26. Knox #3
I know I’m being bold, but fuck, I can’t let him walk all over me.
He tilts his head, studying me. “Ella is alone. She’s shaken. She needs stability right now, and you’ve been elsewhere.”
What does he know?
I make sure nothing shows on my face as I say, “I’ll reach out to her. Take her on a date later.”
“You’ll do more than that.” Moretti leans forward slightly, just an inch, and my blood rushes to my ears.
“We had an understanding, your father and I. A set timeline. That timeline doesn’t change because of what happened at that park.
If anything,” he pauses and gestures with his palm, “it accelerates things.”
I look at my father, but he’s staring into his glass.
Coward.
“What kind of timeline?”
“An engagement. Right away.” Moretti settles back again, casual, like he didn’t just drop a bomb on me. “It’s better for everyone. It gives Ella something to focus on. It formalizes our arrangement. And it puts to rest any questions about where your priorities lie.”
My grip tightens on the glass. What the fuck is he saying?
An engagement? That was never part of the deal.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Moretti’s goon straighten, his hand reaching toward his waistband.
I’m so fucked. So royally, astronomically fucked.
And it’s all my piece of shit father’s fault.
“An engagement.” I say it back to him without emotion. I need a second and repeating his words buys me one. “That wasn’t the arrangement.”
“Arrangements evolve.” Moretti folds his hands in his lap, nonchalant. Meanwhile, his guy has his fingers two inches from his waistband and my father refuses to look up from his glass. “Richard understood this when we spoke last week.”
I look at my father. “Last week? Richard?” The words come out quiet and controlled, which is impressive, because what I actually want to do is put him through the window. “You want to tell me what you agreed to last week?”
He finally looks up. And I see it—real fear in his eyes. Not of me, but of Moretti. Of what happens if this falls apart. I’d bet he’s been afraid for a long time and managing it the only way he knows how, which is to hand the problem to someone else and pour himself another drink.
He handed it to me, like he has been doing for too long to count.
“It made sense, Knox,” my father says. “Given everything. Given the…situation with the company, and what Vince has offered—”
“What has he offered?” I turn back to Moretti. “Specifically.”
Moretti studies me for a moment. Then he says, “Political connections. Union peace. And the quiet disappearance of some documentation that your father would very much prefer stayed disappeared.”
“What documentation?” I ask, almost not wanting to know the answer.
Moretti looks directly at my father. “Your family was not entirely the victim in the Thorne situation. I think you know that. You’re a smart kid. You had to have known.” He tilts his head. “The documentation confirms it. Formally.”
The words are fuzzy to land, like they’re coming through a thick wall.
Not entirely the victim.
I’ve spent two years watching my father grieve his reputation like a man wronged.
Two years cleaning up the wreckage, covering the accounts, holding this family together with both hands while he poured himself into a glass and fucked Helen Thorne.
Leaving us with no choice but to partner with Moretti.
The man with a reputation worse than a whole prison full of embezzlers.
I left school for this. Whored myself out to his daughter for this. Gave up everything for this. Because I believed we were the ones who got burned.
And now Moretti is sitting here, in my father’s office, telling me with bored certainty that it was never that simple.
I don’t look at my father again. I can’t. If I look at him right now, I’m going to say something that gets us both killed in this room. Instead, I take a long sip of whiskey and focus on the burn.
What did he do? How much of it was him? Was David Thorne a criminal, or was he made into one?
Sawyer’s face flashes through my mind and I shove it down hard.
Not now.
“Why an engagement at all?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “Why not keep things as they are?”
Moretti looks at me like I’ve said something amusing.
“Because a partnership means more when it’s family. And right now, son, your family needs friends it can trust.” He pauses. “I need to know the Aldrichs are committed. A marriage is a commitment.”
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
Moretti must see my resignation, because he stands from the chair. “Dinner tonight. I expect the whole family there for the blessed news. Ashford Inn. I have an associate staying there that I need to pay a visit to. 6:00 sharp.”
I hold his gaze for three seconds. Waiting for my father to step in….waiting for something to change.
It doesn’t.
“Fine.”
His guy leads the way, watching me as he walks out the door. Moretti turns one more time before he leaves. “Oh, and Knox? Make sure you bring a ring.”