My stomach coils into tight knots as I walk down the hallway leading to my father’s office at Wright’s Investments.
Rain is pouring outside. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls on either side of me, it looks like I’m trapped in a tropical storm. The forecast states it will be like that all day.
It’s nearly ten. Dad wants to meet with me to talk.
Usually, we meet here once a week for lunch and have dinner at the family home two nights a week. That’s our family time. A chance to catch up and spend precious time together.
I already know today won’t be anything of the sort.
Dad was brief on the phone last night when he extended the invite, but I guessed he wants to talk about the Conrad and Nathan situation, which has exploded across New York into a colossal mess.
Over the last twenty hours, the news has reported details of how Conrad stole millions from his clients. Millions.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How a person could think it was okay to steal millions is beyond me, and Conrad never seemed to be the kind of person who would do something so terrible. But he did.
Like the rest of New York, I saw the evidence for myself broadcasted on the national news.
Now, the Gilmars have nothing. The last piece of news I heard was that all their assets had been seized by the government. From their ten-million-dollar home in the suburbs to their holiday home in The Hamptons. Everything is gone.
They’ve gone from billionaires to paupers in the space of hours.
The whole ordeal hit Dad hard, but I have to wonder if he was really in the dark about his best friend’s unsavory activities.
Somehow, I feel that he wasn’t, and I pray this meeting of ours isn’t to tell me he was implicated in some way.
I don’t think it’s that. At least, I hope not. With the pace the investigation is moving, I think if Dad were implicated, we’d know by now. Regardless, I’m hoping to broach the subject about what’s going on with the business with him and that he’ll be honest with me.
Witnessing Conrad’s secrets unravel like an Agatha Christie mystery has shown me how we never know who people truly are. Also, that your life can change before you can blink.
Like the fact that Monday is here, and I’m not engaged to Nathan.
There won’t be any announcement going out to the world later, and from the way things are looking, there will be no wedding to worry about.
Nathan will remain in custody, and if there’s evidence to link him to his father’s activities, he’ll receive a similar sentence—prison for a very long time.
While Madison literally broke out the champagne because she thinks God answered her prayers, I’ve been treading softly, because I still don’t know what purpose Knight Grayson served in bringing the truth to light.
That’s if I’m right about him, which my heart tells me I am.
Knight knew who I was right from the start.
The whole restaurant thing was a setup.
For what, though? To make a fool out of me just because he could?
Isn’t that what these billionaire types do, though?
What a complete asshole.
Going to the engagement party to see Nathan and Conrad’s disaster was part of that fiasco too.
I’ve wondered if Knight was watching me after because I never told him I was getting engaged. Maybe he wanted me to witness the terrible fate of a man I was supposed to marry and know who brought that fate to him.
Knight wouldn’t have known that such emotion is totally lost on me.
Nathan might have been in my life since I was twelve, but I don’t care one way or the other about him, especially if he’s guilty.
I purge Knight from my thoughts as I approach Dad’s office.
The door is already open, so I walk in.
Dad is standing by the window, watching the rain fall.
From here, I can already see the worry in his composure. His shoulders have even dropped, as if he’s carrying everyone in the world across the ocean.
It’s not a good sign.
When I reach his desk, he turns to face me, and the first thing I note is how gaunt his face looks. On Saturday, he looked worn down. Now he looks worse.
He looks similar to when Mom died—a shadow of his former self. My nerves spike, and my previous worry of his implication with Conrad comes back.
Please, God, don’t let it be that.
Please.
“Dad?” I say that with a question in my voice, as if I’m checking it’s him.
“Morning, sweet girl.” He steps away from the window and walks over to give me a quick hug. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I search his bloodshot eyes. It’s clear he hasn’t slept. “Are you okay?” That feels like a rhetorical question, given the fact I can see he’s far from okay.
“I’ve seen better days.” He gives me a clipped nod. “Sit. We have a lot to talk about.”
A lot to talk about?
Newsflash, Dad, we’ve had a lot to talk about for years now. The list of things keeps expanding as fast as Elon Musk’s empire.
