Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
I return some emails during the ride to the office. The internship I started overseas at Monroe Investment Corp last year was intense; my father made sure of it, claiming I needed to know what it took to run a powerful company. That’s why I’m thankful for Claire. If it hadn’t been for her taming me, I wouldn’t have used my time to study and observe. Now, I’m confident I have what it takes to win at this game, make my father proud, and be the husband Claire deserves.
I ride up the elevator. As soon as the doors open, I wave at Trish, the older-than-dirt receptionist, then head to my father’s office. Charles is seated across from my father when I reach his door.
“Gentlemen,” I greet them both, ditching my bag. While I’ve been away, my father and Charles have been plotting. My father built Monroe Investment Corp from the ground up. Typical rags-to-riches story, going from working in his parents’ basement to a multi-billion-dollar global real estate investment corporation. Alfred Monroe capitalized on land no one would touch and turned it into a gold mine.
Charles Hill was nowhere near as successful, but he created something that intrigued my father—a land development company that acquired and oversaw the building of commercial and residential structures. But even more than the development as a whole, the recent addition of a land survey department in particular piqued Father's interest. And because my father loved power and money, there have been talks of a company merger.
“What’s so important that I had to come straight from the airport?”
“Sit down,” my father snaps.
His cold demeanor catches me off guard. Alfred Monroe is a heartless bastard. No one has ever disputed that. But that coldness aimed at me is unusual. “Okay,” I say, sitting next to Charles. “What’s this about?”
My father stares at me from behind a desk fit for a king, his eyes dark with fury. I’ve seen him in action; this is a man who destroys people in the boardroom. I’m just unsure why his anger is directed at me. He slides a folder across his desk, and I throw my hand out to catch it before it falls to the ground. I open the folder, and it takes a moment for the pictures inside to register—to understand why they look so familiar.
“What—where did you get these?”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
I flip through each image, shaking my head. “This isn’t me. Well, it is, but I don’t remember. . .” I look at my father then at Charles. “Alana and I went out that night and partied, but I never did this. I don’t touch drugs.”
“Those images say otherwise.”
“Well, I’m saying this isn’t me. They must have been altered.” Several images of me with my nose to a pile of cocaine—a drug I’ve never touched—sit in my grip. “Who gave you these? Alana?”
“You dare blame my daughter?” Charles threatens.
“Well, who took them then?” Alana and I left the restaurant that night and went to a few parties. We got plastered and ended up at a hotel, fucking each other’s brains out until dawn, then went our separate ways. We crossed paths a few times that summer at charity events our parents set us up at and fucked occasionally until I got bored and cut it off. She was hot and a minx in bed, but she was also clingy and, to be honest, fucking crazy.
“It doesn’t matter. They get worse.”
How much worse can this get? These alone can ruin my name.
I flip through the rest, my fingers clenched around each one. I stop breathing as I scan through three more. My stomach churns. “No. . .” Another image. “I wouldn’t have done this.”
I look up at my father. “You know I would never do something like this. I would never need to force someone—”
“Again, the image says otherwise—”
“This image tells the wrong story. I was with Alana that night. Who the fuck is this?”
“A woman who has come forward, claiming you drugged and raped her.”
I toss the pictures back onto his desk. “No. Fuck that. Someone is trying to blackmail us. Get money.” I shoot up from my chair. I’m going to be sick.
“Sit down,” my father growls.
“You can’t honestly believe this.”
“What’s done is done. It doesn’t matter what I believe—”
“Are you kidding me? It does matter!”
“Thankfully, Charles and Alana have come up with a solution to make this all go away.”
I look at Charles. My father continues.“Alana has graciously agreed to lie and claim you two were together the whole night.”
“We were. It’s not a lie.”
“Not according to these. Alana confessed that you got very drunk and disappeared, and she left without you.”
“That’s bullshit!” I start to pace the room.
“You will sit the fuck down and listen, or I will wash my hands of you, leaving you to handle the consequences of your actions on your own. Do you understand the severity should this get out? Or if this woman presses charges? Your career will be over before it starts. Everything you’ve worked for will be gone, and I won’t be able to help you.”