Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
B eing back at her desk at Barone & Sons was exhilarating. At first she was afraid she’d been away so long that she’d have missed too much. Nightmares of Nico destroying all her years of work in the span of two weeks had tortured her mind. But as it turned out, he hadn’t done that bad a job. He hadn’t done an amazing job, but he hadn’t put them in the red. Satisfaction filled her once again, knowing she could do this job so much better.
He’d said his fond farewells to her at the engagement party, and she’d had to bite her tongue as he went on and on about how his father needed him in Italy to help with the contracts that had suddenly picked up.
She wasn’t born yesterday. Nico’s boastful exit had Joel written all over it. She wasn’t sure exactly how he’d maneuvered it, but she knew he’d somehow found a way to make her dear second cousin disappear into the ether without losing face or causing tension in her family. It was the Joel Morgan way. Tying up the nagging loose ends without causing so much as a ripple. Her father probably hadn’t even thought twice about it as he drove Nico to the airport the next morning.
And all Lucy could think was, so long cuz.
She sat at her desk again, ignoring the hundreds of emails needing replies, and smiled. Life wasn’t perfect and likely never would be, but happiness was so close she could almost taste it. Her parents had arrived back in San Francisco late last night, but her father had been at work bright and early this morning, proudly bragging about his daughter’s engagement to Joel.
At their morning meeting, Luciano had let her lead, which he rarely did. He’d also signed over a few projects to her that went beyond the accounting work she normally handled. It had seemed odd, but then she remembered that this was what her original plan had been about. It was simply unfolding. Her father taking her more seriously based on the strategic alliance she’d made with Joel. And while she was happy to see the change in how her father was treating her, it wasn’t a strategic alliance anymore, it was a love match. It was her life.
And she knew it was time to talk to her father again about what she wanted point blank, instead of trying to manipulate him into giving her what she wanted.
Heaving a sigh, she gathered the files that needed signing and stood from her desk. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d talked to Luciano about her desire to take over Barone & Sons after his retirement, but it was the first time she was doing it with a different outlook. Joel was a partner at her side and not the bait she would use to trick her father. She was enough, she had to be.
Making her way down the hallway to her father’s office, she smiled and waved at her coworkers as she passed them. Familiar, friendly faces she’d spent years with. When Luciano hired someone, they often stayed for life. There was very little turnover. Even the tradespeople working in the shop stayed. She always admired that about her father, his ability to retain people, to give them a reason to stay.
She entered her father’s office from the business side. The room was uniquely sandwiched between the cabinetry shop and the administrative cubicles, so Luciano’s office had two doors. One led to the office and entrance of the building and the other led out to the workshop. This gave him easy access to the shop, which worked out well, because woodworking had always been Luciano’s first love, and the closer he got to retirement, the more time he spent in the shop side of the building.
Sure enough, he wasn’t in his office when she entered. The faint smell of sawdust hit her nostrils, and she inhaled the scent of her childhood. Lucy’s talents were more business oriented, but she’d learned woodworking as part of her training, and was able to hold her own with a table saw. She simply preferred and excelled at the business end of things.
Walking to the windows on the other side of the office, she scanned the shop for her father. She found him at the circular saw, safety goggles and noise cancelling ear protection on. He was in the zone. She’d talk to him later. Maybe she’d even swing by her parents after work. Mooch dinner off of them and have a chat together. Maybe having her mother there would help buffer the tension…or make it worse, depending.
Turning from the windows, she went to his desk to leave the files. As she placed them neatly on the corner where he’d see them, a contract with the Barone & Sons logo caught her eye.
Tugging the contract out from under the other paperwork on her father’s desk, she scanned the first page. It didn’t look like any of the ones she’d been working on. Something had come up while she’d been on holiday.
Then she saw Joel’s name and the contents of the contract registered in her mind. And then she lost her utter shit.
T he Morgan Construction Building was located downtown San Francisco. A tall, narrow building that, she remembered, boasted a perfect view of the Bay from Joel’s corner office.
