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“You can’t just—”
“I can and I will,” I said, my voice remaining measured and calm. “The question is whether you’d prefer to be on the winning side of this transaction. Your legacy preserved, your daughter’s career advanced, your retirement comfortable. The alternative is… less appealing.”
The server returned with the check, which I signed without looking at the total. Howard hadn’t touched his salmon, but I wasn’t concerned with wasted food. The meal had served its purpose.
“I need your answer now, Howard,” I continued once we were alone again. “Will you be making that recommendation to your board, or do I need to explore other avenues?”
Howard nodded slowly. “I’ll call the meeting for tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent.” I stood, buttoning my jacket. “I’ll expect confirmation by noon.”
“Cain…” Howard looked up at me, something like pity in his eyes. “This isn’t going to work the way you think. Sutton won’t just fall in line.”
I smiled, genuinely amused by his misplaced concern. “I’m counting on it, Howard.”
I left him sitting there, a broken man who’d just signed away his life’s work to protect his daughter from a threat I didn’t even make. The irony was that Sutton Prescott was likely the only person at his company with the spine to stand against me, which made breaking her all the more necessary.
My driver was waiting outside, the car door opening as I approached. As I settled into the back seat, I took out my phone and sent a brief message to my team:
Prescott confirmed. Proceed with documentation. Announcement forthcoming.
I put my phone away and sat back in my seat with a grin that could light up Las Vegas.
Sutton Prescott had no idea what was coming. By the time she realized she was trapped, the only choice left would be surrender or destruction. Either way, I would win. Because I always did.
6
SUTTON
“Sutton?” Erica Christopher’s head appeared in the doorway before the rest of her. She’d been my assistant for the last few years and I wasn’t sure how I could do anything without her. “Just wanted to give you a heads-up. Your father’s here.”
I fought every urge in my soul to appear surprised and won that battle. “Do we know why he’s here?”
“He didn’t say,” Erica replied, her voice dropping to a whisper. “But he looks… serious? I don’t know how else to describe it.”
My stomach dropped, but I kept my expression neutral even as my mind raced through possibilities, none of them good. My father never came to the office unannounced. In the time I’d been at Prescott Vantage, I could count on both hands the exceptions to that rule and every single one of them had been bad news. Given the phone call we’d had several days ago, I was pretty certain I knew why he was here and, if he came to speak to me, where this eventual conversation was going to go.
“Do you want me to tell him you’re in a meeting?” Erica asked, her voice still low as if not to alert him. The protective instinct in her tone wasn’t lost on me.
“No,” I said, closing my laptop. “Send him in.”
I stood and smoothed down my skirt, a pointless gesture but one that gave me those few extra seconds to compose myself. My father’s unannounced visit confirmed what I’d suspected since our phone call: something was up and I was willing to bet it was about the future of Prescott Vantage.
This was not just a job to me. It had literally been the last ten years of my life I poured into this company that had my father’s name on the door, and my fingerprints on everything else because it was what I hoped to inherit. He had founded it with a strong vision, and I had taken that foundation and built it into something neither of us had fully anticipated when I came on board fresh out of college, because I had more ambition than he knew what to do with.
And now I felt as if that might be slipping away.
Erica disappeared and moments later my father filled the doorway. I gestured to the chair across from my desk, and he took my cue and sat down.
“Sutton,” he began after a deep breath. “I appreciate you making time.”
“You didn’t give me much choice,” I replied, hoping my voice didn’t give away my nerves. I remained standing for a moment longer than necessary before taking my seat. A small power play, but I needed whatever edge I could get.
He cleared his throat. “I wanted you to hear this from me first. Before the announcement.”
My hands remained folded yet perfectly still on my desk. “Go ahead.”
“Ashcroft Group is acquiring Prescott Vantage.”
