Page 38 of My Girl to Take

“Logan—”

Garth’s hand closes gently but firmly around my wrist, stopping me before I can take more than two steps toward the door. The softness of the gesture does nothing to lessen the weight of it. Because I know what he’s asking before he even says it. I know he wants me to stay, to let Logan go, to give him space.

“He needs time,” Garth says quietly, his voice hoarse but steady.

My chest tightens. “He thinks I betrayed him.”

“I know,” he replies, his grip loosening but not releasing. “And chasing him right now won’t change that.”

I shake my head, my eyes burning. “But what if he doesn’t come back from this?”

Garth studies me for a moment, something knowing in his expression. Something that makes my breath hitch slightly even before he speaks again.

“He will,” he says simply. “Because I’ve been watching the two of you, Kiera, even when you thought you were being careful. Whatever this is between you…is not something that disappears because of one mistake.”

Heat creeps up my neck despite everything. “You knew?”

A faint smile touches his lips. “I’m still your father.”

The word settles deep, grounding me just enough to steady my breathing. Enough to pull me out of the panic threatening to take over.

“There’s something else,” I say. “He found an email. From eighteen months ago.”

Garth’s eyes sharpen.

“The advisory fees I flagged. The query I raised and got told to drop.” My voice doesn’t hold as well as I’d like. “Philip forwarded it to my mother. Logan thinks that means I raised it as cover.”

Garth is quiet for a moment. “And what does it actually mean?”

“It means Philip was frightened of me,” I say. “For about nine days. And then he went to the person who could tell him whether I mattered, and she told him I didn’t.”

Something moves across my stepfather’s face—the old anger, worn smooth by many years but still there.

“Then that’s what we prove,” he says.

I swallow hard, nodding once as I force myself to step back fully.

“Then what do we do?” I ask.

His expression shifts, the softness fading into something more focused, more determined. “We fix what needs to be fixed,” he says. “The company comes first. Philip needs to be removed, and the board needs to see the evidence.”

“I can’t call a board meeting.”

“No,” he agrees. “But I can. Get the corporate secretary on the phone.”

She has held the role at Edwards Capital Management for nineteen years and has never once, in my experience, been surprised by anything. When Garth gives her the instruction—special meeting, forty-eight hours, all directors, and yes, all of them—she asks two clarifying questions and says she’ll have the notice out within the hour.

“You’ll present,” Garth says to me when the call ends.

“It should be you.”

“It should be somebody the board has watched work these past few years,” he says. “That’s not me anymore. That’s you.”

“And Logan…” Garth says. “He’ll come. He may be angry, but he won’t walk away from this.”

I hope he’s right. Because I don’t think I can handle it if he isn’t.

⁎⁎⁎