LUCI (The Naughty Ones Book 2) (92 page)

As he said that, I saw a familiar face walk into the restaurant. He was standing at the hostess’s podium, displaying that charming smile that had gotten him so much over the years. I remembered he once smiled like that at a ticket girl outside a major movie theater and she gave him two tickets, free of charge, even though she could see me as clear as day standing right beside him. That smile was a free ticket into just about anything.

Grant.

At almost the same moment, he looked at me and his eyes instantly narrowed. He wasn’t pleased to see me.

“He’s here,” Kevin said, nearly causing Angela to fall out of her chair as he jumped up and went toward the lobby. Toward Grant.

A sinking feeling settled in my chest, and for a long second I felt as though I’d swallowed concrete blocks and was stuck in my chair.

This couldn’t be happening.

Grant was Kevin’s brother.

It made no sense to me. Grant had never told me he had a brother. He never mentioned it in all the time we dated. Granted, we’d only been together for three months, but we were planning to get married. We were going to run away and—

“Money.”

“What?” Angela asked distractedly as she twisted in her seat, watching Kevin and Grant have what appeared to be a whispered argument. Grant looked right at me and Kevin followed his gaze, an expression on his face that I could read as though I’d known him all my life. I should have known who he was. He looked just like his brother.

“I’m going,” I said, drowning the last of my wine before I stood and grabbed my bag.

“Why?” Angela stood, but she didn’t seem to know what to do. She didn’t reach for me, but she didn’t go to see what Grant and Kevin were talking about, either.

“Addison,” Grant said as I passed him and his brother.

I ignored him.

I burst through the doors of the restaurant and nearly slammed into another couple trying to get inside. I mumbled an apology and walked down the narrow sidewalk, sideswiping another innocent woman as I made my way to the small parking lot along the side of the building.

“Why are you always walking away from me?” Grant demanded as he rushed up behind me. He was smart enough not to grab me this time, but it didn’t save him from my temper. I spun around and smacked him as hard as I could across the face.

“I thought we were done with that bullshit,” he said as he touched his bottom lip, glancing at his fingertip as though he thought he were bleeding.

“It was money, wasn’t it? That’s what you wanted.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were after my trust fund.”

Grant’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you really think?”

“You needed the money. That’s why you asked me to marry you, why you always insisted that we couldn’t tell my dad until the deed was done.”

“That’s not it, Addison.”

“Your brother was sick.”

He inclined his head slightly.

“That’s why you wanted to get married right away, why you wanted to go to California. You wanted to get to him, to help him with his health problems.”

“Of course I did. Wouldn’t you?”

“But you never bothered to tell me you had a brother.”

“I was going to.” He moved toward me, his hands raised like he wanted to touch me. But I moved back so that he couldn’t. “I just wanted to wait for the right moment.”

“We talked about family all the time. You told me about your dad leaving you, your mother dying. You even told me how desperately you wanted a family of your own. How you wanted to do things better than they’d done.”

“It was all the truth.”

“But what about Kevin? Why didn’t you ever mention him?”

“Because I knew you would do this,” he said, advancing on me again so that his face was just inches from mine as he towered over me. “I knew you would jump to conclusions.”

“Why wouldn’t I when you lie to me like this?”

“That’s the second time today you’ve accused me of lying,” he said, his voice little more than a growl. “Do it again and—”

“What? Will you finally reveal your true thoughts and feelings, Grant? Will you finally show me who you really are?”

He stared at me for a long moment, then he stepped back, turning slightly as a bitter chuckle slipped from between his lips. I could see Kevin standing at the front of the restaurant, watching us. Angela was beside him, a look of such utter confusion on her face that I almost felt sorry for her.

My head was spinning. I was trying to work it all out, but I felt like I was missing some important piece of the puzzle. He got together with me for my money. That was pretty obvious. Said all the right things, pulled me in like a pro. But then he walked away at the last moment.

Yet, he had the money he needed to save his brother. How was that possible?

“It was my father, wasn’t it?”

Grant looked at me and I could see the truth written all over his face.

“My dad paid you off to leave me. And you took it. You ran like the fucking coward you are.”

Pain flashed in his eyes, but I didn’t care. Why should I care? The two men I loved and respected most in my life had conspired together to ruin everything.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even put a full thought together. I felt as though someone had just ripped my soul out of my body and left me hollow. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing.

“Addison,” Grant said softly, moving toward me.

“Why did you come back?” I looked at him, feeling as though everything was much too clear. How could I see him so clearly when I was dead inside? “Why did you come back to Houston? Why did you come back to me?”

“I wanted to make things right.”

I laughed. “It’s too late.”

“It can’t be too late. This afternoon—”

“It’s too late. It was too late the moment you took that money.”

“Addison—”

“How much was it, anyway? How much am I worth?”

At least he had the decency to drop his eyes as he muttered the figure.

“What?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” he said again.

I nodded slowly. “Well, I would have thought I was worth twice that. But I guess damaged goods…”

I walked away. A part of me hoped he would follow, that he would pull me back the way he’d done before. But he didn’t. He let me go. And I couldn’t decide if that hurt the most, or if knowing that he so easily traded me for money—any sum of money—was the source of this unimaginable pain I knew was right around the corner, just waiting for the numbness of the moment to wear off.

