by Tessa Radley
The old bastard was stringing them all along...
Or did the youngest Kinnear daughter have any idea of what her father planned? Charis was, after all, the apple of her father’s eye. Jay still hadn’t worked out what Kingston had planned for his youngest daughter. So far, nothing in the documents he’d speed-read had dealt with her fate. But Jay had no doubt that Kingston had control of his youngest daughter’s life finely outlined. He rather suspected that this time even Charis had been kept in the dark.
The tension in the boardroom had become palpable.
Georgia chose that moment to speak. “Roberta, Charis and I have always been deeply involved in every facet of the company—we are all heavily invested in Kingdom’s future.”
What a miserable understatement! Kingston expected his daughters to live and breathe the company. And Georgia, even more than her sisters, had made Kingdom her life. There had been moments when her blinkered commitment to Kingdom had caused Jay to despair.
It was Charis who put what everyone was thinking into words. “The obvious thing, Daddy, would be to divide your fifty-one percent share equally among the three of us.”
“That would be the obvious solution,” drawled Roberta.
Jay braced himself for the firestorm to come.
Finally, Kingston spoke into the silence. “To do so would fragment the company. If I transferred seventeen percent to each of you, it would leave Kingdom extremely vulnerable to takeover.”
So Kingston had heard the same rumors he’d been hearing—and hadn’t mentioned a word. The first rumblings had surfaced a couple of months ago, but Jay’s own investigations hadn’t turned anything up. The market had settled down. Then this past week, the stocks had fluctuated, and yesterday the share price had been especially erratic.
“Not if we stood together—we’d still hold the controlling interest.” Georgia’s knuckles were white as she clutched the pen like a lifeline. Jay discovered that his own hands were clenched just as tightly.
“When have the three of you ever stood together?” scoffed her father.
At the other end of the table, Charis dropped her pencil, and the sound was loud in the large boardroom. “Daddy—”
“So what do you intend to do?” Roberta challenged the old tyrant, talking straight over her sister. “Give everything to Charis?”
“I have three daughters—I must take care of each,” Kingston said with breathtaking sanctimony. Jay knew the wily old codger had never done anything that didn’t serve Kingdom—and himself—best. “But naturally, I will reward my most loyal daughter.”
“Don’t you mean your favorite daughter?” The edge to Roberta’s voice was diamond-hard.
Across the table, the gold pen fell from Georgia’s fingers with a thud. “My loyalty to you is beyond doubt.” The glitter of hurt in her eyes caused Jay to freeze. “I put in eighty-hour work weeks—heck, I don’t have a life outside of these walls. I haven’t had a vacation in over two years.”
“That’s your choice.” Kingston shrugged away her plea.
Georgia’s lips parted, but she must’ve thought better of what she’d intended to say. Eyes downcast, she picked up the pen and capped it, and then set it down on the legal pad in front of her.
“You have been unusually silent, Charis. What do you have to say, honey?” Kingston’s chilly eyes defrosted as they rested on his youngest daughter.
Charis raised her chin and faced her father down across the length of the table. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” A freeze returned to the blue eyes so disconcertingly like Georgia’s in color. “You will be more enthusiastic shortly, my daughter.”
Jay felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as, taking his time, Kingston’s gaze rested on each of his three daughters in turn. “The incentive will be straightforward,” he announced. “Whoever proves their loyalty to me first will receive twenty-six percent of the total Kingdom stock—over half my share—and that should be a big enough block to give real power. The other two of you will split the remaining twenty-five percent.”
Murmurs broke out around the table. But the three sisters sat like stone.
Jay couldn’t bring himself to confront the bruised hurt in Georgia’s eyes. And he knew Kingston had barely gotten started...
Kingston should not have been permitted to torment his daughters in such a cat-and-mouse fashion. Jay forced his hands to relax, smoothing over the stack of papers that contained untold chaos.
“Before you ask, your father has devised a way for each of you to prove your loyalty.” He spoke without inflection, not allowing his fury to boil over. “He has a plan.”
Two
Georgia’s throat closed. Murmurs of surprise swept through the boardroom and then subsided. Across the boardroom table, Jay watched her father through narrowed eyes.
“Jay is correct—but then I always have a plan.” Satisfaction oozed from her father’s measured tone. “That’s how I grew Kingdom from the business my great-grandfather started in a back room into the billion-dollar brand it is today.”
“What kind of plan?” Georgia finally found her voice.
Her father didn’t even glance her way. “I’m concerned my daughters will be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous money-grubbing sharks that hunt the fashion waters. So I have prepared a shortlist of men able to protect—”
Georgia’s breath caught. “A list of men?”
“Protect? Who? Us? Why?”
Their father ignored Georgia’s and Roberta’s squawks of outrage. “The first of my daughters to marry the candidate I have chosen for her will be deemed the most loyal and will be awarded the twenty-six percent holding in Kingdom.”
“What?” Georgia and Roberta burst out in tandem.
He was talking as if they weren’t even present.
What was going on?
Then it dawned on her. The answer must lie in the documents neatly stacked in front of Jay. He’d still barely spared her a glance.
