Chapter Seven. Rowan #2
“I like Chad. He’s always been a decent guy, but do you really believe he’s only doing this to gain back some of the power Holden has?” she asks wryly. “Because I’m not buying it.”
“I’m not that naive, no. I’ve made him more than aware that this is a business arrangement that will be annulled in six months.”
“Six months doesn’t mean shit if you can’t find a way to work around the two-year addendum.”
“I’m well aware, but it’s all I have. Marry Chad, get his voting shares, try and convince Henry to ignore the two-year time frame, use the money I inherit to influence board members to vote how I need them to vote or to buy them out.
Either way, I improve my standing in TinSpirits and become the second largest shareholder behind Holden. ”
“That’s a lot of what-ifs,” she muses.
“Well, what-ifs are all I have right now and it’s better than having no choice, so I’m clinging to them even if that makes me a selfish person who only cares about herself.
Because in only caring about myself, then that means every person at TinSpirits will still have a job.
It means I try and keep my promise to Gran.
So yes, it feels awful to use Chad this way, but he’s walking into it knowing the outcome.
It’s not my fault if he thinks he’s going to wear me down and win me over so I fall in love with him.
That’s on him because I’ve told him otherwise. ”
“Wow. Okay. The woman has a plan.” She nods but bites back what I can only assume are the dozens of other things she wants to say.
No doubt things I’ve already thought of time and again as it is.
“Just do me a favor, if—when—you try and bend whatever rules you try to bend, we never had this conversation.”
“I know.”
“I’m racking my brain here to figure out how you can do this without breaking the law. Or rather, Henry breaking the law, because I don’t see him risking everything for you. No offense.”
“None taken. This is Westmore where men reign and women are supposed to be demure and compliant. I’m under no impression that Uncle Henry is going to bend at all. I’m not a man.”
“No shit.” She rolls her eyes, a victim at times of the misogyny in this town when it comes to her law practice.
“Is it possible for you to ask Henry to see the signed addendum? Her inheritance letter to you implies it was a recent add. Maybe I can look at it and see if anything there is fishy. It’s a long shot, but… ” She shrugs.
“But it’s something.”
“It is.” She rises and tops off both our glasses of wine before moving about the room.
For as long as I’ve known Sloane, it’s easier for her to think when her feet are moving.
“But, if you are able to get around the two years and get ahold of the funds, then we need to start thinking about Gran’s dirt on board members she left us. ”
“There’s a lot of it,” I murmur.
“There is. We just need to figure out the best way to play your cards.”
Her words settle in and no matter how many times I might have actually thought of everything we’re discussing, it feels so odd plotting and planning and being everything I normally am not.
“Yes. Sure. I just … Can you explain that if this is a done deal—if the company is officially sold—why doesn’t anyone know? Why hasn’t Holden announced it? That makes me worry there is more to what’s going on that I don’t know.”
Sloane shrugs and purses her lips in contemplation.
“Oftentimes an NDA is put into effect for various reasons during a deal like this. The acting parties want the terms of the deal to stay confidential, or it might be as simple as not wanting to scare employees. Often a new owner or the majority ownership will run the company in secret for a set amount of time so that when the employees eventually find out the deal is done, the owners can say, ‘See? We’ve been doing this for three months and nothing has changed. There’s no need to be concerned about your job,’ etcetera. ”
“Huh.” Never thought about it that way.
“Change spooks the hell out of a lot of people, uncertainty more so.”
Her words hit home in a way I didn’t expect. The pressure in my chest mounts. “Oh my God. What have I done?” My chuckle is part shock, part disbelief as I lean back in the desk chair and stare at the ornate tiles on the ceiling.
“Doubts so soon?”
“Doubts every second of every day,” I groan. “This is how I honor Gran’s memory? By trying to find a work-around to her final wishes. Like, this isn’t me, Sloane. I don’t do stuff like this.”
“She’d be proud of you for fighting, Rowan. For trying to keep what her family started as much in Rothschild hands as possible.”
Her comment eases an iota of the weight I feel over betraying Gran’s wishes. Let’s just hope this is more than a pipe dream and that I’m able to pull it off.
“It was like I saw that executed contract—Rhett’s and Holden’s signatures on an agreement with none of the changes we’d discussed made—and it dawned on me what a chump I’d been.
Everyone’s been playing dirty and without any scruples.
I knew I needed to step onto the playing field and jump in the mud with them or just accept that I’ve given it all up. ”
“I would have done the same.”
“Yeah, but I keep coming back to the same question. Over and over.”
“What’s that?”
“What is any of this netting me?”
“Time,” she states evenly.
I meet my best friend’s eyes and give the subtlest of nods. “Time?”
“Yes. Time to see if Henry will turn. Time to dig into the dirt Gran left to see who on the board will be the most easily influenced. Time to figure out if this is worth going through. Time to see if your dream was real. You have it all mapped out in your head, but if you don’t think being the second largest owner behind Holden is worth it by October thirteenth, then at least you can walk away and be happy with your $1 million a year for thirty years.