I sit in the soft leatherback chair he points to, and he moves his chair around so he’s in front of me. Usually, he’s behind his desk. It’s a simple gesture, but it makes me so nervous the knots already living in my stomach flip-flop.
“What’s going on, Dad? Please don’t tell me you got mixed up with Conrad’s crimes.” Normally, I would never step over the line and ask him something like that, but anxiety is slowly killing me.
“No, of course not.” His voice is firm, but there’s a look in his eyes that suggests his answer wasn’t the whole truth. I hate that.
I hate lies of any kind, and he’s told me so many.
I want to ask if he knew what Conrad was doing but decide against it. I don’t want to upset him with the implication and cut off my chances to ask the questions I really need answers to.
“You don’t have to worry about me like that,” Dad adds, his eyebrows pinching together as he sits forward and rests one elbow on his knee. “But I do need to talk to you about how Conrad and Nathan’s situation has affected us. I assume you’ve seen the news.”
“I have.” My voice curls with the implication that I’ve seen all the news there is to see. “Is it true that they’re losing everything?”
He nods. “Yes, but if Nathan is cleared, he’ll get to keep whatever belongs to him. However, those assets are few and far between.”
I thought so, too, although the pompous asshole acted like he owned the world.
“The point is, the purpose of the marriage to Nathan is no longer a viable option for us.”
At that comment, I see the opening to ask about the business.
“Is that because of the business?” When he nods, I’m prompted to continue. “I know things haven’t been great. What’s the situation now?”
“It’s not good, but I have found another suitable candidate for you to marry.”
My heart nose-dives to my feet and continues plummeting through the layers of the floor, going down, down, down.
I’m still staring back at him, but I can’t get my brain to work as it struggles to process the words that just filled the room.
“Wha…” My mouth opens and closes, my eyes narrow, and my lungs squeeze.
I stand because I can’t sit anymore.
If I do, my entire body might dissolve into a pool of water.
“Aurora.” Dad rises, too, and steps closer.
I step away and hold up my hands. “What are you saying to me? What do you mean, you found someone else for me to marry? As in someone I don’t know?”
“Yes, but, marriage is an expectation that—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Dad.” I shake my head as if it’s filled with a swarm of bees.
Dad’s face becomes a mask of grief, and I find something beneath the surface of his hard exterior—desperation.
Desperation is something I’m not used to seeing on my father, the mighty William Wright. And now he wants me to marry someone I don’t know?
“You had the truest love with Mom. She loved you with her last breath, but you want this for me.”
“No.” It sounds like the first piece of truth he’s shared in years.
“Then why? Why do you think it’s okay for me to marry someone I don’t know? At least I knew Nathan.” My voice rises into the heavens, showing I’m at my breaking point.
“This particular person is interested in owning Sunset Cove.”
My ears start ringing and burning at the same time. “But Sunset Cove is mine. Mom left that for me. You can’t take it.”
“I’m not taking it. I’m simply investing it.”
“In a way that it won’t be mine anymore.”
He doesn’t answer.
Oh, Jesus. Just the other day, I wondered what would happen if he decided to wield his powers of executor over my head. I thought he would never do that, but here it is. And why?
“Things must be terrible for you to do this to me,” I blurt. “What is actually happening, Dad?”
It’s obvious he’s trying to keep me in the dark again. Just like he did with Mom. He knew Mom had an inoperable brain tumor and never told me.
He never told me about the numerous treatments she went through in an attempt to save her life, or the pain she suffered when I was away at college. I only found out my mother had a terminal condition after she dropped dead in front of me.
I never had time to prepare the way he did.
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I think we need to. This is my life,” I cut him off again. “Tell me what’s going on, and don’t lie to me. This isn’t like you, so why are you doing this?”
“Because your father is mere breaths away from bankruptcy,” comes a deep, silky voice from behind me.
That voice is one I would unfortunately recognize asleep or awake.
My body was already in its peak of shock, so I’m stunned that I can feel worse.
I turn toward the direction the voice came from, and when I find Knight Grayson leaning casually against the doorframe, my pulse ripples across my skin like hot lava pouring out of an erupting volcano.
I study him with frantic eyes, having another bamboozling déjà vu moment where I’m trying to figure out why he’s here.
Last time, I figured him out.
