My door flies open and I jump to my feet out of instinct. Spencer stands inside my door, red-faced and baring teeth.
“Are you kidding me?” Spencer shouts, coming around my desk and thrusting me against the wall. “How could you sleep with Bridget?”
Fuck. I should’ve known this conversation was coming. As much as I want to fight back and defend myself, I don’t.
“You don’t understand,” I grit through my teeth.
“I don’t understand? Are you fucking kidding me?” His hands turn white. “You’re married and have a daughter and, for fuck’s sake, Bridget’s a kid.”
“She’s a grown woman. She can make her own decisions. You know nothing about her.” Bridget may be years younger, but she’s not a child. She’s smart and beautiful and I won’t allow him to say anything otherwise. “Not that you’re one to talk. How old is Olivia?” I bite.
“You’re not good enough for her, Grant. You’re a fucking mess.”
My eyes narrow and teeth grind together.
“I don’t need you to point out all of my faults, Spencer. You and our father have been doing it for years.”
“This isn’t about us, goddamn it. This is about you hurting Bridget.” His words bounce off the walls in angry waves. He still has me pinned against the wall, so I push roughly against his shoulders. He stumbles back.
“I wouldn’t hurt her,” I yell back.
“You already have.”
My shoulders slump at his words. My hand comes up to my head, wiping the sweat from my face. I knew I hurt her, but to hear it from Spencer is the worst.
“Olivia is consoling her as we speak. She’s fucking broken.”
“Fuck,” I yell, feeling the need to put my fist through a wall. Anything to stave off the pain his words produce.
“I warned you to keep your hands off of her.”
“I’ve never listened to a damn thing you’ve said, Spencer. Why would I start now?”
Punch. “I said I’d kill you.” Punch. Spencer does as he promised. Putting his fist in my face repeatedly. I should let him. I deserve it.
“I love her,” I mutter as the acrid taste of copper fills my mouth.
He stops punching me and steps back. His eyes are pinched and a frown forms on his face.
“What?” he asks as though he can’t comprehend what I’m saying.
“You heard me, damn it. I’m in love with her.” I swipe roughly at my bloody lip. “I’d be with her now if she didn’t have me by the balls.”
“Who? You’re not making any fucking sense.”
“Chelsea,” I spit out. “Chelsea is blackmailing me.”
Spencer gasps and steps away. Taking a seat, he swipes a hand through his hair. “Start from the beginning.”
I tell him everything.
Every word I speak makes me feel lighter than I have in years. I’ve kept this in with the exception of confiding in Bridget and it feels good to unload years of lies and secrets.
“Let me help you. Put your pride aside and let me help you.”
I nod, knowing I need his help. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful.
The next day, I find myself at the park with Isabella. I look around at all the families playing, and jealousy seeps into my blood. That’s what I long for. I long to be a family. To see Isabella on the swing, being pushed, but I don’t see Chelsea’s face in this dream. It’s Bridget I see. Bridget smiling at my daughter, making her giggle. It hurts to think about it because I can’t have it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
I watch as Isabella runs toward the slide. Her smile lights up my life. She’s always able to pull me from my somber mood. As she rushes down the slide, I watch her face. She doesn’t look like Chelsea, but she’s so familiar to me. I can’t put my finger on why. But to be honest, I probably know who her father is. There’s a long line of business associates Chelsea has flirted with over the years. No doubt one of them or maybe multiple ones had an affair with her. I don’t put it past anyone in my acquaintance to stab me in the back and sleep with my wife. I don’t want to think about it, though. Putting a name to the betrayal would be too much for me. Instead, I watch my daughter and let my love for her be enough. I feel my phone ringing. Spencer.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Hey,” he responds. “So, about Chelsea,” he starts and my stomach drops at her name. “I’m looking into her and your little problem, but I’m going to need a place to start. Do you have any information that might help?”
I rake my brain for anything that could help him and then something comes to me. “Miles, my head of security, has a few files on his computer. Maybe one can be helpful,” I suggest. “Also, I had a private investigator a while back get me Chelsea’s email password. I’ll text you the info.”
