“And you agreed to it.” His smirk was so charming, he was nearly forgivable.
“I wasn’t planning to be married to you for long.”
“Neither was I.” The smirk disappeared with the gravity of his admission.
It hit me in the gut, the severity of who he was and what he’d planned. My little game seemed petty in contrast, and a wave of bitterness swept through me, threatening to sour all the pleasant feelings his arrival had unleashed.
“Wow.” I put a hand on my chest, as though to keep my heart from pounding out of my ribcage. “This is a lot of honesty right off the bat.”
“It’s what we agreed to, wasn’t it? Are you still here for it?” He looked down at my other hand, resting on the table. Then he placed his palm on the surface and swept it toward me until the tip of his pinkie finger was nudging mine.
That simple touch was enough to ignite a nuclear explosion inside me.
“Yes,” I said, breathless from the effort. Definitely yes. I twisted my hand and pushed it closer so that our little fingers rested against each other entirely.
I studied them together, the way his dwarfed mine, the variances in our skin tone, the heat that emitted from his. I’d never studied his physical characteristics with such depth, and suddenly there wasn’t anything I wanted to do but examine all of him, from head to toe, leaving none of his body unexplored.
“How long do I have you this time?” However long it was, it wouldn’t be enough.
He paused, and the pause was enough to draw my eyes back to his. “Let’s not ruin the beginning by worrying about the end.”
“That long, huh?” I was sure he could hear the ache in my voice.
I swallowed it away. “I suppose we shouldn’t waste a single minute then.” There were things I had to say, things I’d held in too long. In the month he’d been away, I’d come to terms with the fact that, if I really wanted to be in this with him—whatever this was—there were things he had to know.
Things that could end whatever this was.
Things that could get me killed.
“We should go inside,” he said, seeming to understand.
“Can we only do this in the cabana?”
“Sessions? No. We can have one anytime, anywhere, but a session wasn’t what I’ve been thinking about nonstop since I left, and I’m not about to let our staff witness the things I want to do to you.”
A shiver of want ran through me, and I blushed. “I haven’t earned anything yet. How are you so sure I’ll deliver?”
“I’m sure.” He beckoned me with a jerk of his head. “Come here.”
God, I wanted to. I wanted to crawl over the table and straddle his lap and let him carry me inside to show me all the things he’d thought about doing to me. Without even knowing what they all were, I was sure I wanted them twice.
But that secret that pressed heavy on my back had to be set down first.
“I can’t, Edward.”
His brow raised at what he could only assume was a challenge. “You seem to have forgotten who’s in charge here, little bird.”
“I haven’t at all. You’ve demanded honesty, though, and I don’t think you’ll be happy with me if I let anything else go on between us without giving you some truth.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I was going for transparent.”
“I approve of transparent.” But his hand had moved away from mine, and his guard was up, and I couldn’t blame him because what I had to say to him was going to be the worst. Not the worst thing for me—those things would come out too, eventually—but the worst thing for him.
He leaned back and crossed his ankle on the opposite knee, pushing his chair back a bit as he did. It could have been accidental, but I was certain it was purposeful, an attempt to mimic the parameters that typically accompanied our sessions. The distance between us. The space to lay out my confessions and for him to process what I said.
I took the cue and withdrew as well, dropping my hands in my lap where I could wring them out of sight under the table. “I know you’ve done your research, and some of this might be old news to you, but since I don’t know what you know and what you don’t, I’m going to say it all.”
I’d had a script planned, and already I wanted to jump from it. So I did. “First, though, I need you to know—I could have told you this earlier. Maybe I should have, but…” I shook my head. “Well, you’ll understand when I’m done. I just need you to know what it means that I’m telling you now.”
I wanted him to realize how defenseless this made me. I needed him to see that by telling him now, it proved how committed I really was to this. To being his.
“Go on,” was all he said, refusing to give me the acknowledgment I wanted until he heard for himself what it was.
Leaving me even more vulnerable.
That seemed about right.
I took a breath and plunged in, beginning with a history lesson. “Werner Media was founded in nineteen thirty-five by my father’s father—Jessop Werner. There were some friends involved in the actual work of it, but it really all belonged to Jessop because he had the start-up money. It was old money that had dwindled a lot when the stock market crashed. He seemed to realize what he had wasn’t going to last without turning it into something big, so he went all in on the newspaper business, and obviously the gamble worked. The company grew and expanded to magazines. Then TV stations. Then TV programming. I’m sure you know all that better than I do.
“Anyway, when Jessop died, he gave fifty percent of the business to my father, who was the oldest of his two sons, and the one most interested in running things. The one most capable. He left my uncle Ron with thirty percent, which was overly generous considering that his only interest in the business was flaunting the wealth and power it gave him. The remaining twenty percent of the business was divided in two percent increments between Jessop’s extended relatives.”
