Chapter 21
Tyler
“What is this I hear? Are you two in trouble?” Nolan’s worry was clear through the phone. In the background, I could hear the sounds of water sloshing and wind blowing.
“Are you on a boat?”
Nolan sighed. “Carey has gotten my son and Ivy’s into sailing, and now we’re all stuck on a boat.”
Nolan was making it sound like a punishment when he was enjoying what I wished I could do right now.
Instead, I had to spend the day in my home office dealing with the fallout of the article.
The damage was minimal, especially since Massimo held on and even offered a supportive quote when an architectural blog asked him about the scandal.
“Come on! You love it!” I heard Carey say in the background. As far as I was aware, it was Forrest, Nolan’s son, who was into sailing and kept pestering Carey and Lake to teach him to sail. Lake especially was fast becoming an expert sailor and winning school competitions.
“Can you come up with an excuse for me so I can escape these people?” Nolan said.
“Can’t, unfortunately. I have to deal with this bullshit.”
The background sound changed, and I heard a door close. He must have gone into the boat’s cabin. “Is it really that bad? I thought it was a smear article from one of your competitors.”
“It is, but not in the way you think.”
“Oh?”
I didn’t know where to start or how much to tell him or if I should tell him the truth. I opted for the easiest explanation. “An old rival of mine is haunting me from the grave.”
“How dark and poetic. Who is it?”
“Remember Channing? Saffron’s father?”
“Saffron the model? The kid who had a big old crush on you? Been a while since I’ve heard of her. Is she still pestering you? Or did you finally hit that?”
“Please don’t say hit that in your grand old age. You sound like a youth pastor.”
“Okay, mister young and thirty-something,” he said, chuckling.
“Nolan.”
“Yes. Channing. How is he haunting you?”
“Well, Dad, if you can imagine it,” I said sarcastically, “he bribed the commissioner so he could grant us a permit for one of our buildings.”
“Oh, gosh.” I could hear Nolan slam his forehead. I didn’t have to convince him that it was something Dad would do. “Sometimes I wish I could dig up that bastard and beat him to a pulp.”
“I know what you mean. Channing found out. And he has damning evidence of the crime.”
“How? It can’t be the emails I read in the paper?”
“Not that. Those are doctored. They added my name to the emails to make it seem as if I was part of it. That I can fight. This other stuff, though…”
“What did he have on you?”
“On Dad. Pictures of Dad exchanging money with the commissioner. A Mafia friend of his is also in them.”
“Yeah, that’s bad.” Nolan sighed. “Fucking hell.”
“I know. Channing blackmailed me with the material years ago. The accusations would have been hard to combat back then if he had made them. It was when we were just starting out, so I did what he wanted me to do.”
“And what was that?” Nolan’s voice hardened.
“He wanted money, so I gave it to him.”
“Money! How much! Why didn’t you tell me!”
“It wasn’t a lot.”
“How much, Tyler?”
I groaned, already regretting the call. “Fifty million dollars.”
“Fifty! What the fuck, Tyler!”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this.”
“Like a concerned older brother? Why did you give in to him at all if it wasn’t true?”
“I don’t know, I just panicked! You know how real it looks if you’ve read the paper. Plus the stuff he had on Dad. It made sense at the time.”
“Goddamn. And does Sebastian know about this?”
“Of course he does. But I can’t bother him right now. He’s busy with the new kid.”
“New kid. What new kid?”
Oh. Oh. “Um… Seb didn’t tell you?”
“No, since you two love hiding things from the rest of us.”
Shit. I had exposed Seb without meaning to, and now Nolan was angry with me for another reason. I wasn’t doing myself any favors here, and I needed his help. “That’s Seb's secret; I’m not touching it. He’ll tell you when he has the time.”
“Seb has a kid. What the fuck?” He said more to himself than to me.
“Uh… I called because I needed your help.”
“Shouldn’t you be calling Carey? He’s a lawyer. He’s best suited for this, and it’s not like you need my help, anyway. You two seem to be doing fine without me.”
“Nolan.” He could be like this sometimes if he was not included. He loved helping us so much that not seeking aid from him was taken as an insult. It was cute sometimes, but sometimes it could be grating. “I’m asking now.”
“What do you want?”
“I need Kelly.”
“Why? I thought you wanted to sue the paper if what they printed was lies.”
“Yeah, I will be getting round to that, but first I need to know who’s still blackmailing me. Someone has been carrying on Channing’s legacy and continuing the blackmail. I’ve been paying them for years, but now that they’ve pulled the plug, the gloves are off.”
“You’ve been paying the Channings more money on top of the fifty million!”
Put like that, it sounded like I had behaved like a dumbass. “Just ten grand a month, nothing serious.”
