In Too Deep

by Dani Collins

  Trigg peeled off a copy and handed it to the man nearest him. He glanced at it and passed it along to the next one.

  “I don’t care what backwater hippy blessed your union. We don’t recognize it,” Torsten said.

  “It was a judge in the town courthouse.” Trigg snorted. “You go to Haven every year. If it’s good enough for your mistresses, it can’t be that backward.”

  A few heads turned to regard Torsten.

  Trigg’s phone pinged. He reached for it and showed it to her. “That turned out well, didn’t it?” Charmaine’s post of their photo read:

  BE JEALOUS. I met the charming, NEWEST Mrs. Johansson. Isn’t she GORGEOUS? I take no credit. #CantImproveOnPerfection #Zuckermaus

  “Just a photo announcing our marriage,” Trigg dismissed casually, setting aside his phone. “I expect it will go viral shortly. What will that do to our share price, I wonder? We should start this meeting before we begin receiving calls. Wren?” He held a chair for her.

  She gratefully sank into it. Trigg remained standing and so did Torsten at the far end. To her shock, Torsten glared his contempt at her.

  “Was this what you were holding out for?” he demanded. “Because if we don’t recognize the marriage, you get nothing. No vote. No share. Do you understand that?”

  “You’re not a fucking king, Torsten.” Trigg set his hands flat on the table so he leaned in with threat. “You don’t get to rule on whether our marriage is legitimate. The sum total of your power is to raise a motion to remove Rolf as president. As a founding-family member who has just attained full voting rights, I am his successor in that position until you have a case against me. You don’t even have one against Rolf, so fuck off.”

  “You’re faking a marriage to assume rights you don’t have. That makes you unfit to run this company,” Torsten lobbed back.

  Trigg let the silence drag out an extra second before he drawled, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. I was remembering making love with my wife.”

  Oh, dear God. Wren closed her eyes.

  “Case dismissed,” Torsten said flatly. “He can’t even take this meeting seriously.”

  “You have been nursing the ‘Trigg is too impulsive to take seriously’ narrative for years, using it to push back on my efforts to go forward with the resort—”

  “Is reality a better one? How many more children will appear out of thin air? This image you are cultivating needs to be buried, not carried to a mountaintop on a five-million-dollar gondola!”

  “One child. One wife,” Trigg said flatly, counting on his finger and thumb. “And as a spouse who has provided me with issue, Wren is entitled to vote.”

  Torsten took a step back, but quickly rallied with, “That is wild and desperate, even for you. If anyone is looking to unseat Rolf, I would say it’s you.”

  “Do you want me to come across this table right now?” Trigg warned darkly.

  Wren gathered her courage and wrapped her clammy hand around Trigg’s tensile wrist. Looking up into his eyes, because it was easier than looking at anyone else, she said, “If they won’t acknowledge my right to vote as your wife, I can still sue Wikinger for Sky’s share. What would happen then?”

  Surprise blanked Trigg’s expression.

  The whole room went so silent she could hear someone breathing.

  “That would be very bad for the company,” Trigg said, quiet and grave. “Auditors would come in, maybe even an interim management team. Even if a big decision was made today, like passing a vote to abandon the resort and switch to mining, progress on that would be held up while the dust settled on your claim.”

  “Because one of the lawyers who called me—”

  “Lawyers called you?” That took him aback even more. He was cautious and still, looking at her the way he might if he happened to come face to face with a rattlesnake.

  “Of course. The minute you sent out the press release about Sky being your daughter I had several offers of representation. They were all willing to work on a contingency fee. I took that to mean they thought I could get a lot and quite easily.” Her hands were so cold and clammy, she could barely stand the touch of her own fingers against her skin. “I already had a lawyer who had fully briefed me on my options, but one who called was convinced I could and should push for a seat at this table regardless of any other arrangements I had already made.”

  Now there was the sound of a fly on its back, buzzing and stopping, buzzing and stopping. Maybe it was a phone in someone’s pocket. Maybe it was the blood rushing in her ears, cutting out as her heart pumped and stalled, pumped and stalled.

  “You said she waived the right to sue,” Torsten said in a thick, lethal voice.

  “My right, yes,” Wren said, flicking a glance into Torsten’s livid one. “I wasn’t allowed to waive Sky’s. She’s a child. And my understanding on signing the agreement not to sue was based on Rolf being president and there being a resort in Montana where I could work while Sky got to know her family.”

  “But if those circumstances change significantly, you could challenge that agreement,” Trigg deduced swiftly.

  “Yes.” She buried her hands deeper into her lap as stunned faces reassessed her. “As Sky’s guardian, I have a duty to act in her best interest. Suing her father didn’t strike me as a promising start to their relationship, but I have no qualms suing people who don’t have her best interest at heart.” Sweat glued her palms together and her own nails bit into the backs of her hands, but she took the needed seconds to meet each pair of astounded eyes. “Whether you recognize my marriage or not, I expect to vote on decisions that affect her inheritance and future. I will pursue a means to do so.”

  She watched it dawn on all their faces that she was dead serious.

  Trigg straightened and folded his arms, regarding her a long minute before he snorted. “You thought Rolf was a tough piece of meat to chew,” he said to the table at large.

