Run, Girl (If You Can)

Aaron's phone beeped. It was an email notification that his delivery had been received, asking for him to rate the service. He quickly gave it five stars because it was what Keeley would do to help out the delivery person before setting his phone back onto the table.

She was probably eating her sandwich right now.

This was the least he could do for her. He hadn't taken care of her properly in their first life. Nothing would stop him from catering to her every need this time around, even the fact that she despised him.

He hoped that she would cool down a bit eventually but his expectations changed the moment he found out she had been reborn. Keeley had every right to hate him.

She had been the light of his life but all he ever brought her was darkness. It had never been fair dragging someone so pure and uncorrupted into his world. He did it because he didn't want to be alone and didn't think of her side of the equation at all.

His selfishness was unforgivable. No, he couldn't expect her to come back to him. At best he wanted to be on good enough terms that they could be friendly when they saw each other.

Aaron sighed and double checked the numbers in front of him. All those business trips and he still didn't have nearly enough power to topple his father by force. Was trying to wrestle away his shares like originally planned really his only choice?

He really didn't have enough time for that. His father had become more and more impatient about him marrying.

He couldn't—wouldn't—even consider getting engaged now only to break it later as an option. Aaron refused to let his father have that kind of power over him.

Worst case scenario, he would disobey the order to get engaged and his father would try to throw him out of the company and cut him off. It wouldn't work; Aaron was secretly the second largest shareholder.

He didn't want to expose that fact but if it really came down to the wire he would. The only problem with that plan was that it would reveal his true intentions to overthrow Alistair and his father would be more on guard, making things much more difficult.

Nobody with good intentions would split up their shares between multiple board members to have more votes, after all. His plan would be obvious once his father figured that part out.

Plotting a coup was exhausting work. Sometimes he even wondered if it was worth it anymore. He only even started all of this so he could be with Keeley without worrying about his father's interference. With her out of the picture, he had lost his drive.

Aaron had always been an ambitious person but his ambitions were never his own until she came along.

Since birth he had been specifically trained for his role to take over the company. Everything was decided for him: how he would speak, act, dress, and spend his time. After meeting her, his ambitions changed. All he wanted was to have her with him.

He worked so hard during their first few years of marriage because he wanted his father to acknowledge his accomplishments to the point of respecting that he could make his own choices and accept his wife. After discovering the truth about the baby's death he worked hard to dethrone his father.

It was always done with Keeley in mind and yet his workaholic tendencies had been part of what made her so miserable. Ironic.

The only reason he really had left to even bother was getting revenge on his father for hurting his wife so horribly, especially now that he knew she remembered it. It wasn't the same as doing it so they could be together. He was tired and didn't know if he could even pull it off at this point.

Cameron caught him lost in his thoughts as he barged into the office. "What are the foreign holdings looking like?"

"Not enough," Aaron said wearily.

He seemed alarmed at his boss' aura of defeat. It was understandable since Aaron always kept up his cold yet confident persona in front of him. But even powerful people could get burned out. Aaron was no exception.

"Hey…you'll figure this out. We're closer than we've ever been."

That may have been true but it was still too far away to be useful. Their current backers weren't powerful enough. What needed to happen for a hostile takeover to be successful was foreign markets driving down the stock value so Alistair had no choice but to sell out.

To have full decision-making power Aaron needed more than 50% of the shares. He needed 27% more to make that happen, which was slightly more than double what he currently had.

"Cameron…is there even a point to all of this?" he asked helplessly.

Even if Aaron won this particular battle, his father still won the war. Keeley wouldn't forgive him for all the things he did to protect her from his father. Alistair's win in their last life carried over to this one no matter what happened now.

Cameron sighed and hesitantly reached out to pat his friend's shoulder. "Of course there is. It's easy to lose focus of the big picture when you're worn out. You've focused on work too much lately; why not come out and do something fun to get your mind off things this weekend?"

Fun? Nothing in this world was fun without Keeley involved. She was the only one who could make things seem fun to him.

"I think I'll pass."

"Keeley's going to be there," he said teasingly. "Would you really miss an opportunity to eat a bunch of cake and see your favorite person?"

He could never miss an opportunity to see his wife but… "Cake?"

"Oh yeah, I should have mentioned that. We're going cake testing for the wedding. She's the maid of honor and Jen can't make a single decision without consulting her on it for some reason. I feel kind of sorry for her, actually. Jen's a little…stressed…about everything and she's been pouring her stress out onto the people around her, specifically Keeley."

Aaron scowled, indignant on his wife's behalf. "She doesn't have time to deal with all that. She barely gets enough sleep as is."

"I know; that's why I feel sorry for her. Maybe you can cheer her up a bit this weekend."

Him cheer Keeley up? Laughable. She would probably be furious seeing him there. At least enjoying her presence for a little while would help Aaron out of his slump. She tended to have that effect on him.