Jazz music filtered through speakers in the lobby, just loud enough to dull the cacophony of heels against marble and dozens of overlapping conversations. She strode to the front desk, where the same woman she’d encountered last time was managing the check-ins.
Lacey looked up from her computer with a bored air. “Good morning, how can I help?—”
Ophelia pushed her sunglasses off her face and Lacey jumped to her feet like a soldier standing at attention.
“Miss Sinclair,” she exclaimed, her eyes widening. “I-I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“I don’t have an appointment,” Ophelia said sheepishly, offering a smile as she leaned against the counter. “I was hoping to speak with my father for a few minutes.”
“Of course! Head right up. I’ll let his secretary know you’re coming.”
Ophelia patted the counter, nodding. “Thanks again, Lacey.”
The woman’s eyes widened further, as though she was surprised Ophelia had remembered her. Was that was her father’s doing? He never bothered to remember anyone unless they had something he wanted.
She went through security and stepped onto a crowded elevator, feeling eyes bore into her back as she pressed the button for the top floor. By the time she reached it, she was the last one left. People stared as she stepped into the hall, clutching her purse with white knuckles.
Squaring her shoulders, she forced herself to look straight ahead. Her father’s secretary leaped up as she entered his office, stammering as he asked her to wait a moment.
Her father was in the middle of some important phone call—as he had been nearly all her childhood, as far as she could remember. This time, she wouldn’t be brushed aside.
“Tell him it’s urgent,” she called after the harried man.
A few moments later, he emerged with sweat beading on his lip. “He’ll see you now,” he announced in a wavering voice.
“Thank you,” she said, stepping past him.
Her father was wearing a thunderous expression, his hands steepled under his chin. “Ophelia. This is your secondunannounced visit in as many weeks. When I told you I’d like to have lunch, I did intend for you to schedule it through my secretary.”
“I’m not here to ask you out to lunch,” she said, sinking into the seat across from him. She had to swallow hard to clear the lump in her throat before she could continue. “I need your help with something.”
He sighed, sitting back as he eyed her curiously. “If this is about your mother again, I meant what I told you before. If she’s sent you back to beg on her behalf, I have my lawyer on speed dial.”
“It’s not about her,” she said, half-truthful. “It’s… It’s about me. I’m in trouble.”
He frowned, his silvery brows furrowing as he sat forward again. “What kind of trouble?”
Her face began to burn. She squeezed her purse in her hands, dreading this next part. It was a necessary evil, she told herself, but it didn’t make it any less mortifying. With a shuddering breath, she unzipped her purse and pulled her phone out. When she had the video pulled up, she set it on the desk and spun it to face him.
He gave her a suspicious look before he tapped the play button.
It was the very beginning of the blackmail tape Logan had made, edited to blur the salacious bits—being buck naked in front of her father had been a step too far for her, even under the dire circumstances.
He let out a hiss of disgust, shoving the phone back to her. She caught it before it slid off the edge of the desk, frantically tapping the screen to stop the playback.
“What is this?” he demanded.
She dropped it back down on the desk with a clatter, clearing her throat. “I-I’m being blackmailed. They want money to keep it quiet.”
He sneered. “Blackmailed for what? Consenting sex?”
“Um.” She twisted her hands in the strap of her purse. “That’s not my fiancé.”
His expression turned thunderous, but he smoothed it over with the placid mask he surely used in business negotiations. “Infidelity then? No matter. People are progressive. It will be little more than fodder for gossip.”
He rose from his seat, pacing toward the wall of windows with his hands on his hips. “You aren’t married, so we don’t have an infidelity clause to worry about.”
Panic clawed at her, but she forced herself to take a deep breath. She’d known he would be resistant. This wasn’t a curveball.