I couldn’t face anyone. I locked myself in my condo and turned off the phone, left the computers all off, and curled up on the couch with a newly purchased bottle of Jack Daniels. The idea of going into the office and looking my dad in the eye was just more than I thought I could handle. I wasn’t sure I could look at him ever again.

And the thing was, a part of me understood that he’d done it out of love. He thought he was protecting me from someone who would ruin my life. I just didn’t understand how he could do such a thing and then hold me in his arms as I cried over my broken heart and not say anything. If he had told me then…I don’t know if it would have made a difference, but maybe I wouldn’t have convinced myself that Grant had a good reason for what he’d done. I wouldn’t have convinced myself that he was a good man and he might come back for me someday.

I might not have fallen into bed so easily.

I’m not the kind of person who can wallow in self-pity for long, however. I cried and I drank. Two days straight, I sat in the darkened living room of my condo. And then I decided I’d let him win long enough. Time to get back to life.

The first thing I did when I turned my phone back on was call a real-estate agent and put my condo on the market. I decided that the moment the company was sold, I was hitting the road. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was sure I’d find a place where I could land solidly on my feet. Maybe I’d go to Europe. I’d always wanted to go on a long hike through the French countryside. Or maybe I’d lounge on a few beaches, visit some of the best resorts in the Bahamas. Or I could stay in the States, take an epic road trip through the southern part of the country. Maybe I could even talk Angela into going with me. We’d both be out of work soon. Why the hell not?

Then I showered and dressed one last time in professional attire. I didn’t think I’d be terribly interested in business once the company was gone. Berryman Construction was the only company I had ever cared about, the only place I had ever imagined myself working. Once it was gone, I didn’t need to work. My mother had seen to that. I’d decide sometime down the road, but right now work seemed like a terrible waste of a very short life.

Angela was clearly surprised to see me when I breezed past her on the way to my office.

“Addison,” she said, following me as quickly as she could, “I am so sorry about the other night. I had no idea—”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but if I’d known, I never would have asked you to be there.”

“I know.” I dropped my bag in the center of my desk and turned to look at her. “Where’s my father?”

“He’s in the conference room with a group of lawyers.”

“Let him know I’m here.”

“He’s been worried about you,” she said, her voice a little hesitant as though that were something she shouldn’t have been telling me.

I just waved her away, uninterested in what she was saying. Like a good assistant, she understood my mood and disappeared as instructed.

I sat behind my desk and glanced at the messages left there. Most of them were from the construction sites, foremen wanting to know what the hell was going on with the supplies. And clients wanting to know why their projects were at a standstill when they drove by. My e-mails were about the same with a few inquiries on payment mixed in. Suppliers still wanting to know if they were going to get paid, despite the fact that my dad had basically put everything, including both incoming and outgoing monies, on hold this week.

“Where the hell have you been?”

I looked up to find my dad, red-faced and angrier than I’d seen him in a very long time, storming across the room.

“I needed some time.”

“Now? While we’re in the middle of negotiations to sell the company?”

“That’s your deal. My job essentially disappeared the moment you gave up.”

“Gave up? Is that what you think I’ve done here, Addie?”

“Don’t call me that.”

He stopped moving toward me, gripping the back of one of the chairs situated in front of my desk, his eyes weary as they moved slowly over me.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, acid dripping from his words.

“Grant McGraw is back in town. Did you know that?”

He licked his bottom lip, but that was basically his only reaction. He simply looked at me like he didn’t understand why that would mean anything to either of us.

“I know you paid him off.”

My dad shrugged. “What kind of a man takes a check in exchange for leaving the woman he supposedly loved?”

“But you knew all this time, all that time I was crying my eyes out over him, and you never told me.”

“Because you can’t grieve your life away. You pick up the pieces and move on.”

“But if you’d told me—”

“Grow up, Addison!” He pushed himself away from the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You were a child. You thought you were in love, but it was obviously something else to that jerk. I saved you a lifetime of heartache by paying him off.”

“I was not a child!”

“You were. And you were about to make the biggest mistake of your life!” He came around the desk, his fingers gentle as he touched my face. “I wasn’t about to sit back and watch you get hurt. I did what I had to do.”

I shook my head. “You betrayed me.” I stepped back, rounded the edge of my desk to put distance between the two of us. “As soon as the sale is over, I’m leaving town. I don’t want to see you again.”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

He cleared his throat. And when he spoke, his voice was soft but steady.

“Then we should talk about the offers we have on the table.”

I waved my hand without turning around. Again he cleared his throat.

“Only one of the offers is what you wanted. The others…one wants to break the company into pieces and sell it off to competing firms. The other wants to clear out all the employees and start from scratch.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“The third is willing to keep all the employees for six months.”

“Six months?” I turned to face him. “Why only six months?”

“Because…” He crossed his arms over his chest again. “I’m not sure you’re going to like this.”

“Tell me.”

“The buyer wants you to stay on as COO.”