It’s not like that’s anything to sneeze at. ”
“I’m well aware.” It just doesn’t give me the opportunities that a bulk $30 million would. “Wait. What’s October thirteenth?”
Sloane throws her head back and laughs as I rack my brain to figure out what’s three months from now. But her laugh fades and her expression falls into disbelief when she realizes I’m serious. She eyes me for a beat. “It’s your wedding date.”
It takes me a second to find my words. To grapple with the reality of a date when a ring was hard enough. “I think my stomach just fell to the floor and got trampled by a wild stampede of … something.”
“Then you know exactly how I felt when I found out via a toast being offered at the country club that my dear old friend—you—was engaged.” She lifts her eyebrows.
“I know. I’ve already apologized. Profusely.”
“Although I did find it rather odd you weren’t involved in the toast nor were you anywhere to be found, but … stranger things have happened.”
“Well, at least you questioned it, because it seems no one else has.”
“No one? Really?” She eyes me. “Because I bet your phone has been blowing up and you’re just ignoring it.”
She’s right on all fronts. But if I answer the messages then I have to lie to people who trust me and that’s a tough pill for me to swallow.
“I feel the worst about Victoria. About Catherine,” I say about our other two friends that make up our foursome. “About the egg that will be on my family’s face when we end the marriage after such a short time frame. They are the hardest to lie to about this.”
“Understandably. Who knows the truth?” Sloane asks.
“You. Me. Chad.” Those three syllables sound so lonely.
“Jesus,” she swears like she didn’t already know.
“Yep, I’ll be lying to everyone about everything … because that sits well on my conscience.”
“No one else seems to be bothered by their lying.”
“But not everyone else has the circus my and Chad’s mothers have no doubt already created.”
“Not gonna lie to you. It’s ginormous.”
“Fuck,” I hiss out under my breath. “This isn’t me, Sloane. The lying. The cheating. The deception.”
“You’ve been royally screwed over. You either lie down and die or you fight.
You’re fighting and no one will blame you for standing up for yourself.
In fact, I think many would admire you. This is Westmore though.
A town that favors men and where one bathes in the corruption of whichever last name you were born into. ”
“I’m trying to use that to my benefit. Fingers crossed it works.”
“And the board seat you net with Miriam LLC?” she asks, mentioning Gran’s private company my grandfather set up years ago. One that gave her a 5 percent stake in the company she wasn’t allowed to take part in.
“The way your Gran has it in the documents you showed me is that the seat and ownership are transferred to you upon marriage too.”
“So yet another thing I net by going through with this whole Chad charade.”
“One could look at it that way, yes.”
“But I am able to remain anonymous?”
Her smile is quick and disarming. “That’s the best part. You are. Once you inherit full ownership of Gran’s company, then you could vote via proxy on all board matters. Just like no one knows Miriam LLC is actually Gran’s company, no one has to know it’s yours either.”
“She was a sneaky little bitch, wasn’t she?”
“Anonymous ownership. Blackmail material. Yes, she was, and I love her for it.”
“Me too,” I murmur and smile at the advantages she left me, regardless of the ridiculous parameters she attached to them.
Sloane finally takes a seat across from me. “Should we get to what you’re not telling me?”
“What’s that?”
“How you’re doing.”
“Fine. Great.” My smile is tight.
“You’re full of shit, Rothschild. You wear your heart on your sleeve most days for those who care enough to see it … and yours is broken.”
Emotion claws its way up my throat and burns. “We’re not talking about that.”
“I don’t know why I’m struggling to believe he really screwed you over. It seemed like you two were…”
“Yeah. I know. But I saw that contract plain as day. Signed by both of them. No changes made. No promises kept. Not a fucking word said as he took me on a whirlwind weekend in Manhattan.”
“His guilt tour.” She sneers.
“Exactly.”
“Fucker.”
“I believe a lot more adjectives are needed, but yeah, that about sums up how I feel about him.”
“I’m sorry, Row. It’s our fault. We pushed you to have fun with him. To sleep with the enemy. And—”
“And he proved why in fact he is the definition of the word enemy.”
“You’re positive you weren’t mistaking anything? I mean…”
“If the deal was finalized and I benefitted from it, I do believe Holden would have told me about it because he’s a guy, and in a guy’s mind—”
“He’d be rewarded with the world’s best blow job ever.”
“Bingo.” I snap my fingers. “And he didn’t say a word.”
The thought sticks with me long after our wine has been drunk and Sloane has fallen dead to the world in one of the numerous guest rooms.
I lie in bed, my head swimming with wine and feeling the weirdest juxtaposition of being the most prepared and most unprepared I’ve ever felt in my life.
Step into the gray with me.
I have nothing to lose because it seems I’ve already lost it all.
I’m there, Knight. I’m in the gray.
And I’m ready to take you on.