“Just ten grand. Oh god.” I could imagine him rubbing his forehead right now.
I wanted to explain myself further, but each word I spoke made me look like the fool I had been.
The problem is, I thought I was paying Saffron the money.
If it had been going to her, it wouldn’t have bothered me that much.
Technically, she was my wife, and it was chum change to me.
But after seeing her living arrangement, and unless she had a colossal drug habit, that money was not going to her.
“So why are they going to the papers now? Did you stop the funds?”
“Kinda.”
“Of course you did.”
I could tell him about the Saffron angle, but then I would have to admit not just to being blackmailed into coughing up money but also to being married to someone I didn’t care for. I was already looking dumb; that would only make me an egghead in Nolan’s eyes.
“I guess they’ll publish more if the article wasn’t everything.”
“It wasn’t, and that’s what I am afraid of. Hawthorne and Hawthorne can weather a single article. A drip of information might be hard.”
“But you’re sure it’s fake?”
“The emails? One hundred percent. The images of Dad and the commissioner? If those come out, we’re fucked.”
Nolan sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want to find out who really is behind all of this. That’s why I need Kelly.”
“Wait? It’s not his daughter blackmailing you?”
“It might be, but I need to be sure.”
He sighed. “Yeah, Kelly’s good with that shit. As for a defamation lawyer. I will send you one of my own. I know a guy who will bankrupt that rag.”
“Thanks, bro.”
“Goddamn it, you two. A kid and a scandal?”
“Please don’t tell Seb that I told you about it. I had no idea he hadn’t let you guys know.”
“Fine, I won’t,” Nolan said.
I ended the call, and immediately a text came in. It was from Saffron.
Saffron: I think I have something you might want. Call me.
There were all sorts of innuendo that I was probably reading into the message. I highly doubt this was a booty call, but my hopes were high either way when I made the call. Her sultry voice answered after a couple of rings, making my blood rush to my groin.
“You have something that I want,” I said.
“The information I could find is limited, but I don’t think the person blackmailing you is my aunt or anyone in my family.
It’s not his second wife either. I spoke to her, and she doesn’t seem to know anything about you or what deals you and my father struck.
Plus, she seems happy with a new rich husband in Saint Tropez.
The only person capable is his will executor—a lawyer named Bill.
He was disbarred recently, and if there’s anyone in need of money, it’s him. ”
“And I thought you were calling because your bed was too cold,” I said.
“Do you want my help or not?” She sounded so pissed off that I thought she was about to end the call, but she hung on.
“Sorry. Sorry. Thanks. But that doesn’t eliminate everybody. It could also be your father’s third wife. She might be involved. Did you reach her?”
She sighed. “Not yet. But I have a lead on her.”
“A lead. You sound like an investigator in a noir.”
“Shut up, Tyler.” There was no bite in her remark, which made me chuckle. “Like I said, I appreciate your help, but I am going to need more to work on. Don’t worry though, I have contracted someone who will look into it.”
She cursed. “So, you wanted me to help just so you could waste my time?”
“No. I wanted to see if I could trust you.” And I was beginning to believe her.
She might not have been involved in the blackmail, but she was the only person who had information on who was behind it.
But I was so over talking about it. I wanted to talk about something else.
It was the weekend, and instead of going out and spending time with friends and family, I was holed up in my office working on putting out fires.
Most had been tempered. We lost two clients in the ordeal.
Both brought in small business, so it wasn’t so bad.
I needed a break. A distraction. And as much as my body was yearning for Saffron, I needed to get even her out of my mind.
“See you on Monday,” I said to her.
“I’ll send you the information on—”
I ended the call before I could renege on my thoughts and rush to her apartment instead.
She responded to my abrupt cut-off with a middle-finger emoji.
I deserved it. There was one person I should be talking to.
I should be spending my time with, and I was embarrassed that I had forgotten all about her. I made the call.
“Hi, Lauren.”
“Wow.” She sounded surprised to get my call. “I thought you had forgotten all about me. We haven’t spoken in a while. I thought—”
“I haven’t forgotten our time together. I was just busy, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s right! I saw that article! The way they painted you.”
“It’s a load of bullshit.”
“I believe you. If you’re looking for a distraction from all of that—”
“That is exactly what I am looking for.” I hemmed up the sexiness in my tone.
Lauren giggled. “If you’re looking for a distraction, I hope that means you’ll be at the marathon tomorrow?”
Fuck. I had forgotten that she was training for that. “Yeah, absolutely.”
Cheering on someone like her did not sound like a bad way to spend the weekend. I needed to purge Saffron from my mind. She was driving me crazy. She was turning me into a caveman, and if there was one person who could cure my affliction, it was Lauren.