48. Oh Daddy, Fleetwood Mac
"Oh Daddy," Fleetwood Mac
Victoria
Arthur Blackstone, silver hair gelled and suit pressed, leaned against my office window ledge, overlooking the street where Cruz was now walking home, oblivious to whatever havoc my father was here to wreak.
He’d never just shown up like this before, but now he stood unannounced in my law firm on a Tuesday morning, 200 miles from his New York office.
Breath catching in my throat, I paused in the doorway. He’d taught me not to speak first when you don’t know the terms of the negotiation.
“More feminine than I expected, but it’s a nice space,” he said, standing from the window ledge. He inspected my stapler, then put it down crooked.
I straightened it. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re avoiding my calls.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” I tried to keep my voice calm over the insistent pounding of my heart. I’d dodged his calls and texts for almost two months. Maybe deep down, I’d known that this reckoning was coming.
He sat in the guest chair, elbows on his knees in the same pose Alexander took to seem unassuming. Had I taught Alex that? Had he seen my dad do it and adopted it?
Or was it how predators put their prey at ease before they attack?
“You might not have anything to say, but you need to listen. The future of Sinclair Larsson depends on it.”
It felt like my blood had stopped pumping. Like time had stopped, and rewound, then sped up, and stopped again. My heartbeat was erratic with confusion and curiosity and … and anger. Why was he here ?
I was finally fucking happy, and whatever he was going to say about ‘the future of Sinclair Larsson’ was going to fuck that all up.
I lifted my chin. “I’m the Founding Partner of my own firm. I don’t need Sinclair Larsson.”
His eyes crinkled as he suppressed a smirk. What was that look? Was that pride ? After years of fighting to earn that expression, I swallowed my instinctual clamoring to win his praise.
Then his face sobered, frown lines etched along his forehead and mouth. I’d seen that expression twenty-five years ago, when he pulled up a chair at the recital hall to face me on my piano bench.
And I knew why he was here. My world was about to crumble, and I didn’t want to face it alone.
“Alex,” I gasped, reaching for my phone to manage the cloying urge to escape another second alone with him.
“Wait, Victoria—” Dad said, but I’d already pressed Alex’s extension.
“Hey, I was thinking about lunch. Should we order sushi or—”
“Arthur Blackstone is here to see us,” I choked out. “Let’s convene in the conference room.”
Guiding Dad in our cozy conference room instead of the rosewood table in Sinclair Larsson’s glass-walled skyscraper, I felt like I’d been playing business and now the real boss would show me how it’s done. After asking Connor to bring him an Americano, I half-sprinted to Alexander’s office and let him see my panic.
Alex placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Nothing he can say will change our partnership. If we hate why he’s here, we’ll tell him to go fuck himself. Ok, Tori?” I felt my breathing slow. “And if he won’t leave, we’ll call your boyfriend to kick him out.” I grinned, finally, feeling my shoulders relax at just the mention of Cruz.
Alex and I walked in together. I cleared my throat and held out my hand. “Mr. Blackstone.”
He blinked once with a soft expression that said, ‘Ok, so that’s how you want to play it,’ then shook my hand firmly before I settled into the head of the table. Alexander shook his hand, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and sat on the long side of the table beside Connor while Dad sat on the opposite side,
I folded my hands with a tight smile. “Since you didn’t make an appointment, we’ll have to keep this brief. How can we help you?”
Dad’s lips thinned. “I’d prefer that we speak in private, Victoria.”
“Anything you say to me, you can say in front of them,” I said, nodding my head to the two men whose success was intricately linked with mine.
Dad leaned forward, waiting for all of our attention. The moment stretched like the saltwater taffy we used to share on Hampton Beach Boardwalk—his chocolate, mine watermelon, and a vanilla split between us.
“Richard passed away yesterday morning.”
The breath went out of my lungs. I tapped my fingertips against my lips to prevent the groan that was clawing up my throat. Clinging to one final moment of denial, I asked coldly, “And what, you want me to deliver his eulogy?”
