12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
Caroline did, in fact, take care of my ‘urgent problem’ first thing in the morning.
Her mouth was on me even before my alarm went off. I was half-asleep when I shot my load across her tongue—but fully awake by the time I mounted her from behind as she ‘woke’ Marcie with her face between her legs, using those pigtails from the previous night like handlebars.
The staff at the Harrington residence politely refrained from mentioning the noise the previous night, or the way we’d shaken the walls.
Breakfast was a quiet, stately affair, broken only occasionally by fits of giggles from my newly-pregnant wife and my newly-christened harem girl.
Honestly, Caroline was so into being one of my women that she verged on a cultist.
For her part, Tallulah seemed like a woman much changed. She was still brash and brassy, of course, but neither I nor the women who’d accompanied me on this trip were targets of her ire on that morning: just her humor. Her magnifying glass had found other things to scorch.
“Sent him home,” she said brusquely when I mentioned I didn’t see the man who’d brought us up the champagne the previous night. “What, did you think I missed the way he was looking at you and your wife?” She snorted. “Only I’m allowed to be that dismissive towards guests.”
Marcie blanched. “I don’t want anyone getting in trouble on our account,” she said.
Tallulah was already shaking her head. “Wasn’t just you,” she said, glancing up from her bacon. “Gadfrey’s been in a mood for weeks: some men just get in this state where they start taking the dimmest possible view of any outcome. You should watch for that with your husband, by the way.”
Marcie looked confused. “My husband’s not a butler.”
Another snort from Tallulah. “He’s got three wives,” she said. “He’s somebody’s servant.”
“I’ll be Harrington Structural’s servant, once we get this deal done,” I told Tallulah. “I mean that. The Avery Company will be at your people’s disposal.”
Tallulah gave me a look over her coffee. “Such a man,” she harrumphed. “Trying to move things along to business while I’m still knee-deep in gossip. I haven’t even said one word to your assistant yet!”
That was Caroline’s cue to wipe her mouth with her napkin (her face was much cleaner at the breakfast table than it had been when she went to bed the previous night) and fold her hands in her lap. “You wanted to speak to me, ma’am?”
Tallulah turned to her, grinning. “You look positively radiant this morning, Miss Aitchison.” She said Caroline’s last name like she already knew it was a lie, but like someone who appreciated it when a woman spun a particularly good falsehood.
“Country air’s been good for you, I take it?
” She arched an eyebrow. “Did you find your quarters particularly restful?”
Next to me, Marcie made a little choking noise around her swallow of orange juice. “Tallulah—!”
A flush rose to Caroline’s cheekbones, yet her expression remained peaceful and serene. If Tallulah thought she was going to get the better of my newest harem girl by obliquely referencing the noises we’d filled her mansion with last night, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“I hear stories that wing of the mansion is haunted,” Tallulah said, like she was dishing out a particularly juicy piece of gossip. “All night it’s filled with moaning and the rattling of chains…”
“I may have exorcised a few ghosts last night,” Caroline said, matching the grand dame’s smirk with one of her own.
She put down her fork, leaned in close, and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that was still perfectly pitched loud enough for everyone to hear.
“If you’re still interested in continuing that conversation we had yesterday—the one about how best to infiltrate the sultan’s harem—I find myself in possession of some exciting new intel. ”
There was silence in the dining room for a moment.
Tallulah met my siren’s eye. Then she started to cackle, slamming her fist down on the tablecloth hard enough that the cutlery shook.
“Oh, I like this one,” she said, gesturing with her coffee in Caroline’s direction. “That much moxie’s going to take you far, kid. Marcella, you said you found her on a TV set?”
“She kind of found us,” Marcie murmured. That was about all she’d say on the matter.
“I’ll have to start staking out the talk show circuit,” Tallulah chuckled. “The good ones always do seem to show up when you need them most, don’t they?”
I nodded, thinking about how quickly things had changed between our group and Tallulah. In the end, all this woman had needed was a little pushing. A little spine. She liked Caroline because she wasn’t intimidated by her—and when it came down to it, neither was I.
I could work with that. I was looking forward to working with Tallulah.
Once breakfast was put away (and a few more rounds of verbal sparring dispensed with), we headed to the front parlor to conduct business.
