My hand shook as I fisted it and held back from punching him. Rolling my neck, I turned my back on him and walked to the door.
“I’ve had a claim on her since well before she worked for you, Carl.” Even if I had given that claim up, and now had to earn it back. “And I can guarantee if I were sleeping with her, I wouldn’t treat her like a piece of property who owed me something.”
I swung the door open and turned back to him.
“Keep your hands off women who don’t want to be touched, or I’ll have my attorneys unravel the rest of your NDAs as quickly as they did hers.”
His face was beet red. I took a step before glancing over my shoulder at him. “Oh, and I won’t fight my father’s battles for him, but don’t think for a second I don’t know what you did back then. I’ll keep to my business if you keep to yours and stay far away from Victoria, but I can’t promise my father won’t strike one of these days.” The flinch gave away his guilt that something had happened between the two, and I wondered if Tori was right and my mother had somehow been involved. The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I didn’t want a war with Bradman. I would win, but it would tarnish both our family names. He had a son he was grooming to take over, and I had Liv and Reid to protect. If things went my way, Tori would have my name as well.
“You think you can come in here and threaten me? A few months in control of your father’s failing company, and you think you scare me?” He should have kept his mouth shut because I’d been digging since he left my building, finding all his other secrets. None enough to do enough damage without my father’s information but enough to make him sweat.
Taking the few strides back to him, I kept my composure, knowing this was the play that would put him in his place, as unbelievable as that seemed. “My father’s company is still intact. It may be in pieces that I’ve bought up over the past years and added to my multi-billion-dollar portfolio of holdings, but it’s there. All in excellent shape since I cleaned them up.” Even if I’d been the one to destroy their value. “Unlike what I’ve found with your holdings, Carl. Shortcuts in building, failed inspections, bribes to inspectors, code violations that continue to be overlooked, suspicious behavior swept under the rug, customersatisfaction rates that continue to slip, employee benefits that lag far behind the industry averages. Should I go on?”
“Get out and hope our paths never cross again.”
I gave him a smirk. “Now, Carl, that’s not very nice.”
His eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets, and the vein in his forehead was massive.
“We’re done here, William.”
I buttoned my suit jacket and adjusted my sleeves. “We are. Stay out of my territory, and I’ll stay out of yours. It would be good for you to remember, Carl, you may be nothing like your father, not inheriting his shrewd business skills or his finesse, but I am very much my father’s son, and I won’t hesitate to strike if provoked.”
I didn’t bother waiting for a reply and saw myself out.
As I waited outside the car for Tori and Reid, I churned my words around in my head. I had never owned my similarities to my father, refusing to admit I was anything like him. Yet in telling Carl Bradman that I was, I had admitted what I’d always known. No matter how I’d strived to be anything but my father, I had become him. Ruthless, shrewd, calculating, and unrelenting. Driven. They were words I’d always associated with him but that now described me.
I rubbed my forehead. As long as I wasn’t like him as a father, I could handle being him in the business world. There was a reason my father’s name was respected in circles, why he had built a billion-dollar company that had only suffered when I had sent it crumbling. I looked up, realizing the truth and remembering his words. He had known what Liv and I were doing, and he’d let us. He was too smart not to notice, and here we’d been so certain he didn’t know. Yet, he’d sat back and watched me unravel his dynasty and not lifted a finger to stop me.
Because he’d known I would build it back to what it had been and make it better. Because he’d trusted me and my skills. He’d trusted Liv and her abilities. A test to prove we were the children he had raised, to show that I was worthy of taking over the company. Maybe it hadn’t been a test he’d designed, nowhere near his original intent, but he had let it ride and watched us become just like him.
The revelation left me shaken.
Tori came around the corner with Reid, her hands filled with bags. The driver took them from her while Reid jumped into the car with an exaggerated huff, complaining about how tiring shopping was.
“That bad?” I asked Tori.
“No,” she said, lifting on her toes and giving me a peck on the lips. I wanted to pull her closer, to deepen the kiss and have it ease the strain in my muscles, but this wasn’t the place or the time. Her eyes looked between mine as she smoothed her hands down my arms. “Did you…”
“Let’s get going. I’ll order room service for dinner while we get ready.”
She cocked her head, her gaze intense, and I read the look. The worry that I was keeping secrets again. Running my fingers through her hair, I said, “I’ll tell you about it on the way to the hotel, and you can tell me all about shopping.”
Reid groaned from inside the car. “No more shopping.”
Laughing, I helped Tori in and took the seat next to her. I gave her the abridged version of my meeting with Bradman, the weight of her eyes heavy. She was reading me, like she always did, better than anyone else could.
Changing the subject, I said, “So you got a dress?”
A momentary pause, and that heaviness continued until she replied, “Yes. You still won’t tell me where we’re going?”
I squeezed her hand and pulled it into my lap. “Nope. It’s a surprise.”
“Stubborn.”
“I know.”
My sight drifted out the window, my mind still on the meeting. Silence fell over the car, and I embraced it, lost in my thoughts.