“And then those extra shares got sold and bought a bunch of times and divided and diluted,” Edward said, almost bored. “And Ron sold his thirty percent to Glam Play and your father sold ten percent to Pierce Industries so now Warren owns only forty percent, which he put in a trust for you to inherit at the date of your marriage. They’ve already been transferred to your name. I’ve checked.”
“I’m sure you have.” I wasn’t so sure he meant the threat in the subtext, but it was there all the same. “Did you also know about the conditions Ron sold his shares? He wanted the money, but he also wanted stability, so in exchange for a secure top position in the company, my father required Ron to include certain terms in the sale to Glam Play.”
“Ah.” His eyes lit up, and finally I’d told him something new. “So that’s why they’re required to vote along with the majority. It kept your father in control of the company, even with less than fifty percent of the shares.”
“Right.”
“I’d wondered how that occurred. It’s a good strategy.”
“Until Glam Play gets sold. And then the terms are null and void.” I carefully studied his reaction, trying to feel him out before getting to the blow.
But his response was dismissive. “They aren’t selling.”
“You’ve tried to buy them?” I almost chuckled, because of course he had. Of course marrying me wasn’t his first scheme to get into Werner Media.
“Yes,” he said, slowly, aware of what he’d given away. “I’ve tried to purchase from them numerous times.”
“Because they’ve already been sold.” There. It was said. Easy as that.
But the burden wasn’t in the actual saying—it was in surviving whatever he said next.
I watched him as the words sank in, as he absorbed the meaning. If Glam Play wasn’t required to vote with Werner Media, then forty percent of the shares wasn’t enough to hold a true majority.
His body stiffened, his eyes grew cold. “You’re lying.”
“You know I’m not.” He’d told me he knew the difference
between when I was and when I wasn’t, and maybe it was naive to actually believe that, but I did.
He didn’t refute it, but he was still unsure. “How is there no record of a sale?”
“That was part of the terms of the new deal. The sale happened in complete darkness. No one knows it’s been purchased, not even my father. The shareholder votes are to continue to align with the majority unless…” I trailed away. This part was hardest to tell, because the entire strategy had been executed because of me. Because Hudson had needed something to hold over me, and this was what he’d found.
“Unless what?” Edward prodded.
Unless I tried to interfere with Hudson’s life again. If I did, he’d destroy Werner Media.
But that wasn’t the most important part of this confession. “I guess unless the new owner decides otherwise.”
Edward dropped his foot to the ground and pulled at his chin, thinking. Calculating. “That’s only thirty percent. Pierce Industries always votes with your father. There’s no reason to be concerned about losing Glam Play.” The assurance was for himself, not for me.
“Except that Pierce Industries is who bought Glam Play. They also managed to buy out two percent from another shareholder along the way. Technically, Hudson Pierce owns forty-two percent of Werner Media.”
I’d held the secret for so long now, carried the weight of it alone, and even though the reality of it was awful and hard to look at, I could breathe deeper than I had in years from the sharing.
But after that breath, I had to face the facts. My father had been usurped of his legacy, and it was my fault. He never had to know for me to feel the shame of that. It was overwhelming.
“How do you know all this?” Edward asked, still unaware of how humiliating this was for me.
He would though. Before this was all over, he’d know.
“Hudson told me,” I answered softly.
“Why would he tell you this? Why does he want to own a controlling interest and yet do nothing with it?”
“He wanted power over me.”
A beat passed, and his face hardened, and he knew. I could see that he knew.
“What did you do to him?” he asked, crudely.
The disgust in his voice made me shrink inside myself. The sun was beating down as it approached mid-sky, and I was so very cold.
“Does it matter?” I asked, blinking back tears.
“You played him.” It wasn’t a question. “His names weren’t in the journals.”
“I didn’t record what I did to him.”
“Why not?”
Because it hadn’t been a game. It had been my reaction to what I had perceived as betrayal. It had been unhealthy and destructive and unplanned, and a million times I’d wished I could take it back. Wished that I had been someone different than I’d been.
Than I was.
Again I shook my head, searching for a simpler answer. “It was a confusing time for me. It was the first time I was playing on my own.”
“What did you do to him?” he asked again.
This time I answered. “I tried to break up his relationship with his girlfriend. His wife, now. Obviously, I failed.”
“You failed, and he wanted insurance that you wouldn’t fuck with him again.”
I nodded.
“You’d think you would have learned your lesson about playing powerful men.” There was no hint of teasing in his statement.
“You’d think.”
He held my stare for several heartbeats, hostility radiating off him as hot as if he were a furnace. It hurt to have him look at me this way, but I forced myself to bear it.
It was he who broke away first to stare vaguely into the distance. “You knew that this undermines my entire strategy of controlling Werner Media through your shares.”
I did.
But I searched for optimism all the same. “It doesn’t have to mean that. Glam Play could still continue to vote along with you. Unless you tried to do something that would destroy the company from within.”
His eyes came back to mine, as though to stare down my naivete. What else had he been planning to do with my shares but destroy the company within? If I’d thought his motive was simply to move his own company into the U.S., I was wrong. He meant to bring my father down.