“Okay. Perfect. I have some people working on it with me. I’m sure we’ll find something real soon.’’
Hearing him say that, I let out the air in my lungs I didn’t even know I was holding.
“Great. Let me know if you find something.”
“Grant,” he pauses, “do you have time to go see Dad with me later today?”
“Yes,” I say before I can second-guess my decision.
“About damn time,” he asserts.
My heart drums a steady rhythm as my father answers the door to my impromptu visit. My foot taps on the ground, my nerves refusing to be pushed down. When the door opens my heart almost stops.
“Dad.”
All the emotion of years apart pushes its way through my lips. That one word cracks on my tongue.
“Son.” He isn’t filled with malice or disdain. There’s a deep-seated pain I know I caused. I have a way of hurting the people I love most.
He steps forward, crushing me in a hug. We hold on for dear life, putting years of distance at rest. We don’t pull apart and we don’t speak, but the silence is welcome. It gives us both a moment to understand the meaning of what is happening. It gives us a chance to digest that after all these years, a truce may come to pass. We might actually move on.
He pulls away after what feels like five minutes, looking me over from head to toe. When his eyes meet mine, I see the unshed tears misting his sight.
“It’s been too long,” he finally says.
“It has and I’m sorry.”
He raises his hand to stop me.
“It’s me who should be sorry. I should have never turned my back on you.”
I shake my head. As much as it hurt, he was right to do what he did. So I tell him as much.
“You were right. She was everything you thought she was, but I was too blind to see until it was too late.”
He bites his lip and inclines his head. “I was afraid that was the case.”
“I was too stupid to listen.”
My pride has always been my downfall.
“You were young and in love.”
I huff. “It was never love. I know that now.” The way I feel for Bridget makes that truth painfully obvious. I never felt this for Chelsea. What we had was lust, plain and simple. My love for Bridget proves that.
“I’m sorry, Grant. This is one time I wish I’d been wrong. I never wanted this for you.”
I nod, having nothing to say.
“What can I do? How can I help you?”
I laugh, but not because what he’s saying is funny.
“There’s nothing you can do, Dad. I’m in an unfixable position, one I put myself into.”
He purses his lips. “Talk to me.”
I spend the next hour filling him in on everything, from the birth of my daughter to the realization she wasn’t my blood. I fill him in on the vendetta. The greed fueled by the rage that Chelsea ignited in me, and then I tell him about Bridget. When I’m done speaking, he sits silently for a minute.
“I don’t even know what to say.” He hangs his head. “I failed you.”
“You didn’t. I chose this path.”
“Didn’t I, though? I never reached out. I allowed you to leave and put this distance between us. What kind of a father does that?”
I shrug my shoulders. “You didn’t know.”
“Well, I do now and I intend to make up for everything.”
“We all know what hell you’ve lived and why you stayed away.” Spencer steps forward. “Enough with the prideful bullshit, Grant. We’re family and together we will fix it.”
I didn’t know how, but I knew together we would.
Ring.
Ring.
I reach across my desk and pull my phone to my ear. “Grant Lancaster,” I answer.
“Grant, it’s Spencer. Can you meet me at my place? We need to talk somewhere private.”
He’s got something. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t want to talk on this line. Whatever he has must be good.
“When should I come?”
“Tonight at eight. I have some friends joining us. I just wanted to give you the heads-up that I had to share a bit of your dilemma. Don’t get fucking pissed.”
I rack my brain for who and what he could be referring to, but I come up short. At this point, I don’t give a fuck who he’s commissioned if it helps the cause. I’m in.
“I’ll be there.”
The hours pass slowly, but eventually, I’m knocking on my brother’s door. My nerves are all over the place. What am I walking into? When I get inside, my father is there, but what surprises me most is the visitors Spencer was referring to. My eyes widen. The Price siblings, Jax, Gray, and Addison are all present, as well.
