Sarasota Revenge: BBW Contemporary Menage Romance (Level 69 Trilogy Book 2)

by Scott, Talyn

  Libby reached for a chair, slamming onto it without an ounce of grace. "Insider trading?"

  "Isn't that why we're here?" her father asked Trey.

  Trey stood behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders in a proprietary manner. Her father didn't miss his show of possessiveness. Trey couldn't have been any plainer, if he'd said: She's with me now. Deal with it. You're now on the outside looking in.

  Her father quickly picked up on Trey's possessiveness, raising a blonde brow so similar to her own. "I see the two of you are back together."

  "Insider trading?" she prompted again, glancing between him and Trey. "Wasn't it enough that you took everything from him? Why would you set him up...for insider trading?" She cupped her throat. "Oh, God, you want Daddy in jail!"

  "He's keeping me from jail," her father confided, his cheeks flushing. "My business partner conducted the insider trading, not me."

  "In the process, your partner stupidly tried to bring down the price of Easton stock." Drake said, tapping a pen on the files beneath his hands. "We don't take that lightly, neither do the feds."

  "But you took my Daddy's money," she accused Trey.

  "I took back a small amount of the Easton money he'd illegally gained."

  "I'll never be able to pay it all back," her father said glumly.

  Trey looked at him pointedly. "You may not have conducted the insider trading personally. But you lived off the rewards for years, so my revenge was two-fold - Once for the teenager who was blinded by your goons, once for the family who saved me."

  "For years?" She spun on her father. "You had an idea, obviously," she prodded.

  "I trusted too much, buried my head in the sand instead of checking for a second set of books. I guess I wanted to make things right for you and your mom, for the way I treated you those years I took to the bottle for comfort. But I should have known too much of a good thing was questionable. Now, if the Eastons decide to turn me and my partner in to the feds, I'll finish out my latter years in prison."

  "And you really had him beaten, beaten so badly he can't see most of the damned time?" She stopped just short of shrieking. This couldn't be happening. Her father was a rolling boulder crushing everything in his path he cared for.

  "You know I was a drunk, at the time." He leveled her with a hard stare. "And you remember what I -"

  "Stop." She shook her head no. Her miscarriage was the last thing they should be bringing up right now. "Just don't." She stood, pacing the length of the room. All eyes were on her, and this weird meeting seemed to be going somewhere...else. "There's more."

  Trey stepped in front of her, lifting her chin with his finger. "Well, I know you're reeling from information overload. But I called your father last night, and he's actually here to give us his blessing."

  Libby could feel the blood draining from her face. "His blessing," she repeated numbly.

  "Well, of course, I'm going to ask you formally in front of my family, particularly Gilda." He pulled out a small, velvet box. But when he flicked it open, she was surprised the mammoth diamond fit inside at all. "Please, marry me." He kneeled, pulled out the ring, and slid it on her finger without waiting for her reply. "To have and to hold. For better or for worse." His smile was radiant, his eyes calculating. "As long as we both shall live."

  All the moisture was sucked from her mouth. Her throat seemed to be sticking together. She looked at her father, realizing he was going to jail if she said no. What other reason was there for this show of power? And she could let him... Her eyes landed on Drake. His elbows perched on files that would undoubtedly incriminate her father. "The document you had me sign regarding the firehouse?"

  "That's an ongoing agreement, until you become Mrs. Trey Easton." He was still on one knee, waiting. "Of course, afterwards, I'll hand over that property to you and your friends."

  "Afterwards," she asked, "you mean after our wedding?" Libby watched Trey nod in agreement, then looked over at her father. Sweat beaded on his brow, his hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides. "Well," she said, staring back at Trey, "I guess you've got me."

  His smile was tight. "Then say the words, Elizabeth."

  It took her a few seconds, but she finally declared, "Trey Easton, I will marry you."

  Look for Sarasota Bride, The Final Book in the Level 69 Trilogy on April 26.

  March 2014 Oycher

  April 2014 Sanibel Virgin

  www.talynscott.com