Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
The line buzzes, and dread fills my belly, which I shouldn’t feel over my father’s call, of all people, but I do. “Hey, dad,” I answer.
“I just read the transcript from the stockholders’ meeting,” he says, without his normal preamble. “They’re never going to accept you.”
His words punch me in the chest. “Thanks for the confidence, dad.”
“This isn’t about you. That’s the point. You don’t deserve to get punched in the teeth because of me. I thought you were simply transitioning out.”
“I thought I’d be walked out,” I say. “Reid Maxwell decided otherwise, and he made it worth my while to stay.”
“How worth your while?”
“Worth it,” I say, hating that I don’t want him to know the figure. “Enough to keep me from selling my apartment.”
“Since when are you selling your apartment?”
“Since I don’t know where I’m headed. At least this gives me more time to find out.”
“Carrie, honey, this isn’t going to go as you expect it to. Come here. Help me close this land deal.”
No, I think, and it’s the first time I’ve reacted this way to my father, which is a weakness. Maybe if I’d said no sooner, we wouldn’t be in this mess. “Unless you have six figures to help me exit the company, I’m staying.”
“You’ll leave humiliated.”
Those words punch me in the chest once more. “Did you really just say that? Do you really have that little confidence in me?”
“I told you, this isn’t about you. I believe you can hold the world up, but it won’t matter. You’re a West.”
“I’m my own person.”
He’s silent for several beats. “You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” he finally says.
“Make me understand.”
“It’s not something I want you involved with. That’s the point.” He makes a frustrated sound. “This isn’t a conversation for the phone. Come here.”
“I have a job.”
“I love you, daughter, but this is not a good choice for you.”
“It’s the right choice. It’s my only choice.”
He’s silent for several more heavy beats. “I hate that you feel this is your only choice. Call me if you need me.” He hangs up and I have this sense that there is something he isn’t telling me. Is that something that will lead to my humiliation? I dismiss that idea. My father would not leave me hanging out to dry. He wouldn’t do it.
Reid
After a day of being hammered on by stockholders, the DA, and a laundry list of others, I’m still in my office, my real office, trying to pack up to leave for West Enterprises. I reach up and fight the urge to loosen the blue tie that matches the blue three-piece suit I chose for the stockholders’ meeting. There’s too much on the line for me to even begin to look anything but fresh and ready at all times. I’m about to stand up when my cellphone rings with the call I’ve been expecting all day: Carrie’s father. “What happened to the debt between us?” he blasts through the line. “My daughter is to be left out of all of this.”
“The contract states that your daughter was to be kept in the dark about the specifics of that debt.”
“You’re going to punish her, aren’t you?”
I have a momentary fantasy of Carrie across my lap and that perfect ass naked beneath my palm. Yes, I’ll punish her, but not in the way he’s talking about. “I have no intention of making your daughter pay for your sins. Just you.”
“If she finds out—”
“She won’t find out. I don’t break legally binding contracts. I won’t tell her your secrets. Your poor decisions with West Enterprises are another thing.”
“And there it is. The reason you kept her there. It’s not enough to finally push me out of my company.”
“That’s not how this happened and we both know it, but if that’s the narrative you need to deliver to look yourself in the mirror, so be it. You made your daughter believe it and that’s the real problem, isn’t it? You’re afraid I don’t have to tell her the truth. You’re afraid she’ll figure it out herself and she will.” I think of the recent revelations I’ve made about my own father, and I bite out, “Don’t make her find out herself.”
I disconnect, aware that he’ll encourage Carrie to leave, but I don’t believe she will. She’ll stay. She’ll see her father for what he is and while that won’t expose his true betrayal, maybe it will protect her from a future betrayal. Not that she’s mine to protect. I scrub my jaw. So why the fuck am I?
My cellphone rings with a call from Royce Walker, the owner of Walker Security, and the company managing all things West Enterprises for me. By the time I hang up with him, I’m furious for about ten reasons. Number one, I was just provided critical security information that Carrie should have known and damn sure better know in the future. Number two, I can’t stop thinking about her. The list goes on from there. I can’t stop wanting her. I keep fucking defending her. I want to protect her. The best way to protect her is to push her. To make her protect herself, and the board, better than she is now.