This time, I’m drawing a blank, and I have to wonder if maybe I’ve thought about him so much that my eyes are screwing with me.
No. It’s not that. Even if my eyes were doing a number on me, my ears aren’t.
I know what I just heard, and I know what I’m seeing is real.
Dressed in full black again, he’s the Grim Reaper. But what has he come to collect today?
“You.” The word leaves my lips on the edge of a breath.
I can feel Dad’s eyes on me, and I know he’s wondering just as much as I am how I know Knight. Dad’s gaze is so intense I want to look at him, but I know it’s not smart to look away from a predator when he‘s already struck.
“Me.” A faint smile lifts Knight’s sensual lips, revealing those gorgeous dimples. I loathe the pang of longing that curls through my body. “I’m curious, what did you choose, friend or foe?”
“I think that’s a trick question. Obviously, we were foes all along.”
“Well, we certainly weren’t friends.” He straightens, and his eyes roam over me in that scandalous way that would make a nun drop her panties. If a nun had no chance of resisting the seductive wiles of this man, I have nothing to restrain my body from reacting like it wants to be touched.
The most I can do is school my mind and harden my expression.
Now is not the time to get all weak-kneed over this man, not when he just dropped a bomb on me.
“What are you talking about bankruptcy?” I bring the conversation back to the main focus and glare at him.
“Let me clarify it for you. Your father is about to lose everything. One bad business decision sent him down the rabbit hole of despair, and he lost it all.” Knight waves a hand around the room. “This is all an illusion because your father has nothing. When what you see here fades and the hard truth comes out, he’ll be little more than his friend with nothing left in the world but the clothes on his back.”
My mouth goes dry. This can’t be true. I look from Knight to Dad, and the defeat in my father’s eyes freezes me.
Dad actually looks afraid. Afraid of Knight.
My father has never been afraid of anything.
“Dad? Is this true?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opens them again and nods, the ground shifts beneath me. But the fabric of reality rips open at the seams when something else dawns on me.
Knight is here.
He just said Dad is practically bankrupt.
Dad told me moments ago that he’d found someone else for me to marry. Someone who was interested in Sunset Cove.
It follows that…
I start shaking my head at my father. “Dad, who is this new person you found for me to marry?” Although the words have exited my brain, I’m still shaking my head.
“I think you already know the answer to that, Goddess,” Knight answers for Dad.
I stare back at him, and all the equations that didn’t make sense click together in my mind. As each one fuses with the missing answers, I feel physically sick.
It’s him.
Him.
Knight Grayson. And everything that’s happened over the last few days was all about getting Sunset Cove.
Meeting me at the restaurant, getting rid of my almost-fiancé, now this.
The revelation renders me speechless, and I swear everything inside me stops working as shock fuses with every atom of my body.
On seeing my dumbfounded state, Knight moves closer and stops a breath away, so the scent of his musky cologne tickles my nose. Without taking his eyes off me, he retrieves an envelope from the inside of his jacket pocket and places it beside me on the desk.
“Your contract, should you wish to accept.” He taps the envelope. “Along with the details of where to find me. You have until sundown to sign the contract and hand-deliver it to me. But if I were you, I wouldn’t allow the sun to go down before I made my choice.”
Knight inches away, cuts Dad a hard stare, then turns and leaves.
I watch him until he turns the corner, disappearing from my sight, then I look back at Dad.
We stare at each other, unblinking, unmoving, unbelieving.
How the actual hell did we get here?
How could this happen?
Knight said Dad made a bad business decision. My father never makes bad business decisions. People from all over the world come to him because he’s renowned for what he does.
So, what happened?
“Dad. What did you do?” My voice is softer than that of a terrified child.
“I… tried to save your mother.” He swallows hard, and the brightness in his eyes fades like a dying star. “It cost me everything. I tried one bizarre treatment after another to save her. All of them failed. I didn’t want to lose her again, but I did.”
My lips part, and a tear seeps out of the walls of my heart.
He was trying to save her again. Just like the past.
Hearing the truth pierces me. Understanding hits me, along with the decision of what I must do.
I can’t let my father lose everything.
If that were to happen, knowing I could have stopped it, it would break me.