But Lucy was in no mood to admire the view as she barged into his space, his frantic administrative assistant hot on her heels.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan, I told her you were on a conference call but she—” The poor, frazzled thing stumbled over her words, clearly still in shock that Lucy had barely spared her a glance on her rampage toward Joel’s office. “She just bulldozed right in.”
Joel, who sat at his mahogany desk, back to the view, glanced up at his assistant, then studied Lucy. She was sure her hair was in disarray from her race over here. Her cheeks were flushed with heat and her death glare hadn’t wavered since she’d burst out of the elevator and scared the daylights out of his unsuspecting assistant.
Flicking his gaze to his assistant once more, he dismissed her with a single nod, then he fixed his gaze on Lucy again as he pressed a button on his office phone.
“Serena, my apologies. An emergency has come up.”
A voice filled the room through the phone speaker. “An emergency? Right now?” The tone was demanding.
Joel met it with an irrefutable tone of his own. The one that compelled even the most hard-headed business people to concede to his will. “Yes, right now. I’ll call you back.” He clicked the button again before a reply could come and rose from his chair. “Lucy?” His inflection softened now, soothed, and as always, it only ignited her rage.
“He’s giving it to fucking you !” she shouted, throwing the contract she’d brought with her on his desk.
Joel watched the paper flutter to the surface, then raised his gaze to her again. “I?—”
“My father is giving Barone & Sons to you, Joel.” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her voice below a shout. Her anger was too sharp and tunnel-visioned. “I bet he thinks it’s some kind of wedding present, a gift to his new, beloved, coveted son-in-law.” Her breath caught, backed up with hurt. “You should have heard how he bragged about you today at work. I should have known. I should have known .”
Joel took a remote from his desk and pointed it at the floor-to-ceiling glass walls behind her. Instantly the glass shuttered to a foggy white, blocking the sight of the busy office beyond because God forbid anyone should see Joel Morgan’s wife losing her fucking mind in his office.
He was calm. Too calm. And he hadn’t looked at the contract since his initial glance after she threw it at him.
The truth struck like a knife to her soul. “Oh my God. You knew.”
“Lucy.” He raised his palms. “I told him no.”
Her unabated anger trapped all coherent words in her throat.
“Lucy?” Joel asked carefully, as he came slowly around his desk to stand closer to her.
He appeared so austere in his business attire, so handsome and competent. She was all the way in love with him, and pretty sure he was right there with her. This was their fresh start. Their re-do. So why?—
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words spilled over her numb lips, echoing and reflecting their past as they bounced off the walls. The same mistakes, over and over and over again. “Joel?” she pressed.
“I wanted to protect you,” he blurted.
“From what?” she shouted, throwing her arms in the air. “From my stubbornly, traditional father? From the generational chauvinism that has plagued me since the doctor announced my sex in the delivery room? From the fate I have been trying and failing to change for the last twenty-nine years?”
“From all of it!” Joel’s rarely raised voice silenced her tirade. He took off his glasses and set them on his desk behind him, before pressing his fingers against his closed lids.
Several beats of silence passed before his eyes opened to look at her, weary and dull, like an overcast sky. “All I’m ever trying to do, Lucy, is protect you.” His voice leveled back to its usual composure, but his tone had lost resolve. “Telling you would have served no purpose other than to hurt you. And I had already told your father no, so I assumed the matter was done. I didn’t think the contract was already drawn up.”
“Of course it was drawn up. He’s a presumptuous old bastard. He had no reason to think you’d say no.”
“But,” Joel countered, “he had every reason not to ask me in the first place.”
His cell phone started having conniptions on his desk, but he ignored it.
“Lucy, when he asked me, I was truly shocked. And then scared shitless, because I knew you and I were on tenuous ground, and I didn’t want anything to shake that. Not for this.” He gestured to the contract on his desk.
