She opened the envelope herself and pulled out the little stack of papers, but Goodwin ignored them. He crossed his arms and fixed his gaze on her.
“Are you setting me up, Marianna?” His ice-cold tone matched his eyes.
She flinched. He was so many steps ahead of her, but he hadn’t turned her away. Was this meeting one last act of loyalty to her father?
“I... I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here.”
At last, his expression softened a tiny bit.
“Oh, Marianna.” He sighed, shaking his head.
Goodwin took the papers from her hand and leafed through them, then set them on his desk. His face betrayed no surprise.
“Your visit made me nervous enough to consider canceling the whole deal. It would have meant the end of business between our companies forever,” he continued. “But William assured me that your entire life would collapse if you endangered Ruiz Imports.”
Marianna’s heart pounded harder. Goodwin had talked to William. Was his message a threat from William or just a dose of reality? Everything she had—money, property, her charity—came from Ruiz Imports, and she would lose it all if the company collapsed.
She had come for answers from Goodwin, to try to do the right thing. But once again, she was slipping right back into the same role she had played her whole life. Always a pawn. And she was tired of it.
Marianna blew out a breath. “All I really want to know is if my father was ever involved in smuggling. Just my father.”
Goodwin tilted his head to the side. “I believe you.”
Couldn’t he just answer the damn question?
A phone rang, breaking the silence. Goodwin’s. He glanced at the screen and frowned.
“I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed,” he growled into it.
Goodwin turned away, rounding his desk, listening. Simon’s hand brushed her shoulder, his fingers caressing her bare skin. She turned to him, and his expression was clear.
Danger.
“Him, too?” Goodwin’s voice pulled her back to the immediate problem. “By all means, send him in.”
She whipped around to find Goodwin’s stare fixed on her once again. But before she could say anything, her own phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse. Unknown caller.
She looked up again at Simon, his eyes dark, hard.
You promised.
She did. Marianna stood up. Years of charity balls and political dinners kept the shaking at bay. She smiled. “I’m sorry, but I need to take this call.”
Goodwin smiled back. “If it’s William, he’s calling to tell you he’s walking down the hall right now.”
Marianna stumbled, but two large hands closed around her upper arms. Her breath caught as Simon steadied her. His thumbs ran up and down the backs of her arms before he let go, soothing her.
I’m here for you. We’ve got this.
She forced the well-practiced smile back on her face. “How convenient for us all.”
Goodwin’s eyes narrowed.
“You look surprised,” he said, his eyes growing colder. “You and William are supposed to be running this together. And yet you showed up early, and now he’s here, too. Tell me, Marianna, what happens next?”
His gaze darted between Marianna, Simon and the door. Maybe fear was the name of that heaviness that was building inside, but she fought hard not to give in to it. There were a dozen ways to maneuver around this, to plead ignorance or naïveté, but she wasn’t choosing any of them. Because her gut was telling her that taking that road would be at Simon’s expense. Ignoring her gut was how she ended up walking away from Simon, how she ended up marrying William, how she ended up as a partner in a smuggling operation. And she was so very done with that chapter of her life.
Marianna tried a deep breath, but who was she kidding? It was going to take a lot more than a few deep breaths to calm her down. A flush crept up the base of Goodwin’s neck. He looked angry, and she had no idea what William was capable of when he walked in.