The Prices have been family friends our entire lives. Their net worth rivals my father’s on any given day and they’re precisely the types of friends you want in your corner. Addison is the last person I expected to be in Olivia and Spencer’s apartment. Spencer and Addison share a romantic past and let’s just say it came to a head between Spencer and Olivia at one point. It was worked out, but with women, those sorts of things never seem to be completely buried. The way her cheeks are sunken in as if she’s biting them says she’s uncomfortable.
Nonetheless, here she is.
I’m still trying to figure out where they all fit into this equation.
“Come in,” Spencer calls, seemingly annoyed at my standing about.
“What are you all doing here?”
“We think we found the solution to your problem,” Jax says, reaching out his hand to shake mine in greeting. “Spencer called me in to do some computer reconnaissance.” He smiles widely.
Now it’s making sense. Jax is a computer genius. He’s done work for the government helping to catch hackers. Rumor has it he’s one of the best.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Spencer says. “But since you said Chelsea bid on a few of the Prices’ properties, it just made sense for me to reach out to Addison.”
Addison is the largest private landowner in the world. She owns property everywhere, making her the perfect contact when looking to expand. Most of the properties Chelsea has bid on have been hers. She’s acted as the Lancaster realtor of sorts for properties.
“I was finding it very strange that within minutes of Spencer’s team putting in a bid, your team was as well,” Addison explains. “With our family’s history”—she looks at Spencer before continuing—“I really didn’t want to get in the middle of a feud and I just accepted the highest offer, but when Spencer told me what was going on with you and Chelsea, things were starting to add up.”
My eyebrow rises, not knowing where she’s going with this.
“A hostile takeover,” she explains, putting her hands up as if to say, duh.
“I had them look into the transactions and Jax hacked into the accounts you gave me,” Spencer jumps in, trying to piece it all together for me.
“Chelsea was very careful in what she said in her emails. She’s smart, but not smart enough.” Jax wiggles his eyes like the cat who caught his prey. “She led us to the idiot.”
I smile, waiting for them to roll it all out. I’ve wrestled with all the scenarios for years. I’m ready for someone else to take the fucking wheel.
“Apparently, your wife has been shacking up with the help for years.”
My brows knit in confusion. Help? What help? Then it dawns on me. Who’s the one person we’ve both had access to for years who could play both sides? “Fucking Miles. The head of security at my own damn hotel.” My knuckles clench into a fist at the revelation.
“Bingo,” Jax offers.
“That’s why he’s been avoiding me and Chelsea has always been one step ahead. That fucking rat.”
The need to strangle him is intense. I don’t give a fuck that he’s been with Chelsea. He can have her. It’s the fact he’s been playing me all along.
“It’s not just Miles, though. Karen from the Karen Michelle Agency has been playing both sides. When we would call to have her set up contractors to give estimates on the sites we were looking into, she’d send an email immediately to Chelsea,” Spencer adds.
My blood boils at the mention of Karen. She’s also the one who placed Bridget at The L. She was involved from the beginning. I make a mental note to destroy her and any reputation she has.
“We’ll worry about her another day. She’s a small issue in comparison.” Spencer reads my mind. He’s right. Another day.
Gray steps forward. He’s the financial guy in the Price family. He acts as Addison’s CPA. “I pulled all the receipts and information for the transactions between Chelsea and the property deeds. The original holding company you used when purchasing the land for The L was a different company than has been used for the last few transactions. We always look into everyone we do business with, but we didn’t with you because of our family history. Typically, we would’ve looked into any changes, but this one slipped through. We had Jax pull up the new company and that’s when it got messy.”
“Messy how?”
“The new company leads to an off-shore account. One that’s not affiliated with you at all.”
“She’s stealing money and funneling it into an account?” I need to make sure I’m following what he’s saying. His nod affirms my understanding.
“It gets worse, though. Off-shore accounts are tricky to infiltrate,” Gray explains.
