Ruthless Pride

by Naima Simone

  “I’ve read the past articles from the Chronicle, and you’re right, they did cover it...punitively,” she conceded. In the small pause that followed, the “can you blame them?” seemed to echo in the office. “But those reporters aren’t me. You don’t know me, but I graduated from Northwestern University with a BS and MS in journalism. While there, I worked with the Medill Justice Project that helped free an unjustly convicted man from a life sentence in prison. I’ve also won the Walter S. and Syrena M. Howell competition, was a recipient of the NJLA’s journalism award and was a member of the journalistic team who won the Stuart and Beverly Awbrey Award last year, all well-respected awards. I don’t intend to do a hatchet job on you or Black Crescent. As a matter of fact, I would like to write this article from a different angle—the artist submerged. From my research, I discovered you were once a very accomplished artist—”

  “We’re done,” he ground out, rising to his feet, flattening his palms on the desk.

  Hell, no. Pain, like crushed glass, scraped his throat and chest raw.

  He hadn’t been called an artist in fifteen long years. And hadn’t picked up a camera or paintbrush in just as long. Once, his trademark had been oversize, mixed-media collages that provided cultural commentary on war and human rights. He’d poured his being into those pieces, falling into endless pockets of time where nothing had mattered but losing himself in photographs, oils and whatever elements captured what swirled inside him—metal, newspapers, books, even bits of clothing. But when his father had vanished, Joshua had put aside childish things. At least that was what Vernon had called Joshua’s passion—a childish hobby.

  It’d been like performing a lobotomy on his soul. But now, instead of channeling his anger, grief and pain into art, he suppressed it. And when that didn’t work, he funneled it into making Black Crescent solvent and powerful again. Or took it out on a punching bag at the gym.

  The whole shitfest with the hedge fund had left him with precious little—the death of his art career, the eradication of his relationships with his brothers, a ghost of a mother, an overabundance of shame and a ruined family company. But they’d been his choices.

  All that had remained in the ashes after the firestorm were the ragged tatters of his pride because he’d had the strength, the character, to make those choices.

  And now Sophie Armstrong sought to steal that dignity away from him, too.

  No. She couldn’t have it.

  “Mr. Lowell,” she began again with a short shake of her head.

  But again, he cut her off. “I have a busy day, and you’ve had more than the thirty seconds I allotted. We’re through talking. You need to go,” he ordered, knowing his mother would cringe at the lack of the manners she’d drilled into him since birth. Not that he gave a damn. Not when this woman stood here prying into an area of his life that wasn’t open for public consumption.

  “Fine, I’ll leave,” she said, but nothing in the firm, almost combative tone said she’d conceded. She drew her shoulders back, hiking her chin in the air. Though she stood at least a foot shorter than him, she still managed to peer down at him with a glint of battle in her silver eyes. “You can try to erase the past, but certain things don’t go away no matter how hard you try to bury them. The truth always finds a way of resurrecting itself.”

  “Especially if there are reporters always armed with a shovel, ready to dig up anything that will sell papers,” he drawled.

  The curves of her full mouth flattened, and her eyes went molten. He waited, his body stilling except for the heavy thud of his heart against his rib cage. And the rush of hot anticipation in his veins.

  It’d been years since anyone had challenged him. Not since he’d proved he was his father’s son in business and, at times, in ruthlessness. But Sophie Armstrong... She must not have received the memo, because she glared at him, slashes of red painting her high cheekbones, as if even now, she longed to go for his throat. Was it perverse that part of him hoped she did? That he wanted that tight, petite, almost fragile body pressed to his larger frame with those delicate but capable-looking hands wrapped around his neck...exerting pressure even as he took her mouth as she attempted to take his breath?

  Yeah, that might make him a little sick. And a hell of a lot dirty.

  Still... He could picture it easily. Could feel the phantom tightening of her grip now. And he wanted it. Craved it.

  But not enough to rip open old, barely scarred-over wounds so she could have a byline.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Lowell,” she finally said, and disappointment at her retreat surged through him.

  God, what was wrong with him? He wanted—no, needed—her to drop this “artist submerged” bullshit and get the hell out of his office.

  She whirled around on her boring nude heels and stalked across the room to his office door. Without a backward glance, she exited. He half expected her to slam it shut, but somehow the quiet, definite snick of the lock engaging seemed much more ominous.

  Like a booming warning shot across his bow.

  Two

  “The Black Crescent Scandal: Fifteen Years Later.”

  Joshua gripped the Monday issue of the Falling Brook Chronicle so tightly, it should’ve been torn down the middle. She’d done it. Sophie Armstrong had run with the story, placing his family’s sordid and ugly history on the front page as fodder for an always scandal-hungry public.

  He lifted his gaze to stare out the windshield of his Mercedes-Benz at the Black Crescent building. He knew every railing, every angle, every stone inch of the modern midcentury building built into a cliff. His father’s aim had been for the headquarters of his hedge fund to stand out in the more traditional architecture of Falling Brook. And he’d succeeded. The building was as famous—or infamous—as its owner.

