23. Phoenix #2
“I scored a hot wife.” I wink at her.
“You guys are going to make me blush,” she says.
“You already are, sweetheart,” Dad says.
She offers a shy smile.
“Back to Potter.” Dad veers the conversation. “At some point in the evening, Niels came up to me frazzled.”
Michaela sits a little straighter in her chair. “What happened?”
“Niels revealed some disturbing things.”
“Like what?”
Dad’s eyes bounce around the table, meeting our gaze before speaking. “Potter cornered him and bombarded him with a million questions about the Villiers Grand. Potter had a keen interest in understanding Niels’s motive to sell the hotel to us instead of selling it to High Stone Holding.”
My eyebrows shoot to my forehead and my fork freezes halfway to my mouth.
“Get this,” Dad says, “Potter stated it would’ve been a more lucrative deal for Niels and for Michaela since High Stone Holding approached him, whereas Niels approached us.”
There’s a deafening silence in the room.
My brothers and I exchange a knowing look.
Potter is plotting against us. That, I’m certain of.
What does he have to gain from fucking us over?
“Daddy never mentioned anything about being approached by another company,” Michaela says. I’m not surprised he’d keep quiet about that encounter. “Isn’t High Stone Holding owed by the Madigans?”
“Yes.” Slate answers her question. “They’ve been part of the top three hotelier dynasties for several decades and they’ve been fighting dirty to outrank us from the number two spot for as long.”
“And by dirty, Slate means by any means possible,” I say. “Ripley Madigan, the head of the family, is the kind of man who’s willing to prostitute anyone to get what he wants.” Bile rises in my throat at the memory of the six months Marie-Clémence played me for a fool.
Michaela frowns.
“Niels was surprised by the level of details Potter knew.” Dad keeps talking.
“Did the Madigans approach Daddy or was that Potter taking a wild guess?”
“They did,” I say. “Several times and they were waving big money at him, but—” I purse my lips.
“But what?”
My eyes bounce from Slate’s, to Wilder’s, and to my father’s.
“But what?” Michaela places a hand on my forearm. “Tell me.”
I push my plate away, my appetite gone.
“Tell her,” my father says. “She has a right to know. You’re married now, so she’s safe.”
“Okay, this is scaring me,” Michaela says. “What’s going on?”
I reach out and smooth the frown line between her eyebrows. My eyes bore into hers for a prolonged beat.
“Tell me, Phoenix.”
“The marriage wasn’t optional for your father because he wanted to make sure you didn’t get screwed over.
Additionally, in his eyes, the marriage protected your legacy against backlash from the scandal around Thana’s lover.
” I pause. “When Ripley Madigan approached your father, he thought he had struck gold. It was the perfect timing, and he figured one of Ripley’s three twenty-something sons could be a decent candidate as a husband.
” Another pause. “Those are his legitimate sons.
Rumor has it, he has as many as a dozen illegitimate kids.
“Ripley refused the option of you marrying one of his sons. He wanted to keep you all to himself?—”
“He’s old enough to be my grandfather.” The note of hysteria in Michaela’s voice is unmistakable.
“Ripley is sixty-eight years old,” Dad says. “The difference of age is preposterous.”
“The man keeps busy,” I say. “He has four young girlfriends on the side, along with his wife of forty years.” Since the vermin blindsided me a few years ago, I paid astute investigators to dissect his life after the meeting with Niels.
They couldn’t dig up all his skeletons—because an unscrupulous guy like Madigan has a boatload of them––but what they reported back was enough to prevent any nasty surprises before accepting my now-father-in-law’s proposal.
“He has a penchant for selecting virgins, days after they come of age. It’s like he grooms them and stashes them somewhere with the clock ticking, counting down to their eighteenth birthday.
He phases them out when they turn twenty-one––”
“I’m twenty-three,” she says.
“True.” And she’s not even a virgin. “According to your father, Ripley was willing to make an exception to his rule because you bring far more to the table than his dumb virgins do,” I say. “Ripley’s words, not mine.”
Michaela blinks. “His wife doesn’t care?”
“My guess is his wife is willing to turn a blind eye to maintain the lifestyle she’s accustomed to.
And here’s the kicker, the girlfriends live together in a neighboring house, so it’s not like Mrs. Madigan is oblivious to her husband’s cheating ways.
