Chapter 25

Barrett

“Are you sure about this, Hart?” Adam asked, following me to my office after the Monday morning staff meeting with a manila envelope in his hands.

“Yes,” I said firmly as I took the envelope that I knew held Demi’s termination papers. I placed it on my table to deal with later. “We don’t need her.”

Adam scoffed. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that point. I’ve seen how you’ve been acting this last week. You need to talk about it eventually.”

“No, I don’t have to talk about anything to anyone. She’s done. And I have a meeting to worry about.” I stalked from my office.

Athena’s, as it turned out, was owned by a man called James Fowler. I’d only learned that on Saturday morning when Steven called to say that he’d managed to pull off the impossible. In less than twelve hours of receiving my mandate to push hard for the company, the owner had accepted his offer and was willing to sell.

I only hoped that I had better luck with James Fowler than I’d had with the Fowler I was trying very hard not to think about. The lawyers had drawn up the contracts over the weekend, and I’d been asked to visit the Fowler mansion to sign them.

The place was huge, almost as big as mine, though it looked like the property itself was bigger. It had the grand splendor of a sweeping villa and water fountains reminiscent of the old world European style everywhere. Green ivy wrapped around ribbed columns, and the wooden door and window panes shone in the morning sun.

I parked the Maclaren in the circular drive and headed for the door. Before I could knock, however, Demi opened the door. My heart dropped like a stone, and my vision blurred.

What the fuck?

It was only once she had swung the door open fully and stepped toward me that I realized the woman wasn’t Demi, but the spitting image of her in the future.

“Mr. Hart, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m Athena Fowler.”

The woman wore a kind, motherly smile and shook my hand in a firm grip. Just like Demi’s…

My mind raced as pieces of the puzzle I’d been blind to fell into place. Athena’s voice pulled me from the haze I was trying to sort through. “Are you okay, Mr. Hart?”

“Yes. Call me Barrett, please.” I pasted the most charming smile I could muster on my face. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

If only to get a better understanding of why your daughter felt the need to lie to me, ripping my heart out in the process. It made no sense to me. Why did Demi live in squalor if this was where she came from?

“Thank you for driving all the way out here. I’m afraid James isn’t in the best of health. His doctors recommended that he remain at home for the time being. Please, come inside.” Athena smiled, stepping aside so I could enter their cavernous foyer.

“It’s not a problem at all,” I assured her. “I would’ve driven to the moon to get these contracts signed. Mr. Fowler has built quite the legacy.”

Athena sighed wistfully. “I suppose he did. Follow me please. Can I get you something to drink?”

For the first time, I noticed that there were no staff members around. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Any doubts I’d been harboring that this was, in fact, Demi’s house were erased as Athena led me down a wide hallway. There were pictures of Demi everywhere. As a little girl with a homely woman standing beside her, as a teenager where she mostly scowled at the camera, and even one of Demi’s pictures from her first shoot with Stefan.

My mouth turned to dust, and my heart thundered so loudly, it was a miracle it didn’t echo down the hallway. We turned a corner into what looked like a makeshift hospital room. One of the questions I’d hurled at Demi was answered as soon as I laid eyes on Mr. Fowler. He was obviously a very ill man.

The hospital bed he was sitting in dwarfed him, and the nurse by his side watched him closely. His skin was grayish, but his eyes were bright and alert, even if they looked a little tired.

“Mr. Hart, it’s so nice to meet you,” he told me as soon as we entered, his voice weak but still commanding.

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Fowler.” I squeezed his outstretched hand almost gently, afraid to hurt him. “And please, call me Barrett.”

He grinned. “Then call me James. Have a seat, my boy. Has Athena offered you something to drink?”

“She has, but I’m fine,” I repeated, just as James shot his wife a grateful look of adoration.

“Of course, she has,” James said. “She’s been my rock through all of this. So, tell me, why are you so intent on buying this company? Your offer was significantly higher than the others we received. I’m curious.”

The man might be sick, but his eyes were intelligent and piercing. I imagined that at full strength, it would’ve been enough to make weaker men cringe and go rock in a corner somewhere. There would be no getting away with lying to him, but I had to filter the truth carefully.

“It’s an excellent opportunity,” I said. “I’m looking to branch out, and I believe Athena’s could be restored to its former glory with some edgy marketing campaigns.”

James’ eyes studied mine, searching. “I believe you, but you are holding something back.”

I started to interrupt him, but he held up a hand. “That’s okay, Barrett. I don’t expect you to tell an old man all of the reasons a successful young one would want to take the reins of a failing company, and I also believe that you are right. Athena’s could be restored to her former glory.”

“I appreciate the faith you have in me to be the man to do that,” I told him honestly. “If you don’t mind my asking, you’ve been at the helm for so many years. Why not just find someone to run it and turn it around yourself?”