Georgia had had enough.
Rising in her seat, she pushed aside the clutter of pad, pen, phone and empty take-out coffee cup, and reached across the width of the table. Her feet left the plush carpet and her skirt tickled the back of her thighs as it rode up against her pantyhose. No matter. Modesty was not a priority.
“Georgia!” her father thundered.
So he’d finally noticed her...
She blocked out the familiar angry voice and, with a final heave forward, snatched the block of papers in front of Jay and then slithered back into her seat clutching her prize, her heart pounding in her ears.
Commotion had broken out. But Georgia didn’t allow herself to be distracted; she was too busy skimming the pages.
“What the hell is this?” Her eyes lifted to lock with Jay’s in silent challenge. He flinched. So he should! “The shares are to be transferred to me and my husband on the day of my marriage...?”
“Marriage?” Roberta was beside her. “Let me see that! I didn’t even know you were dating, you secret sister.”
Not for the first time, Georgia wished she shared her sister’s irreverent sense of humor. “I’m not dating anyone—and I have no intention of getting married.” Ever. Georgia’s knuckles clenched white around the pages. Not after Ridley. As always, she expertly blocked what she remembered of that disaster out of her consciousness while she did a rapid scan of the thunderstruck faces around the table. Jay’s expression was flat, closed off in a way she’d never seen.
Then she appealed for a return to normality. “Jay, what on earth is going on?”
Before Jay could respond, Kingston said loudly, “Georgia, I have chosen a man for you who will do a fine job running the company when I retire.”
Panic filled her. “But—”
He held up a hand. “I’m familiar with your dream, and the man I have chose
n will match you perfectly.”
As Georgia shook her head to clear the confusion, Roberta spoke softly into her ear. “He’s about to graft his own vision onto your dream, and then he’ll sell it back to you.”
“What do you mean?” Georgia whispered.
“Just watch and listen, sister. The master is at work.” Roberta sounded more cynical than usual. “Let me see those documents.”
Georgia eased her death grip on the papers.
“He will mentor you,” her father was saying. “Teach you what it takes.”
“You think I need a mentor?” Georgia said faintly. “After all these years? I know the business backward. I know the products, and more importantly, I know the people. I’ll head up Kingdom when you step down one day—it’s my birthright. And that journey starts today—with the announcement of my appointment to the board.”
But her father was shaking his head. “You may be my daughter, but you’re not getting a free ride.”
A free ride? How could he even think that? But she’d already read the answer in his eyes. He was going to make her jump through hoops—because he didn’t believe she could do it. It wasn’t just that she was a woman, that she wasn’t the first-born son he’d wanted. He would never believe she wouldn’t let him down again...
She’d hoped he’d forgotten. Shame suffused her. She should’ve known... Unlike her, he never forgot a thing!
Nor did he ever forgive.
He blamed her for both the humiliating breakup with Ridley, of which she remembered enough patchy detail to make her swear off dating for life...and the horrific car crash that had followed, of which she remembered nothing at all.
“Oh, my God! It even says who you’re going to be marrying...” Roberta’s voice broke into Georgia’s desperate thoughts.
“What?” Her head whipped around.
“Look!” Roberta shoved the papers back at Georgia. “You’re going to marry Adam Fordyce.”
“Adam Fordyce?” Charis echoed from across the room. “You can’t marry Adam Fordyce!”
“That’s what it says here, in black-and-white.” Roberta’s perfectly manicured red nails jabbed at the paper. “That’s who Kingston has picked out as your marriage mentor—or perhaps I should say merger mentor? Because that’s what this is starting to sound like. I didn’t even know you knew him.”
This was crazy...
The splintering light from the giant chandelier overhead was suddenly too bright. Georgia touched her fingertips to her temples. Had she gone crazy, too?
A swift glance around the boardroom table revealed that only Jay hadn’t reacted. He sat silent and watchful, the familiar gleam of laughter absent from his eyes.
It struck Georgia with the force of a lightning bolt.
He’d known of her father’s plan all along...
The betrayal stung. She and Jay clashed often. He infuriated her. He taunted her. The close working relationship he shared with her father concerned her. But despite the rivalry and never-ending mockery, he’d always been honest with her—sometimes brutally so.
Jay had known...and he hadn’t mentioned a word about it.
Georgia sucked in a deep breath. She’d deal with Jay—and the unexpected ache of his treachery—later. For now, she had to derail her father’s plan. “Of course, I can’t marry Adam Fordyce. I don’t know him from Santa Claus.”
“Unfortunately, he doesn’t reside at the North Pole. He lives in Manhattan and he heads up Prometheus,” murmured Roberta. “Forbes named him one of the top ten—”
“Oh, I know all that! But I’ve never met the man.”
“And trust me—” Roberta was shaking her head “—Adam Fordyce is nothing like Santa Claus. He’s the coldest-hearted bastard you’ll never want to know.”
Charis banged her sketchbook on the table. “That’s not true.”