“Victoria Sinclair Blackstone,” Dad reprimanded with that curt tone he’d used when I refused to clean my room. “He’s leaving you everything.”
The room spun. Possibly the axis of the world shifted.
My mouth opened, but all that emerged was a gasping breath as I remembered Richard’s words: If you see Victoria, tell her I hope she got everything she wanted.
I thought he’d been talking about the townhouse.
“All his properties?” I asked, pleading for Dad to assure me this was just about real estate. I could sell real estate.
“He included a clause that you allow Beverly to stay in the Hamptons estate, but the property remains in your name.”
I nodded and whispered, “Is that all?”
“The corporation. All his shares of Sinclair Larsson.”
“No,” I breathed. The only word I could form.
For my whole childhood, I’d wanted nothing more than to be at the helm of his company. Ever since I left, it felt like a lodestone around my neck. Finally, now, the weight was dragging me down.
Dad smiled, but there was a sadness in his eyes. “Richard always thought you were the bright future of Sinclair Larsson. Now you own your shares plus his sixty percent.”
Seventy-two point seven percent , I calculated. Majority shareholder.
“Then I can sell it,” I said firmly, even knowing the unlikelihood of Richard’s estate allowing that. He’d hoarded his shares like a dragon protecting its gold.
“You wouldn’t,” Dad said. My stomach lurched with defiance, and I lifted my chin. Dad shook his head in disappointment. “There are consequences in the event of your noncompliance, though he didn’t believe it would come to that. He wanted you to be the owner and CEO.”
I blinked rapidly, but couldn’t stop the tears from forming. “He disowned me.”
“No, he let you go. But he never gave up on you,” Dad said gently. “He was devastated when you left, wanted to chase you to California to bring you home, but I told him that would only make you resent him more. I convinced him that it would be good for you to have outside experience. I assumed that you’d come back on your own someday, though that hypothesis was erroneous.” His lips tilted in a bittersweet smile as he surveyed the conference room again.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have let it drag out this long. This conversation could have happened in San Francisco. I’d been looking forward to walking into Hamilton & Houghton’s offices and prying both of you away from my old college rival.” Dad’s smile turned vindictive, like a little kid who won a tennis match. “Probably why you plateaued at senior associate. Fred would be too embarrassed to see a partner walk.”
A surge of rage tore through me, and I glanced at Alexander’s familiar scowl.
Of course. Of course our previous firm’s partners treated me like shit because they always assumed I’d leave. They hadn’t wanted the disgrace of a partner walking away … but their precious egos wouldn’t admit the truth, so they made it seem like I wasn’t good enough.
Dad had pulled strings to get me that job, which I didn’t realize until after I signed the employment contract. I’d seen it as a refuge instead of what he intended: experience to support my eventual return to lead Sinclair Larsson. He’d probably informed my old boss Fred that I was a temporary loan.
The only variables were how long Richard lived … and whether Spencer could oust him before he died.
“And what about the boy wonder?” I asked bitterly. “What was Richard’s plan for him?”
“Spencer is a useless, entitled piece of shit,” Dad said with disdain, and for the first time in this conversation, we agreed. I saw the quirk of my mouth mirrored on his. “Richard realized years ago that Spencer never had the brains or grit. If he took the reins, the company would go belly-up within a decade. But you …” Dad’s attention lingered on our mounted logo. “You never give up. When life knocks you down, you fight back.”
Protect the moneymaker, Cobrecita. My chest spasmed at Cruz’s voice in my head, but I forced the emotion down. Not now.
My father put his fingers on my forearm, and it took all my willpower to stay still. Half of me wanted to retreat into myself and pretend this conversation wasn’t happening. The other half wanted to wrap myself in his reassuring embrace.
Instead, I glanced dismissively at his hand. He lifted his fingers and waited until my eyes returned to his, to shore me up with a confident pep talk. “We’ve got 4,000 agents in the field and another thousand at corporate who need a strong leader. Somebody who was raised in the industry, who knows all the legal requirements, who has experience running her own company and who has a vision for what Sinclair Larsson can become. There’s nobody else as qualified as you. There’s a reason Richard based his succession plan around you, Victoria.”