  “If the value of her inheritance is your priority, read the mining proposal,” Torsten ordered her, cold and forceful.

  “The proposal that suggests working with a man who has actively been sabotaging our worksite?” Trigg asked with a choke. “Lay off the nasal drops, Torsten. And call your lawyer. A conflict of interest charge is pending against you.”

  “My hands are clean.” Torsten held them up as though to prove it.

  “Doubtful. But defending yourself will be expensive and you already have a divorce to litigate. Or you can submit your resignation. Immediately. That offer is open for the next ten minutes and won’t be extended again.”

  “Your brother can ask for my resignation.” Torsten gave his suit lapels an affronted tug. “Not you.”

  “My brother can fire you. I can suggest you show some dignity and leave before I find ways to make things worse for you.” Trigg looked around the table. “I want the resignation of anyone who isn’t behind the resort a hundred and ten percent. Right now.”

  The buzzing noise was definitely phones. Several more were going off, causing brows to furrow.

  “Inquiries about our happy news.” Trigg smiled like a Bond villain relishing the torture chamber he had just revealed. “You’re wrong, by the way,” he told Torsten. “Ours is a great story. I’ve just married the aunt of my surprise daughter on the heels of a society wedding that has the entire world trying to book into a much-anticipated resort. Right now would be a good time to sell your shares, before the price plummets because we’re writing off retainers to a company you paid to stop our project.” Trigg looked to the man on his immediate left. “Do you think we should mine?”

  The man looked down at the page before him, written in German, but that Wren had deduced was a synopsis of today’s order of business. The man licked his lips and pronounced a clear and careful, “Nein. I do not.”

  Trigg moved to the next one, going man by man, pressing each for his reply. Two abstained and one other voted ‘yes’ with Torsten.

  “We will be going forward with the res
ort,” Trigg summed up, adding to Torsten, “Auf Wiedersehen.”

  Torsten muttered something in German that Wren took to be his resignation. He and the other man left, expressions stiff.

  As the door closed, the remaining men sat back and let out a collective exhalation. It seemed to neutralize the pressure in the room. Some reached for their phones while one looked to Trigg with an exasperated stare.

  “Never a dull moment with you, is there?”

  *

  Trigg had been ready to flip the twenty-foot long, solid mahogany boardroom table with his bare hands. Now it was all he could do not to leap onto it and stomp with triumphant elation. Fuck yes. They’d done it.

  She had.

  He swung Wren’s chair out and scooped her up to kiss her startled lips before releasing her to accept handshakes and introduce her properly. Adelina came back in to pour a round of schnapps so the board could toast his success.

  His marriage.

  He sent a quick message to his mother and Rolf, then excused them from further invitations for celebration. “Jet lag is going to hit us like a tranquilizer dart.”

  It wasn’t quite true. He suspected they were both too keyed up to sleep, but Wren looked shell-shocked beneath her Audrey Hepburn mask of harmlessness. Forget Zuckermaus. She was his little Schnecke. ‘Snail’ was a common German endearment, but she was one of those tropical ones with teeth you didn’t see and venom strong enough to kill a man before he’d finished his last cigarette.

  From the moment his mother had told him about Sky, Trigg had known Wren was more than she appeared on the surface. He was still thinking about her latest bombshell as they entered the apartment, peeled off their jackets and kicked away their shoes.

  “If you could have threatened to sue them to stop the vote, why did you marry me?” he asked, moving to pour fresh drinks.

  “Because you wanted two votes, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken me with you. And I would have had to go through with the suit,” Wren said simply. “Do you mind if I make coffee?”

  Was she being evasive? He followed her into the kitchen where he brought the beans out of the cupboard for her. Her face was the smooth mask she wore when she was feeling threatened.

  “The resort would have been delayed, possibly halted altogether,” she continued after grinding the beans. “Things would have been very difficult between all of us, moving forward.”

  She glanced at him and there was a question there. Would he have preferred she had mentioned that option, rather than allow him to marry her? He wasn’t sure.

  “I could have sued for a settlement or voting rights any time in the last ten years if that was something I truly wanted.” She added water and flicked the button to brew.

  “You still could have talked to me about it.”

  “When?” she asked with a semi-hysterical laugh. “While you were telling me what I owed Sky? Were you really in a mindset at that point to hear I would prefer to lock us both in a nightmare of litigation that ultimately wouldn’t serve any of us, rather than marry you?”

  “You were afraid to suggest it? Is that’s what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying everything about agreeing to marry you was a lot less complicated and contentious than any other path open to me. It’s also easier to dissolve than going through with a lawsuit. We can probably have this marriage annulled.”

  “That’s what you want?” he asked while something curled into his vitals, talon sharp.

  “Well, I don’t plan to claim that after twenty-four hours I have a right to half your assets. Not unless you plan to fight me for custody of Sky.” She eyed him warily as she issued the warning. “As for voting at the board level… That’s something I wouldn’t mind holding on to since it genuinely affects her future, but it’s not a deal breaker.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.” He pushed his balled fists into his pockets and moved restlessly to the window. “I was thinking about the press release that officially announces this marriage. Torsten had a point about my image. This would play better as a real marriage.”