I shook my head quite emphatically. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“These people have made it the deal.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. The lawyers say that their client likes the way you’ve handled yourself over the past three years, and he thinks you have potential as the COO.”

“Who is this client?”

“I don’t know. The lawyers say he insisted on remaining anonymous until the contracts are signed.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s unusual,” my dad said, coming toward me, his eyes weary as he watched me. “But it’s not unheard of.”

“I won’t stay.”

“If you don’t, the deal is off.”

I pressed my fingers under the braid I’d tied my hair into, scratching at my scalp as I thought about what he’d just said. Six months. That was a very long time.

“What happens after the six months?”

“That’s up to you. The way the lawyer explained it, if you agree to this deal, you will retain everything you have now—a quarter ownership and the position of COO. And if you do your job well and work closely with the new CEO, if the two of you can turn the company around with the current stable of employees, then you will be given a choice at the end of the contract. You can quit and be given the cash value of your interest in the company, or you can stay and be given a fifty-fifty interest.”

My eyebrows rose. That was a more generous offer than my own dad had made me when I graduated from Yale.

“And the employees?”

“No employee changes for the first six months without your consent. After that, they promise there won’t be large layoffs, but they retain the right to replace whoever they feel needs to be let go.”

“What does that mean?”

My dad shrugged. “It’s better than what the employees face with the other two offers, Addie.”

“Why me? What about you?”

My dad’s eyes fell. “I’m gone either way.”

“Then why do they want me? Why does the whole deal hinge on me staying?”

“I don’t know.”

I started to pace, my thoughts moving in a dozen different directions. I’d actually been excited about the idea of traveling. I even went on the Internet night before and made a tentative itinerary of the many places I wanted to see. But then an image of Billy filled my mind. Sweet, strong Billy who was almost like a second dad to me. He was in his fifties. What were the chances he’d be able to find work if Berryman Construction disappeared? He was too proud to ask for money, but he had six kids, two who were still teens and four who were in college or grad school. He talked about them all the time, mentioning the names of their schools. Those schools were not cheap.

And Angela. She was young; she could find work. But could she find one that paid as well as we did? That provided the health benefits I’d insisted my dad include in the package offered to our employees? Not to sound conceited, but we paid ten times better than other construction companies and offered much better benefits.

Maybe that was part of the reason we were going under.

I couldn’t walk away knowing that all these people I worked with day in and day out weren’t being taken care of.

“I don’t see that we have any other choice.”

“We always have a choice,” my dad said. “We could just walk away.”

“And allow all these people who’ve spent ten, fifteen, twenty years working for us be forced out onto the street?” I looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since he walked through the door. For the second time this week, I noticed the circles under his eyes and the slight slope to his shoulders. He looked so tired. “We can’t betray these people after all the loyalty they showed us.”

My dad inclined his head slightly. “I thought that was what you would say.”

We went together to the conference room. A man in a cheap suit with wire-frame glasses was sitting at the head of the table, a stack of file folders in front of him. He looked more like a tax auditor than a lawyer.

“Ms. Berryman,” he said, standing with his hand outstretched.

“And you are?”

“John Philips.”

I shook his hand and took the seat to his left that he indicated with a little wave of his hand.

“I’m sure your father has already told you most of the details of my client’s offer, but I’d like to go over the particulars with you.”

My dad began to sit beside me, but Mr. Philips cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Berryman,” he said with a touch of a smile, “but my client specifically asked that you not be present during this part of the negotiations.”

Two perfectly round red spots appeared on my father’s cheeks. “This is my company. I started it when I was only twenty-one—”

“I’m aware of that, sir, and so is my client. But this was his request.”

“It’s alright, Daddy,” I said, touching his hand lightly.

He stared Mr. Philips down like he thought he could intimidate the man, but despite his appearance, he didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who could be easily intimidated. My father finally backed down.

“I’ll be in my office, Addie.”

I watched him go, then turned to Mr. Philips.

“Can I ask who your client is?”

“You can ask.”

He opened a file folder and began searching through it, setting several pieces of paper in front of me. He was clearly not going to answer my question, and that annoyed me more than it probably should have. I sat back and waited for him to organize himself, trying to remind myself how important this moment was for Billy and others like him.

“My client would like to purchase Berryman Construction at a price of fifty million dollars.”

My eyebrows rose slightly. I knew the company had been appraised at forty million dollars three years ago. But that was before things began to go bad. Fifty million seemed like a foolish amount of money to offer.

“My client will place your share of that money—twelve point five million dollars—into an escrow account that will be paid to you, plus interest, at the end of the contract I’m about to show you. And that is yours whether or not you choose to remain with the company after the six-month contract is up.”

“Okay.”

I was surprised, but not terribly. That was the way these things were done. If they handed me that money right away, they had no way of knowing if I would continue to be loyal to the company. Holding it was actually a pretty smart move. Besides, my trust fund was worth so much more than that. I didn’t really care about the money.

“Your father has been given a portion of the remaining monies that my client felt was appropriate to the situation. The rest will be placed in a trust fund that you will be the conservator of after the initial six-month contract is complete.”