They’d been planning this for years. If I’d visited sooner or answered Dad’s calls, he might have clued me in. Instead, he moved the chess pieces from a distance.
I’d been a pawn in Richard and Dad’s machinations, and now I’d made it across the board and was being promoted to Queen: the most powerful piece on the board.
But still only as successful as the player moving the pieces.
Alexander exhaled deeply— stupid Alex and his stupid yoga —then I realized he was reminding me to breathe. When I followed his lead, my shoulders unclenched slightly. He leaned back in his chair and tugged on his bottom lip, his pose casual as we had a silent conversation.
Are you okay? His eyebrow arched.
I … , my shoulder replied. I have no idea.
You’re going to figure this out, his chin raised.
I don’t want this , my lip quivered.
I know, but you’ve got this, his crooked grin said, then his head cocked towards Connor. And we’re a team.
I turned a fraction. Connor grinned softly, like he’d been waiting for my attention, then tapped a fingertip twice over his heart. Where you go, I go.
I lowered my chin to stare at the table as a drop of sweat trickled down the back of my neck. My shoulders tensed, my chest aching from this morning’s pushups.
Knowing I needed a moment, Dad tilted to Alexander. “She’ll need a chief legal counsel.” He turned to Connor, “And a trustworthy Executive Assistant who knows all her quirks.”
“Arthur,” I reprimanded. “Stop. I haven’t said that I’m ...”
“You’ve been training your whole life for this job. It’s your birthright.” He rose and buttoned his suit jacket. Even though this was my office, Dad had set all the parameters of the meeting, including ending it on his terms. “Margot is preparing the obituary and today’s press release, and scheduling a press conference tomorrow at 2. As his successor and the new majority shareholder, you need to speak.”
I opened the conference room door, indicating to my team that I would walk him out alone. I waited until we got to the reception desk, the light of the windows shining through like a beacon of hope. “Say it.”
“You already know.”
“Say it anyway.”
He sighed, sliding his hand into his pocket. For the first time since he arrived, the confident veneer slipped. Instead of an executive leading a negotiation, he looked like a penitent father.
“He’s young and immature. He’d resent the 18-hour days and crack under the media scrutiny. He can’t handle what your life will become.” He sighed. “If you were an ordinary girl, I wouldn’t intervene. But—”
“I’m not ordinary.” The words, which had always seemed like a compliment, tightened my throat like a noose.
“You’re extraordinary, Princess,” he said gently, using the voice he’d used to calm me when I panicked before an exam. “It should have been your mother, we both know that. She always wanted you to follow in her footsteps.”
My lungs felt like they were collapsing under the weight of her dream transferring to my shoulders. “I’ve bought you as much time as I could away from the Den of Vipers.”
I’m a cobra, not a viper , I wanted to tell him.
But he wouldn’t understand. Nobody would understand.
As hard as I tried to hold them back, the tears formed anyway.
I held out my hand, and he shook it with a frown.
“I’ll have your room in the Tribeca condo prepared for your arrival,” he said, walking out. Before he stepped into the town car idling in front of our building, he turned back to look at me, face full of pride and regret.
Then he was gone.
I stepped into the stairwell to collect myself and lock away the part of me that dreamed of a different future, one with a sweet man who made me breakfast and kissed me goodnight. I’d missed the chance to say goodbye to my grandfather, so caught up in my life with him.
But there would be no more time in my life for push-up competitions and concerts.
Billy Joel lyrics echoed in my mind about not allowing myself to imagine that my dreams could come true …
I set a phone timer for a three-minute pity party. I made a mental list of everything I needed to do before I walked back into that Manhattan skyscraper for the first time in 13 years.
I’d left a disgraced 23-year-old, running from heartbreak. I would return victorious to claim my rightful place, my heels crushing anyone standing in my way.