Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Olivia’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you get new cards issued before the judge ruled?”
“Because the judge issuing the order was a formality. Her father’s will stated I was to be the one handling her finances if she was unmarried when he died.”
Charlotte huffed as she waved her arm at me. “But you hated each other. Why would he give you control over Stella’s estate?”
She said estate, but all I heard was control over Stella.
Control over her body.
Control over her heated response.
Control over her pleasure.
Dammit.
I needed to get my meddling daughters the hell out of my office and go find Stella. Being denied earlier was fucking with my head.
“We were not on the best of terms when he died, but we had been close once upon a time. I suppose he never updated his will. Why is any of this your concern?”
Olivia’s mouth thinned as she paced in front of my desk as if she were inside a boardroom. “Why is this so important to you?”
Apparently my daughter had missed her calling. She should have been an attorney. Soon she would ferret out the truth about my intentions toward Stella.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Knowing she hated it when I took a shot at her business, I fired back, “Shouldn’t you be buying another handbag or some other frivolous thing while you run your little magazine?”
It was a dick move, but effective.
Olivia’s cheeks heated. “My business is just fine, Father.”
“Is it? Have you seen your quarterly earnings? They looked a little anemic. Maybe you should talk to your brother or ask your husband for a little help improving profits.”
Her profits looked fine. Actually, she was ahead of what I had estimated by about 8%, and she’d outperformed every single one of my expectations—but telling her that would make her even more suspicious.
“That’s not… I… We aren’t here—” Olivia stammered.
Mission accomplished.
“Instead of wasting my time and yours, why don’t you two go and do something productive? If Stella wants her new cards, she will need to come to me for them.”
Come to me. Come for me. Semantics.
Olivia glared at me, hatred in her eyes, as the blood drained from Charlotte’s face.
Dammit. I may have overshot the mark. All I really wanted was them out of my office before they asked too many questions about my intentions toward Stella—not to start a whole new family feud.
Regret. An emotion I had little use for, crept into my consciousness.
With no intention of making an excuse for my behavior, or hiding behind the fact that I was a young widower who’d suddenly and traumatically lost his wife, I knew I’d been a shit father. There was no point in insulting my children by trying to make amends now.
The past was the past.
The best I could do now was have us all stay out of each other’s way.
“She is twenty-six,” Charlotte said. Her voice was stronger, but her eyes were back to studying the carpet, an evasive stress reflex she’d done since childhood. “She is an adult, not a child. She deserves to have everything that is rightly hers in her possession. If she can’t manage it or is frivolous, then that is on her. But it’s her money and her choice. You have no right—”
“The court says I have every right.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to marry her to Ziegler, are you?”
“The family’s title has been stripped. They have nothing and are worth nothing. That is not the match I am considering for Stella.”
There was no point in mentioning that I was the one who had petitioned to the crown and used my extensive influence to have the ancient title stripped in revenge for harming Charlotte.
She wouldn’t trust such sentimentality from me, and even if she did, I wouldn’t have deserved it.
And there was also no reason to mention that I had an entirely different groom in mind for their friend. Me.
Charlotte’s shoulders relaxed, and the line that had formed between her brows disappeared.
“Is there anything else, or do I need to have a word with your husbands and tell them that you two both have far too much time on your hands?”
Both of my daughters swallowed the insult and then stormed out of my office just as quickly as they had stormed in.
They were angry of course, but no more than usual.
Charlotte would be pacified knowing I wasn’t going to marry Stella off to that spineless worm.
The phone on my desk rang. I picked it up without saying a word.
“Sir, she is staying at the Aman here in New York.”
“In one of the suites?”
“No, sir. She rented one of the long-stay homes. Her stay doesn’t have an end date.”
“Good. How is she paying for it?”
“Her family has a line of credit. It’s the hotel her father used when guests or family would stay. The bill is sent to the family’s financial manager and is paid monthly.”