  And his infamy had made page one of the local paper. Again.

  Studying the imposing structure offered the briefest of respites. Almost against his will, he returned his attention to the newspaper crinkling under his fists. He’d already read the article twice, but he scanned it again. It recounted his father’s rise in the financial industry, his seemingly perfect life—marriage to Eve Evans-Janson, the pedigreed society daughter and darling whose connections further installed Vernon as a reigning king of Falling Brook; his three sons, who’d shown great promise with their Ivy League educations and fast-track career goals; the meteoric success of his business. And then his epic fall. Millions of dollars missing from the hedge fund’s accounts. The death of Everett Reardon, his father’s best friend and CFO of Black Crescent, who’d crashed his car while trying to elude capture. Vernon’s disappearance.

  The ten clients his father had stolen money from plunged into a nightmare of bankruptcy and destitution. The company’s—Joshua’s—agreement to pay back the families so they wouldn’t file a lawsuit. How some of them still hadn’t recovered from Vernon’s selfish, unforgivable and criminal actions.

  And then Joshua.

  The artist turned CEO who had stepped into the vacant shoes of his father to save Black Crescent. Yes, it shared how he’d left his promising art career and turned the company around, saving it from ruin, but it also painted him as Vernon’s puppet, coached and raised to take over for him since Joshua’s birth. Which was bullshit. At one time, his path had been different. Had been his.

  The article also cited that no one had heard from Vernon in a decade and a half, but despite rumors that he’d been killed in retribution for his crimes, there was also the long-held belief that his father was alive and well. And that his family was secretly in contact with him. That Vernon still pulled the strings, running Black Crescent from some remote location. Which was ridiculous. After his father initially vanished, his mother had hired a team of private detectives to locate him. Not to mention the FBI had searched for him, as well.

  Fuck. He gritted his teeth against releasing the roar in his t
hroat, but his head echoed with it. What did he have to do to redeem himself? What more did he have to sacrifice? He’d stayed, facing judgment, scorn and suspicion to rebuild the company, to restore even some of the money lost. He’d stayed, doing his best in the last fifteen years to repay those affected clients at least part of the fortune they’d lost to his father as promised. He’d stayed, enduring his brothers’ ridicule and disdain for following in dear old Dad’s footsteps. He’d stayed, caring for their mother, who’d become something of a recluse.

  He’d stayed when all he’d wanted to do was quit and run away, too.

  But he hadn’t gallivanted off to Europe or found sweet oblivion in drugs and parties. Pride and loyalty had chained him there. Fatherless. Brotherless. Friendless.

  And Sophie Armstrong dared insinuate he hadn’t busted his ass all these years? That his father had done all the soul-destroying work.

  His sharp bark of laughter rebounded against the interior of the vehicle. Its serrated edges scraped over his skin.

  A part of him that could never utter the sacrilegious words aloud secretly hoped Vernon was dead. Just thinking it caused shame, thick and oily, to slide down his throat and smear his chest in a grimy coat. But it was true. He hoped his father no longer lived, because the alternative... God, the alternative—that he’d abandoned his family and emptied their bank accounts without the slightest shred of remorse and never looked back—sat in his gut, curdling it. If Vernon wasn’t dead, then that would mean the man he’d loved and had once admired and respected had truly never existed. And with everything else Joshua had endured these past few years, that...that might be his breaking point.

  His cell phone rang, and a swift glance at the screen revealed Oliver’s number. On the heels of his past staring him in the face this morning, his chest tightened. He and his younger brother’s relationship was...complicated. Oliver lived in Falling Brook, but he might as well be across the Hudson River or even farther away.

  Once, they’d been close. But that had been before Joshua had stepped in to head Black Crescent in place of their father. He’d lost some respect in Jacob’s and Oliver’s eyes that day. And a part of Joshua mourned that loss. Mourned what had been.

  Briefly closing his eyes, Joshua slid his thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear.

  “Hello.”

  “I’m assuming you’ve seen today’s paper,” his brother said in lieu of a greeting.

  “Yes.” Joshua stared across the parking lot, no longer seeing the building that had been the blessing and curse on his family. In front of him wavered an image of a perfect family. Of a lie. “I’ve seen it.”

  A sound between an angry growl and a heavy sigh reached him. “This shit again. Why can’t people just let it die?” Oliver snapped.

  “Because it makes for good copy apparently,” Joshua drawled. “We’ll ride this one out like we always do.”

  He uttered the assurance, and it tasted like bitter ashes on his tongue. He was tired of weathering storms. And more so of being the stalwart helm in it.

  Oliver scoffed. “Right. Because that’s what Lowells do.” Joshua could easily picture his brother dragging his hand through his hair, a slight sneer twisting his mouth. “Do you know if Mom has seen the article?”

  “I don’t think so.” Joshua shook his head as the stone of another burden settled on his shoulders. “I’ve sent Haley over to make sure the paper isn’t delivered.”