Georgia suppressed the urge to scream. “I’m not marrying anyone, and when I do get married, you won’t learn about it from a bunch of documents I had no part in drawing up.” She shot a killing glare across the table at Jay. “Now, Kingston, why don’t you take a few minutes to tell us all what you’ve been cooking up?”
Her father didn’t hesitate. “Adam and I agree it’s—”
“‘Adam and I agree’?” Georgia repeated, staring at him in horrified dismay. “You’ve actually discussed this with Adam Fordyce?”
“Oh, yes, we’ve come to an understanding.”
Of course, he had. Otherwise, it wouldn’t already be reduced to black-and-white on paper. Jay had known all about it. Adam knew about it. Norman and Jimmy were probably in on it, too. Half the world had known what her father planned for her future...but no one had bothered to fill her in.
Hurt erupted into a blaze of fury she could no longer suppress; it flamed outward, until her skin prickled all over with white-hot heat.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at Jay. So she focused her anger on the one man who she’d worked to impress her whole life. Her father.
“How could you have arranged all this behind my back?”
“Easily!” Kingston’s gaze sliced into the heat of her anger like an arctic blast. “You will marry Adam Fordyce.”
But, for once, he didn’t freeze her into silence. Georgia had had enough. “I told you—I haven’t met this man, much less even been on a date with him.”
“I’ve already fixed that.” Kingston smirked with satisfaction. “Fordyce will escort you to the Bachelors for a Better Future Benefit on Friday night.”
“You’re joking!”
“I never joke about business. I’ve arranged the most important alliance you will ever be part of, Georgia.”
He sounded so proud...so confident that she would go along with it.
Why should she be surprised? He’d pulled this kind of stunt before. Except that time, she’d fallen head-over-heels into his manipulative scheme.
Never again.
Even as Georgia reeled from emotions she couldn’t find words to express, her youngest sister waded into the fray. “When did you and Adam get so cozy, Dad?”
Georgia finally found her voice. “Let me handle this, Charis. I’m the one he’s trying to marry off.”
“Not only you.” Kingston gave Charis a fond smile. “I’ve found suitable husbands for all three of you.”
A stunned hush followed his pronouncement.
“That’s preposterous!” Charis was on her feet.
Her father’s face softened. “Charis, the man I’ve chosen for you is the man I’ve come to regard as a son over the past two years.”
Shock filled Georgia and her attention snapped back to Jay. “You...you are going to marry Charis?”
Jay’s face was frozen.
Jay and...Charis?
Her sometimes ally, full-time rival...was marrying her sister?
Georgia’s stomach churned.
Since Jay had come to work at Kingdom, they’d sparred and argued—or at least she’d argued, while more often than not, he’d simply needled her, provoked her...then laughed at her irritation. He’d unerringly turn up at her office with the take-out coffees she craved, arriving just in time for her to bounce strategies off him. He might excel at pushing her buttons, but Jay was insightful and very, very clever, and all too often his opinions were right on the mark. Despite her distrust, she’d come to rely on his cool level-headedness.
And he’d betrayed her.
Stupid!
She should’ve known better than to trust one of her father’s sidekicks. At least this time, she wasn’t infatuated with Jay—or engaged to marry him. Like with Ridley.
Everyone was talking at once. Roberta had drawn herself up to her full height. She looked like some lush goddess. “There’s only one thing I want to know. To whom have you dared to barter me?”
But Kingston di
dn’t spare her or Georgia a glance.
Charis’s face was pale. She was saying something, but Georgia couldn’t concentrate. The sound of her heart pounded fast and furious in her ears and she felt completely incapable of the clear, analytic thought that usually came easily.
All she could think about was that today was supposed to be the best day of her life.
“Father—” Her voice sounded high and thin. Alien. Like someone else’s.
She hardly ever called him Father—and certainly never at work. It never helped to become emotional. Kingston detested tears, and she’d displayed enough weakness two years ago to last a lifetime.
And her father still held that against her.
She concentrated on the celebrity photos on the wall. Charis had designed most of those carefully crafted products. Roberta had dreamed up the advertising campaigns. And she herself knew the production process from start to finish—how to make sure they made millions from every product launch.
Did her father not understand how indispensable she was to the Kingdom brand? Did he never wonder why he and Norm could find time to play golf so often?
The only way to appeal to his sense of logic was to find a strategic or monetary angle that would make him pay attention.
She drew a breath. “Kingston—”
That sounded better. Stronger. But he didn’t even turn his head; all his attention was focused on Charis.
“So, let me get this totally clear. Adam Fordyce is going along with this?” Charis demanded.
As Jay had already gone along with it...
“Oh, yes.” Her father actually smiled. “Fordyce is a powerful man and he needs the right kind of wife. And Georgia will be perfect.”
Georgia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. That’s what her father thought of all the years...her whole life...that she’d put into Kingdom? It qualified her to be...what?
The perfect wife?
It was the kind of label Jay, at his most provocative, might have used to needle her...but, tragically, her father was serious.
“And what if we’re not prepared to go along with this...madness?” Charis picked up her sketchpad and held it like a shield against her chest.