I ran a shaky hand over my mussed chignon. First thing I needed to do was get ready for the coming meeting. That explained why Clint had so much Haversham stock, if my grandfather had actually agreed with the merger of both our wealth and names. Why had my grandfather agreed to something so bizarre? He was a master manipulator, so was what I was doing now something he expected? Did he want me to defeat Philippe, or did he want me to fail and find some quiet marriage instead?
The meeting was a small affair,the usual weekly meeting that no one but the company’s CEO and administrative staff wouldusually attend, but that time it was me in the closest thing to a power suit that I could buy on short notice, and Clint looking like a cold and ruthless businessman for the first time.
“Mrs. Dagger,” he said before he opened the door and gestured me in.
“Mr. Clint.”
“It’s Mr. Harrison.”
“It’s Mrs. Prescott.”
He smiled slightly. “Shall we?” He gestured me in, and I went, and then chaos erupted. Phone calls were made, but in the next forty-five minutes, everything was established, and the arm of Haversham that Philippe was counting on to smooth the transition of the merger was cut off. Decisively.
“They look at you like you’re the goddess of death,” Clint said mildly as he packed away his briefcase.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you,” I said coolly, then frowned at him. “Are you certain I can’t give you any other payment for all of your help? It will be terrible for your portfolio.”
“My portfolio can handle it. If you need any more assistance with family troubles, call my secretary. She can take care of whatever you need.”
“She is very competent.”
“She’ll have to be. I’m going to the ranch I told you about for a long spell. I hope that things work out for the two of you. James doesn’t deserve you, but I don’t know anyone who deserves you who could handle you.” He nodded at me and left me with the few lingering businessmen while I packed up my briefcase and slowly limped out. My knees had really taken a hit on the cement, but it was worth it to save Maples, particularly if he wasn’t dying anymore.
I smiled and walked more briskly in spite of the overwhelming exhaustion. Philippe would be so unpleasantlysurprised tomorrow when his precious deal fell through. I stepped out onto the street and took a moment to breathe in deeply and felt almost hopeful. Maybe Dirk would see this and think that I wasn’t entirely without shame.
Speaking of shameless, it was time I visited my grandfather. I waved down a cab and had him drive to the oldest part of town, where the club had been a bastion against feminine wiles for centuries. I couldn’t summon my grandfather, and I wasn’t about to wait for him to summon me, so I’d go to him and have a nice, honest conversation about the state of his business and his psychotic grandson.
The man at the counter inside the etched glass door looked up in alarm when he saw me, then something changed in his eyes. I hadn’t been here since I was fifteen, but perhaps he still knew me.
“Miss Delavigne.”
“It’s Mrs. Prescott. I’m here to see my grandfather. Is he in the usual chair?”
“Ah, yes, but I’m not certain…”
“Bring me a scotch.”
I left him stammering behind me as I went to see the one who had given Clint stocks in his corporation for taking me off his hands, but let me think that I was the one seducing him. It would be more infuriating if I cared about Clint. If I’d loved him, I’d be devastated, but instead, I was only bewildered.
I walked into the room lit only by green-shaded lamps next to chairs of various cushiness. My grandfather’s chair was at the far end, next to a stained glass window that let nothing through but was still beautiful, a scene of Paul Revere on his night ride beneath dizzying stars.
I sat in the nearest chair and leaned back, taking a moment to center myself as if I were about to play in a concert. “Philippe shot a rocket at me. Here’s how it’s going to work. I will go to warwith him, and Haversham will be the battlefield, likely ruined in the exchange, or you will support my place as rightful heir and cut him off.”
I turned to look at the old man, who looked truly old for the first time I could remember. He was shrunken, and had oxygen nearby, although the mask was hanging by his chair. His eyes still burned like two coals in his sunken cheeks.
“Daniela, what did you do?” The voice was soft, but I got goosebumps anyway, because I knew that a soft voice did not mean a soft will.
“Thank you,” I said to the man who held out the tray with a glass of old, glittering scotch on it before he hastily retreated. I swirled the liquid in my glass and smiled at the old man. “I will not allow Philippe to have Haversham. I have only begun, disrupting a merger he’s had planned for some time, a merger that would have put him in a position of power that we, as a family, cannot have. He’s a psychopath. He’s not like you, cold, calculating, cruel. If he were it would be endurable, but he is unstable, irrational, and uncontrollable.”
He raised a salt and pepper brow. “And you are going to control him? How do you propose to do that? I suppose you could bring him to heel the way you did Clint, but I do not approve, whether you are close blood relations or not. He will turn on you. Why do you think I’ve put so much effort into making strong alliances for you, taking you out of direct conflict with him?”
“You mean selling me to Clint first and Dirk second?”
He took inhaled sharply. “They are both good enough families, although Prescott has some instability in his strain that would make your children less stable.”
“You mean the super serum strains.”
Both wiry brows rose at that, and he took a moment to place the mask on his face, inhaling deeply several times before he removed it and spoke. “What do you know of it?”