  Thank God for Haley. She was more than his assistant. She was his taskmaster. Right-hand woman. And the bossy little sister he’d never had.

  When the scandal around Black Crescent had broken fifteen years ago, and employees as well as friends had abandoned the company and the Lowell family, Haley—a college intern at the time—had remained. Even forgoing a salary to stay. Through the last decade and a half when Joshua had given up his own dreams and passion to step into the gaping, still-hemorrhaging hole his father had left, she’d been loyal. And invaluable. He couldn’t have dragged Black Crescent from the brink of financial ruin and rebuilt it without her at his side.

  The woman could be a pain in his ass, but she’d proved her loyalty hundreds of times over to his family. Because she was family.

  “Since Mom doesn’t leave the house too often, I’m not concerned with her mistakenly seeing it,” Joshua continued.

  Eve had become something of a hermit since her husband’s crime and disappearance. Unfortunately, that option hadn’t been available to Joshua.

  “Good. I don’t even want to imagine what this would do to her. Probably send her spiraling into a depression,” Oliver said, and while Joshua and his brothers might not agree on much, this one thing they did—their mother’s emotional health and protecting her. “I’ll go by and see her this evening just to check in.”

  “That sounds good. Thanks,” Joshua replied.

  A snort echoed in Joshua’s ear. “She’s my mother, too. No need to thank me. Talk to you later.”

  The connection ended, and for a long second, Joshua continued to hold the phone to his ear before lowering it and picking up the newspaper again. He zeroed in on one line that had caught his attention before.

  But is Joshua Lowell that different from his father? Appearances, as we know, are often deceiving. Who knows the secrets the Lowell family could still be hiding?

  The sentences—no, not so thinly veiled accusations—leaped out at him. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Every skeleton in their closets had been bleached and hung out for everyone to view and tear apart. They didn’t have secrets.

  And where had she uncovered the photos included in the article? He scrutinized the black-and-white images. A few of his art pieces. His father as he remembered him with his mother on his arm. God, he hadn’t seen her smile like that in years. Fifteen of them, to be exact. Him and Jake on their college graduation day, hugging Oliver between them. A family portrait taken at their annual Christmas party. The ones of him and Jake on campus. The snapshots of him painting in art class. The concentration and...joy darkening and lightening his face. He analyzed that image longer, hardly recognizing the young, hopeful man in the photo.

  Well, Sophie had done her grave-robbing expedition well. He’d accused her of using her shovel to dig up old news. To acquire these photographs, she must’ve found a fucking backhoe.

  Where had she gotten her information? She shouldn’t have had access to those pictures, so who’d provided them to her?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Joshua tossed the paper to the passenger seat and pressed the ignition button to start the car.

  He would go directly to the source.

  * * *

  “Great article, Sophie,” Rob Jensen, the entertainment columnist, congratulated with a short rap on the wall of her cubicle.

  “Thanks, Rob,” she said, smiling. “I appreciate it.”

  “You did do an excellent job,” Marie Coswell added when Rob strode away. She rolled in her desk chair to the edge of her cubicle, directly across from Sophie’s. “But wow, woman,” she tsk-tsked, shaking her head and sending the blunt edges of her red bob swinging against her jaw. “You didn’t hold anything back. Aren’t you even the least bit concerned the Lowells will retaliate? I mean, yes, their names were persona non grata around here for a while, but that was a long time ago. They have serious pull and power. Makes me real thankful that I’m over in fashion. No way in hell would I want to tangle with a Lowell, especially Joshua Lowell. Well, hold on. I take that back.” She grinned, comically wriggling her perfectly arched eyebrows. “I’d love to tangle with that man—but nekkid.”

  Sophie laughed at her friend’s outrageousness even as heat streamed up her chest and throat and poured into her face. Times like these, she cursed her father’s Irish roots. Even her Italian heritage, inherited from her mother, couldn’t combat the fair skin that emblazoned every emo
tion on her face. Good God. She was twenty-eight and blushing like a hormonal teenager.

  “Holy shit. Are you blushing, Sophie? At what? The thought of Mr. Tall-Insanely-Rich-and-Hot-as-Hell?” Marie gave an exaggerated gasp. “Oh, you so are. All right, give. What happened when you stormed over to his office like it was the Alamo? Did you rip something else besides a strip off his hide? Like his clothes? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Sophie groaned, closing her eyes at her friend’s exuberance and the volume of it. She loved the other woman, but she really should’ve been the gossip editor with her sheer adoration for it.

  “Nothing happened. Clothes remained intact. The only thing stripped away was my pride.” She winced, just remembering her ill-conceived decision to charge into Joshua Lowell’s office and the ensuing confrontation.

  That definitely hadn’t been one of her finer moments. Thank goodness the front desk receptionist at the main level had been away from her desk. Otherwise security would’ve probably been called on her. Wouldn’t Althea Granger, the editor in chief, have loved to receive that call about one of her investigative reporters needing to be bailed out for trespassing?