“Not for me.” Jax’s lips turn up into a wicked smirk. “She’s been pulling funds from accounts that weren’t hers to pull from and funneling it into this account.”
I gathered this much. She doesn’t do anything outside of The L to have her own money and we just concluded she’s embezzling. How much worse can it get?
“She’s been pulling money from Isabella’s trust.”
I see red. Stealing from me and my company is one thing, but stealing from our daughter?
“Not only is she stealing from Isabella, but she’s been ‘selling’ residential properties in The L.”
“We don’t have residential properties.”
“Exactly. The paperwork she filed isn’t legit. If someone from the hotel ever noticed that people actually lived in one of these so-called apartments, The L would have the right to terminate the fake contracts. This wouldn’t look good for The L and would surely result in a lawsuit.”
“Wouldn’t this hurt me and the hotel’s image more than anything?”
“Not when we can show proof that all of the funds were siphoned into an outside account that does not have your name attached to it. She was dumb enough to put her own name on it. She’s been using those sums not only to try to ruin Lancaster, but she’s also been spending an extreme sum of money on herself and Miles Smith.”
“It seems she’s been having an affair with the head of your security for quite some time,” Spencer chimes in.
“She made me hire him. She . . . How long?”
“We dated it back over six years according to Miles’ emails and texts.”
Jax is a genius.
“Over the course of the six years, she’s stolen in little increments as to not raise a bell on your end.”
“How much?”
“Over four million, but only a little over one million is still in the account. They’ve clearly been enjoying themselves.”
I shake my head at the audacity of those two. Stealing from a child. How fucking low can they be? All the trips and fancy clothes have all been on her daughter’s dime. The fact that Miles has stuck around for six years floors me. What is he getting out of this? She’s had several affairs with different men so why stay? The money? Then it hits me.
Isabella.
It all makes sense. My blood runs cold and my face falls.
Miles Smith is Isabella’s father.
“What’s wrong, Grant?” Spencer asks, concerned.
“They were stealing from their daughter.”
The room goes silent as everyone allows me to process this information. It’s too much. Way too fucking much.
“How do I fix this?”
“Don’t you see? We’re saying we got her. We fucking got her. You can use all this as leverage. No way that bitch will want to go to jail. She’ll give you anything,” Jax explains.
“What about him? I can’t risk losing my daughter. Not when he can take her from me.”
“Nah, man. We got him, too,” Gray says. “He’s all over this. The email correspondence coming from his account is very damning. You got them both by the balls now. As for Isabella, he doesn’t care about her. What father allows another man to raise his daughter? And for what? Money?”
I let his words sink in, looking up at Spencer.
“So, what are you going to do?” he asks.
“I’m going to show them how it feels to live your whole life at the mercy of someone else. I’m going to get my life back.” Not wanting to waste a minute, I turn to face the door and see Olivia Miller blocking my way. She smiles.
“Keep her safe. Make her happy. Love her. And if you can’t, let her go.” She walks past me and out of the room.
I’ll do all of those things and more. Bridget deserves it.
“Thank you,” I say to everyone, my eyes concentrating on Spencer and then turning to my father. “Thank you.”
What they’ve done for me is more than I deserve. For years I’ve been underhanded in my dealings and did my best to take them down. And for what? My own pride.
“It’s what family does,” Spencer replies.
“I want to make things right, but right now I need to get my baby girl.”
“Go.” He laughs.
A small smile forms on my face and I make my way toward the door. It’s time to reclaim my future, but first I need to deal with Chelsea.
I stroll into Chelsea’s office, standing tall. She’s sitting behind her desk on the phone. “I have to call you back,” she tells the person on the other line before placing the phone down on her desk.
“You thought you had me. You thought you could manipulate me one more time, but there’s something you missed,” I say, approaching Chelsea.
“I miss nothing.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You just don’t get it. You don’t get family. You never have and you never will.”
She laughs the haughty, irritating laugh I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. It’s grated on my nerves forever, but today it doesn’t. I’m not bothered by it in the least because I know it’s the last time I’ll ever have to listen to it.