His phone silenced. He looked exhausted. Sympathy snagged at her heart. What he’d said made sense. This was a typical Joel Morgan attempt at protecting her feelings. But it was a failed attempt, and now the hurt that had simmered for so long had come to a boil.
“ This is important to me! Barone & Sons is important to me.” Heat pricked her eyes. “You could have told me, and I would have known what my father was thinking.” She spun away from her husband’s heartbreaking scrutiny.
“I’m sorry." His voice was hoarse.
“I can’t believe I was so na?ve,” she whispered, her words muffled by her tears. “Two fucking weeks was all it took for him to give it all to you. How dumb was I to think he’d consider me?”
“I suspect he would. Maybe he just needed someone to show him what he couldn’t see himself.”
She whirled back to face him. “ I showed him! For years I have been showing him. Why couldn’t he see it? Why couldn’t he see me ?”
He walked toward her, non-threatening, but still carrying his typical confident power. He wore it like a mantle, and people obeyed him when they saw it. No wonder her father wanted him.
When he stopped in front of her, his eyes were wary with regret. Good.
“Lucy, you think your father didn’t see you, but I believe he was blinded by you and everything you’ve accomplished. Have you ever considered he wanted more for you?”
“Like what? A husband with enough money to take care of me so I could stay home and raise babies like my mother did? ”
His cell phone started buzzing again, and again he ignored it as he shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he didn’t want you to waste your life on a company that had consumed all of his life. Maybe he wanted you to be free of it.”
“What?” She shook her head. He was making zero sense, and she was tired of being made to feel like she was in the wrong for wanting to be the one who kept her legacy alive and in her family. “He was ready to give it to Nico. To you. He doesn’t want anyone to be free of it. He just doesn’t want me to have it!” Her voice rose again as a fresh wave of hurt bloomed.
This time, after his cell stopped buzzing, the phone on his desk started ringing immediately, filling the room with its shrill sound.
“You should get that, Mr. Morgan. It might be something important .” She couldn’t keep the ire out of her voice on the last word.
The phone went silent as Joel spun to face his desk, his eyes hard and dark.
He grabbed the contract and ripped it into pieces. “Does this make you feel better? There wasn’t a single fucking moment when I even considered saying yes. Not a single second where I thought our plan would end this way.”
“I wish you’d considered being honest with me. Why can’t you stop thinking that the only way to protect me is by keeping things from me?” Her brain hurt, like she was running in circles and coming up against a concrete wall each time she rounded another turn.
His desk phone started ringing again. Somebody needed him, but this time it wasn’t her.
“Answer it.”
Glaring at her, he grabbed the receiver and slammed it back down in its cradle, silencing the ring. “I might have fucked up again. I might be making a thousand mistakes when it comes to you,” he growled in a low, dangerous tone. “But understand this, nothing is more important to me than you, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure Barone & Sons is yours. Christ, Lucy, I was willing to fake marry you so you could have it!”
The logical side of her knew he didn’t mean to strike her where it hurt the most. Their emotions were high, scattered, but his words hit her heart like a kill shot.
She couldn’t stop her eyes from watering over, lower lip trembling as she said, “I’m sorry I made you fake anything with me. I’m sorry I ever asked.”
Joel opened his mouth to say something, but a soft knock on his office door interrupted him.
The door swished open and Joel’s assistant cautiously whispered, “Pardon the interruption, sir, but Cassidy from Luca’s Wings is on the phone, and she says it can’t wait.”
“It will have to,” Joel commanded. Something sorrowful passed through his eyes still locked on her.
Something she didn’t care to decipher because she was so over this conversation.
“Mr. Morgan can take his call now. I have somewhere else I need to be.” She hurried out of the door. Hurt had swallowed the bulk of her anger, and the weight had taken its toll. She was exhausted. Exhausted from fighting her father every step of the way, from constantly trying to be seen, of having the men she loved most in her life making decisions for her. Exhausted from everything.
It wasn’t until she was halfway down the elevator ride that his assistant’s words echoed in her head. Cassidy from Luca’s Wings is on the phone…