  “A real marriage.” She had the intelligence to weigh out the best strategy for taking down twelve angry men, but she was too naïve to grasp what he was suggesting?

  As their eye contact prolonged, and he let the hunger that was eating him alive show in his expression, she turned to search for cups.

  “You don’t want that,” she dismissed.

  “Don’t want you?” he asked with incredulity. He sipped the schnapps he’d carried in from the lounge, responding on a purely carnal level as he took in her bare shoulders and the lift of her breast as she reached. The lithe shape of her body as she turned to the refrigerator was a lure. The way her dress hugged the curve of her ass as she bent to take the creamer from a low shelf on the door was pure seduction. “We both know better.”

  She spilled a few drops as she poured the coffee into the cups.

  “That’s physical. It wears off. We’re very different people. There’s no basis for a relationship. Not the kind that sustains a lifelong marriage. If it’s not going to last, why prolong it?” She added a dollop of cream to hers. “I mean, what would this marriage look like in a few years, when you decide to go off and compete again? What happens when Sky graduates high school and we no longer have a child to hold us together?”

  “We could have more kids.” It sprang from the place inside him growing into the role of ‘father.’

  She recoiled so hard, a jostle of coffee splattered onto the floor at her feet. She stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “You don’t want kids of your own?” He snagged the tea towel off the hook and dropped it onto the spill.

  “Oh, my God.” She clunked her coffee onto the counter and covered her face a moment. “I went from being a browbeaten child to a teen mom. In six years, I might, might, be able to think about what I want. I don’t even like saying that aloud for fear of jinxing it. But I can say quite confidently that I do not want to be in a loveless marriage, raising the children of a man who doesn’t come home at night.”

  “You don’t know that’s what it would look like.”

  “I’m not like you, Trigg! You said you don’t mind getting hurt on the way to getting something right, but marriage is one of those things I don’t feel has a lot of room for error. If we stay married, Sky will have certain expectations. It’s not just about whether you and I can make it work and divorce is there if it doesn’t. Do you realize how hard that would be on her? I can’t in good conscience give her a front-row seat on watching us fail.”

  “Then don’t fail,” he said with the drive that was as much a part of his core as his spine. “Do you realize how hard I work to get things right? When I commit to something, I fucking commit.” And the more she told him this wouldn’t work, the more perversely he desired to prove her wrong. “Give me some credit. Give us both credit. I know you’ll put in the work as much as I will.”

  “Work,” she choked, blinking at the ceiling. “Gosh, I haven’t had enough of that.”

  “So you want to go home and end this marriage before we even try?”

  *

  Wren tried to say a firm, Yes, but it came out as, “Do you honestly want to be married to anyone? Because you look an awful lot like a confirmed bachelor.”

  His mouth tightened and his shoulder hitched. Okay, there were a lot of women in his past. Definitely more than two. But: “I don’t want to be married to ‘anyone,’ no. Sky coming into my life has made it less likely I would marry, not more. I’ll always have to consider her in my future relationships. But marrying you? This ticks a lot of boxes for all of us. You know it does.”

  “Putting the convenience in ‘marriage of convenience.’”

  “Half the world still has arranged marriages,” he said with a wave toward the window. “It can be done. Successfully.”

  “Those women don’t have other choices.” Her heart was pounding like she’d run ten thousand miles. “They’re trapped. I know
what that’s like. I don’t want to be trapped again. Okay?”

  “I’m not—” He let out a long exhalation. “For God’s sake, Wren. I should have asked Mandy to marry me. I should have been supporting Sky all this time. You have carried all of that and it bothers me. I want to man up. I want to take care of both of you. That’s important to me. I’m not trying to take something from you. I’m offering…” his hands came up, palms out “…me. All that I have.”

  Her heart swerved.

  This man. She saw the same relentlessness that she knew and yes, loved, in Sky. In him it was so much bigger, his confidence so much more impossible to dent. Not that it made her afraid of him, but afraid of herself. She wanted to believe that the entire world wasn’t her responsibility, that she could trust him to take the wheel.

  “Trigg, we’ve known each other a month.” A little more, if they counted from her first visit to the lodge, but still not long enough to be able to make a real commitment.

  “Look how far we’ve come since then.”

  She shook her head, picked up her coffee and sipped. Tried to ignore the fact she had told him things she had never imagined telling anyone.

  “That’s still not a reason to go all the way.”

  “This desire won’t go away,” he said dryly. “It won’t wear off. Not until we’ve at least satisfied our curiosity.”

  “Oh. Would you like to go bang that off right now, then? So we can stop wondering and make an informed decision?” she shot back facetiously, thumbing toward the bedrooms.

  “I would love to.” His voice made all the hair on her body stand up. He smiled. “I always call a bluff, sugar mouse. Every. Single. Time.”

  Her eyes went hot as she shifted her gaze to the window. All of her was hot. Blushing. With guilt? Because she wanted him to call her bluff? With anticipation because they were out from under the microscope and married? Each of her breaths flowed like velvet into her, awakening cells and receptors and nerve endings. Each one whispered, What if.