“Why do you hate him so much?” This was beyond business. This rivalry was personal.
He ignored the question. “You didn’t tell me because you saw it as a worst-case scenario way to make sure I still got fucked over in the end, even if you weren’t around to see it. You were hoping if I did anything detrimental with those share votes, Hudson Pierce would use his control against me.”
After everything, the accusation still stung. “I couldn’t possibly have been looking to protect my father,” I threw back sarcastically. “You might hate him, but he’s still my family.”
“So it was still a game. All along.”
I slammed my palm on the table so hard it stung. “No, goddammit. It wasn’t a game, because that wasn’t the reason I didn’t tell you, you condescending asshole. I hadn’t even thought of that, which is stupid, because I clearly should have thought of that. Maybe it was the threat of death that threw me off my game.”
I cringed as soon as it was out of my mouth. Not the best choice of words in the moment. Not when Edward had already decided that was what this was all along.
“Look,” I said sitting forward, taking a breath to make sure my next words came out clear. “I didn’t tell you because it was obvious you were after controlling interest, and this information would let you know that this plot of yours was futile.”
“That makes no sense. If you’d told me that your shares wouldn’t get me control, what would be the point in killing you for them?”
I flinched at his openness.
“You’d already told me that was your plan,” I said, avoiding words like kill and murder. “Like you were just going to let me go after that. ‘Oh, I guess that’s not going to work, you can go home now.’ Yeah, right.”
I gave him a second to face the validity of that before going on. “Letting you believe I still had something to give you was the only thing that kept me valuable.”
His features softened momentarily, and I almost believed he was going to deny it, that he was going to say I had value beyond what I knew or who was my father.
But the moment passed, and he went back to glaring into the distance. “Warren doesn’t know your family no longer holds control of the company,” he said, as though he had to say it again to believe it.
“He doesn’t.” It would kill him if he found out. Edward could destroy my father with that information alone. Did he realize that?
Apparently not because his next words were, “This entire scheme was all for naught.”
I nodded, too unsure of the menace in his tone to say anything else.
His serious expression vanished abruptly as he broke into laughter. Deep, bellowing laughter. It stunned me. He rarely laughed at all, and I’d never seen him laugh so heartily. It was almost frightening in its intensity. I wasn’t sure if he’d truly found the humor in the situation or if he was going mad.
It was kind of funny, actually. How much work he had done for nothing. Maybe the only option was to laugh.
Then, just as suddenly, he was done.
He shot up from his chair and held his hand out in my direction, his face again solemn. “Come with me.”
I hesitated. Despite the moment of humor, he was angry. That was apparent. And maybe a little crazy too. “Where are we going?” I asked, trying to decide if it was really a good idea to be with him right now.
The smirk was back. “Wherever I say. Do you not trust me?”
“Should I?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
It was the most honest he’d ever been with me. And for that reason, because in this moment he was all in, I reached out and put my hand in his.
Twenty-One
A little over
an hour later, with a cooler filled with bottled water and a lunch packed from Joette, I found myself in the middle of the ocean on a boat manned only by my husband.
Sailboats made me nervous anyway. Alone with a man I didn’t trust brought an entirely new level of unease. My hands ached from the constant wringing, and my sundress was wrinkled from the amount of times I’d balled it into my fists, only to smooth it out a moment later with my sweat-soaked palms.
It didn’t help that the boat’s name was Vengeance.
“When you said we were going somewhere, I thought you meant to the bedroom or the cabana. I would have changed my shoes if I’d known we were doing something sporty.” Not that I was doing any of the work. Honestly, if he’d told me, I might have fought him on it, and fighting him was nearly always a losing battle.
This time I had a deep fear that not fighting him may have meant I’d lost the battle as well. Alone on the ocean...what did he have planned for me?
I shivered at the possibilities.
“What you’re wearing is fine,” he said without looking at me. “Slip them off if you’d prefer to go barefoot.”
I kept them on, not wanting to get too comfortable.
“I thought all sailboats this size had motors,” I said, subtly expressing more of my concern. “How do you even manage this thing out here without one?”
“Are you worried about it?” He turned his eyes from the sail to tack me with his gaze.
Yes. I was very worried about it. And for so many reasons, the most concerning being that my skipper had shared his nefarious plans for me on more than one occasion.
But I was trying to play it cool, so I pressed a smile to my lips. “Just curious.”
His expression said he didn’t buy the act, but he answered all the same. “Purists prefer to sail without an engine. It makes the experience more authentic.”
That was Edward—always concerned with authenticity.
I studied him as he fiddled with the boom and jib, terms I’d only just learned. His chambray shirt, in a color that could only be referred to as pink but was too masculine to say out loud, was rolled up to his elbows, showcasing the sculpted muscles of his forearms. When he lunged to get a better angle, his thigh pressed taut against his white linen pants, and I had to swallow and look away.
Ruin Page 21