James gave me a wry smile. “I would’ve loved to, but I’m afraid those marketing campaigns you mentioned are expensive, as is finding the right person for the job. Unfortunately, my medical bills are piling up as things are, and if I don’t sell, we’ll lose the roof over our heads.”

I told myself that I didn’t care, that the reason didn’t matter. This company was meant to be my distraction, and I wanted to get my hands on it desperately. But try as I might, my resolve was starting to slip.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, trying my best to look like what he was saying wasn’t affecting me at all. “I promise you that I will work night and day for Athena’s.”

James lifted his eyes to mine. “Well then, I’m assuming you’ve brought the contracts with you?”

“I did.” I slid them from my jacket pocket and placed them on a tray in front of him, with the exact same pen Demi had used to sign her contract with me.

It made me feel like a dirty fucking grave robber, but I didn’t stop him from signing, once he’d read through the contracts. His lawyers had been given copies on Saturday, but unlike his daughter, he read each and every page. Clearly, he wasn’t as afraid as she’d been of backing out.

“There you go,” he said, once he’d signed and initialed at every colorful tab we’d marked. “You know, Barrett, now that I’ve signed, I feel like I should give you a warning if you’ll take the time to hear me out.”

The sincerity in his tone shook me the core. “Sure. Of course, I will.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t keep you long. It’s just that I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, and if I can keep mine from being repeated by others, it’s worth a shot.” James’ eyes suddenly felt like they weren’t looking at me, but like they were looking into me. “And when I look at you, it’s like I’m looking at a person who is very likely to repeat my mistakes.”

He sighed, looking all the frailer as his chest heaved and his shoulders lost some of the strength he’d clearly been struggling to hold them with. “I was just like you in my younger days. I was obsessed with making money and spending it, with building and growing my empire, no matter what or who was in my way.”

The air in the room felt like it became heavier with every word he said. It was clearly difficult for him to talk about this, since he’d paused to stare out the window to hide the watery sheen his eyes had taken on.

Swallowing a few times, his fingers dug into the sheets of the hospital bed before he continued. “I’m sorry. You must forgive me. I haven’t voiced these thoughts in this fashion before.”

“Please, take your time.”

The last thing I wanted to was hear the rest of what he had to say but at the same time, I was hanging on to his every word and needed to know where he was going with this more than I needed my next breath. I instinctively knew it was about Demi, and while my head was screaming at me to shield us from further harm, my heart forced me to stay and listen.

“Thank you for being so patient,” James said. “Already, you’re proving that you might be a better man than I was at your age. I never cared about how I treated other people. Only that the money was rolling in, even when it was at their expense.”

As frail as he was, I had no doubt that he’d put his fist through my face if knew the real reason I was staying. It had nothing to do with caring about him and everything to do with finding out more about his daughter.

I shrugged. “I’m sure you’re selling yourself short.”

James shared a look with Athena, who had taken the seat the nurse had vacated when we’d started talking. She nodded encouragingly and reached for his hand.

“I wish I was,” he said. “But I’m afraid I’m not over-exaggerating. The thing is, I never cared about it until now. Until I nearly...”

He choked up. Athena reached over to cup his face, a silent conversation passing between them until he nodded and took another deep breath.

“The biggest mistake that I made was with my own daughter.” My blood turned to ice, even though I had been expecting it to come. “I didn’t even realize I was making it until it was too late. She moved away from us, she abandoned our fortune and everything that came with it, and vowed not to speak to us again. It took me almost a year to find out that she was working as a waitress in a crappy diner.”

Quiet tears ran down Athena’s cheeks but she wiped them away with an embroidered handkerchief, nodding at James to continue. His voice cracked with emotion when he did.

“She never wanted anything to do with money again, but she took a modeling job around the time that Athena told her that I was ill. Despite all the years of being estranged and all the years I was focused on making money instead of on her, she gave us almost every penny of her income as a model to keep us afloat.”

I couldn’t breathe. It was like all of the air had been sucked out of the room as James bowled me over with his revelation about Demi. The final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, and I finally understood everything with startling clarity. She hadn’t lied to me about anything. She did come from money. She just didn’t want it.

Which meant that she never wanted me for mine. If she’d turned her back on all of this, she really couldn’t be the gold-digging bitch I’d made her out to be. Then I remembered all of the accusations I’d thrown at her, and I felt like I was about to vomit.

Oh, god. What the fuck have I done?

Athena’s voice was distant as she asked, “Did you know that she even did some modeling for you?”

I nodded but the room had fallen away.

Fuck.

My heart was pounding as I made my excuses and said goodbye, its rhythm chanting one name on repeat.

Demi. Demi. Demi.

I had to find her. I had to hope and pray to every god that had ever been prayed to that I could convince her to forgive me. After that, I had to make sure that I spent every day for the rest of my miserable life making this up to her. I just had to come up with a viable plan.

Sitting in the driveway of the Fowler Mansion, the plan slowly started taking shape.