There’s more. Ripley offers his girlfriends to business partners to seal deals. ”
Michaela turns as white as a ghost.
“His girlfriends are always well taken care of when things go his way, so they’re okay with being prostituted ,” I say. “It’s a win-win for everyone involved.”
She gasps.
Anger bubbles inside me at the horror reflecting from her eyes. I hate seeing my little dragon this vulnerable.
“Ripley is into sordid and demeaning sex.” I keep talking. “Your father refused to hand you over to a pervert. Ripley put pressure on him. Niels wouldn’t cave in. He wouldn’t budge from his position. Then, Ripley pulled out the big guns. He started blackmailing your father.”
“What?” Michaela’s brows pinch together.
“Ripley knew how desperate your father was. He also knew about Thana and her lover—I mean, he knew everything.”
“Oh God.” She winces.
“Your father couldn’t figure out how Ripley was able to get his hands on that kind of private information,” I say.
“Panicked, he came to me. When he explained his situation, I filled him in on Ripley’s sexual deviances.
I told him he was right to trust his instincts.
He wanted to save you from a grim future with a bad man.
” I grab her hands into mine. “He wanted you to marry someone who wouldn’t corrupt you, soil your soul, or take advantage of you.
I gave him my word I’d do right by you.”
Her eyes well and a tear rolls down her cheek.
I wipe it away with my thumb.
I cup her face with my hands, leaning close enough to kiss the tip of her nose.
“You and me against the world, hellion.”
She looks up at me and smiles between her tears.
For a long beat, no one speaks.
Dad clears his throat. “Going back to Potter.” He breaks the silence.
“Most of the information surrounding the deal was never divulged to the board. The four of us made a quick decision on the Villiers Grand, informed Roman, and then presented the deal to them as a fait accompli .” They weren’t pleased and they had objections.
A lot of them. It wasn’t a done deal for them.
We expected as much. They shut the fuck up when we presented them with our aggressive one-year expansion plan.
“Not only was the purchase of your hotel hush-hush, it was done at lightning speed. So, it bears the question, how did Potter know so much?”
“I knew there was a reason I didn’t trust that guy,” Michaela says.
“You’re spot on,” Slate says. “He’s been on the board for a long time, but lately, you have to wonder if he’s still on our team.”
“It seems his new purpose in life is to hamper our efforts every chance he has,” Wilder says.
“It’s like he wants our demise.” My jaw clenches. “Mine, specifically.”
Michaela tilts her head to the side. “Can’t you get rid of him?”
“It’s not that simple,” Slate says.
“That’s too bad,” Michaela says. “If he’s on the board, he should be a friend, not a foe.”
I crack a wry smile. “You’d think.”
Wilder frowns. “If no one at this table revealed anything to Potter—and I’m certain Roman would never betray us—does it mean we have a leak within the company?”
“That’s the billion-dollar question, son,” Dad says.
“What did my father tell Potter?”
“He didn’t say much because he was afraid to jeopardize our deal,” Dad says. “He played it smart. I told Niels if Potter ever asks any other questions about your hotel, to refer him back to me personally. I’ll deal with him.”
Wilder shakes his head. “Did you drill the asshole last night when you went to your office to open that bottle of whiskey?”
My brothers cut their time with Potter short, choosing to return to the party instead of being trapped in Dad’s office with a man they loathe. I don’t blame them.
“I didn’t,” Dad says.
“Why not?”
My father turns to Slate and cocks a warning eyebrow.
“Don’t you want to know how the hell Potter got his hands on that information?” Undeterred, Slate soldiers on.
“Son, you seem to forget who the hell you’re talking to.” Dad points a finger at him. “Watch your tone.”
Slate shrinks in size.
“Like the game of chess, in business, it’s about outplaying your opponent,” Dad says. “It’s the same in the game of poker. For now, I’m keeping my cards close to my chest.”
“What does that mean?”
“Slate, I don’t know what Potter is up to yet?—”
“Nothing good.”
“I agree with Wilder,” I say.
“Everything points to it,” Dad says. “Until I’m dialed in on what he has up his sleeve, it’s best he doesn’t know I’m—we’re—onto him. Understood?”
We all nod our agreement.
“Let’s all be careful around Potter,” my father says before turning his attention to my wife. “And you, Michaela, whatever you do, avoid him at all costs.”
“Okay,” she says, the tremor in her voice audible.