The table in there was nearly as long as the one we had breakfast at, and the big bay window along one side provided an expansive view of the front lawn and the driveway.
A large SUV had already pulled up beside my McLaren by the time we sat down, and no sooner had we gotten refills on our coffee than the lawyer arrived.
And then, of course, we got our lawyer involved.
“Everybody decent over there?” Mona’s voice came in crisp from the speaker in the center of the table, beamed in directly from the kitchen of our house in Boston.
“For the official record, I understand that I’m on with Tallulah Harrington and her legal counsel.
You have the CEO of the Avery Company with you there currently—I am here with the company’s CFO, Yukiko Avery.
” A brief pause. “And about nine other well-wishers.”
As if that were the starting gun they needed, the whole line erupted.
“Marcie!” I was pretty sure that was Heather and Eva, squeeing in unison. “Oh my gawwwd, girl!”
“Congratulations, mami!” Maria shouted.
“Auntie Samantha cannot wait for our kids to play together,” the former president of Delta Rho said. “I am so proud of you. And Daddy, of course…”
Marcie cupped her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh. Tallulah’s legal counsel had not shown up expecting this large of an audience. The poor lawyer looked startled.
“Focus, please.” Mona was trying to sound annoyed, but there was too much laughter in her tone for her to make it work. “The Avery Company has important business to conduct this morning.”
“Agreed,” Tallulah said. There was a little humor in her voice, as well. “Did you really have to bring the entire menagerie in on the call, Miss Isringhausen?”
“You can’t really stop them,” another voice said. That one was Yukiko. “I’ll keep them quiet as possible, Miss Harrington.”
Knowing Yukiko, having everyone listening in was probably her idea.
“Very good.” Mona’s voice turned brisk, indicating she was ready to move on to business.
“I’ve been told that the preliminaries were already hammered out during my client’s visit.
This meeting is mostly about hammering out brass tacks, ratifying the structure of the new arrangement, and collecting the John Hancock of all signatories in order to make it official… ”
“One second,” Tallulah said.
Our table fell silent. Over in Boston, my kitchen did the same.
“Normally these things are dry as sawdust,” Tallulah said, making a face.
“Before we get to signing our souls away through an entire ream’s worth of paper, there’s a condition I need to make sure everyone understands.
” She met my eye across the table, about as serious as she ever got.
“Otherwise, this whole agreement is so much confetti.”
I cleared my throat, waiting.
Mona’s voice told me she’d heard stories of how intimidating Tallulah could be and had braced herself for it. “Of course, Miss Harrington,” she said smoothly. “I’m all ears. Please, let us know what the Avery Company can do for you.”
Tallulah crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Curiously, her gaze didn’t stay on me—it traveled instead to Marcie, who looked for all the world like she’d expected this. “It concerns the Wexford footbridge.”
I relaxed a fraction.
“My Carl’s work is maintained, in perpetuity.
Not updated. Not assessed for viability.
It stands—either exactly as it is or as close as you people can manage—for as long as the Avery Company does.
It doesn’t fall until you do.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table.
“And I want both names in the official record. Carl Harrington, Daniel Ramsey. So that when I’m dust, there’s a piece of paper in a desk drawer somewhere that lets everyone who cares to know see exactly how this thing started. ”
The whole room went quiet.
Marcie leaned forward. “Did you get all that, Mona?”
“Crystal,” my shark said.
A smile tugged at the corner of Marcie’s mouth. “Good. Add it to the official record, please. And, would you please add a stipulation that if the Avery Company ever does cease operation as a legal entity, maintenance of the bridge remains a standing obligation of the estate?”
Tallulah’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected that.
“That way it outlives us, too,” Marcie told the woman. “The way it ought to be.”
I’d watched Tallulah Harrington spend an entire evening trying not to let herself be swayed by Marcie’s genuine love and care for what her husband had built.
Here, at the negotiating table, at the very threshold of the moment her life’s work became part of the Avery Company umbrella, she finally failed.
Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Yes. Please add it, just like that.”
“On it,” Mona said. I could hear her typing through the speaker. “I’m going to shoot an updated PDF to your legal counsel’s laptop. It should be arriving any minute now.”