“What you missed is that a real family, no matter what, is there for each other.”
“You don’t have a family either. I made sure of that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I chuckle. “A real family always has your back. Years might pass, but they never give up on you. They’re there for the good, they’re there for the bad, they’re there to listen to you apologize, and . . . they’re there to fix the problem.” I let the words hang in the air around us until she pales, and her mouth drops open. “That’s right, Chelsea. They’re there to fix my problem. Turns out they found a whole bunch of problems.”
I shove the papers from Jax in her hand—pages upon pages detailing her embezzlement with her signature on the forms, and his emails detailing everything. Her hand noticeably shakes as she looks down at the paper before lifting her gaze to me. I watch as a myriad of emotions play across her flawless face, confusion, shock, and then her cheeks suck in as she squares her shoulders.
“It’s over.”
“What do you want?”
“My daughter.”
“Or what?”
“Or this all goes to the police. Or . . .”
“Or?”
“I turn a blind eye to what you did to me. To what he did to me.”
“I want half of what is owed me,” she says with defiance, her hand resting on her cocked hip.
“You’ll get nothing. I’d say you’ve more than collected over the years.”
Her eyes widen, and I finally see the fear hiding deep within them.
“You can’t give me nothing! How will I live?” she cries.
“I’m sure you can get Miles to help you.” I shrug because I don’t give a fuck.
“Can’t you find it in yourself to go easy on me?”
I look at the ceiling and consider. “You’ve made a fool of me for a very long time. You made a fool out of my family. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
“What about Isabella?”
“Like I said, I want custody. Full custody.”
“That’s never going to happen, Grant. She’s not yours.”
“It’ll happen. My name is on her birth certificate, and to make sure that never changes, I’ll give you one million to sign away all your maternal rights to me.”
“Her father—”
“Has never been a father to her. He knew all along and she was right there,” I seethe. “Miles is no better than you, using her to his benefit. He’s not her father. I am. I don’t care what blood runs through her veins. She’s mine. I loved her. I raised her. I held her when she cried and I wiped her tears. When she’s older, old enough to understand, I’ll tell her the truth about all of you. Until that time, you stay away or you both will find yourselves in jail. Am I clear?”
“One million?”
She’s considering it based on her expression. I can almost see the cogs moving in that brain of hers. She’s calculating what she can do with one million dollars.
“Yes, and not a penny more.”
“One million isn’t nearly enough to survive.”
“It’s more than you deserve. Invest wisely, Chelsea, because you won’t get a penny more from me.”
She huffs.
“One million. You stay the hell out of my life and you don’t contest me as Isabella’s father. It’s that or jail. You choose, but I’m running out of patience.”
I watch as her shoulders fall in resignation. She’s not happy, but what choice does she really have? She can’t live without the money and she wouldn’t last a day in jail. Let’s not forget how cramped her life would become if she actually had to take care of her child.
“Fine. I’ll take it,” she bites through her teeth.
“Leave.”
“You’re kicking me out of The L?” Her eyes are wide. How in the hell could she have thought I’d allow her to keep her job here?
“Our time is up, Chelsea. Every aspect of this relationship is over.”
“Now you’re divorcing me?”
I laugh haughtily. “It’s been a long time coming. Now get out so I can celebrate the end of my time in hell.”
Her mouth drops open. The reality of the situation finally sinks in. We’re through. Her reign at The L and over me is through. She stands on shaky legs, beginning to gather her things.
“You can leave all that here. It belongs to The L and you’re no longer a part of it.”
She goes still, looking lost and confused for the first time ever. I’ve never seen her so forlorn. It’s a different Chelsea entirely. She almost looks . . . human.
A tear falls down her cheek and then another.
I might’ve actually felt bad for her, but then I remember she just signed over the rights to her child for a measly one million dollars and all sympathy is lost.
“Go,” I say in a softer tone, not needing to kick her any farther although she deserves it.
Without a word, she slithers out the door and out of my life for good.