’ve funded a couple of orphanages, you’re working with kids here. What else do you want?”
“From you? A little remorse. Some regret. Something other than business as usual.”
Garth’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what I think or feel. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe not, but I do know we were once like brothers. We nearly died together. And a week ago you sold me down the river. You knew Izzy was important to me. You knew I wasn’t happy to be lying to her. And you knew I’d keep your secret for as long as I could. You used that information, you used me, then you screwed me. You were leaving messages, telling me you wanted to talk to me and then you told her everything.”
Most people didn’t have the balls to assess his character, Garth thought. Nick had never had a problem speaking his mind.
He’d never thought it would come to this—that a woman would come between him and Nick. Worse. A Titan. One of his sisters.
“You’re letting them win,” he said.
“I was never in a fight with them,” Nick told him. “Izzy didn’t deserve any of this.”
“She had the surgery. That wouldn’t have happened without her being here.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”