by Regina Duke
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Regina's Books
Regina's Bio
THE WEDDING TOAST
by
Regina Duke
The Wedding Toast
Copyright © 2016 Linda White
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from Regina Duke.
Published by Linda White
United States of America
Electronic Edition: October 1, 2016
Digital ISBN 978-0-9862903-4-3
This book is a work of fiction and all characters exist solely in the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to places, events or locales are used in a fictitious manner.
Digital formatting by StevieDeInk, [email protected]
Edited by Marian Kelly, RavensGateEditing.com
Cover design by StevieDeInk
Cover photo © Kaththea - Fotolia
Axel Garrison must write his father’s biography to heal the rift between them, but his male assistant turns out to be a woman!
Taylor Hazen is in line to inherit her father’s billions, but hates having to start at the bottom to learn the ropes. If she wants a fast track to VP of the company, she must dig up dirt on her father's business rival by pretending to help Axel write his book. Too bad they can't stand each other! Can a poor little rich girl find love in Colorado? Find out in book six of the Colorado Billionaires series by USA Today Bestselling Author Regina Duke.
The Wedding Toast is #6 in the Colorado Billionaires series.
CHAPTER ONE
Tuesday, April 5
“But Miss Hazen, your father is on a conference call!”
Too late. Taylor Hazen ignored her father’s secretary and headed for the double oak doors of his plush Lower Manhattan office. After all, she had been summoned.
Taylor threw both doors open and headed straight for his ebony desk. She was the only person in the company who dared to approach Pembroke Hazen without an appointment.
Taylor stood there, arms crossed, chin up, and her shapely legs planted as firmly on the thick carpet as her Jimmy Choo's would allow. The black skirt of her designer suit was stretched as tight as her expression. Her stylish blue bob matched the color of her eyes. She didn’t say a word. She just glared at her father.
Pembroke’s steel-gray hair was as abundant as it had been in his twenties, and his eyes were the same color as his hair. His conversation didn’t miss a beat as his daughter strode into his office.
Taylor stood still for as long as she could. She knew her father was dragging the call out, just to annoy her. At last, she began to pace, with the hope that her movement would irritate him into cutting the call short. The floor-to-ceiling glass provided an amazing view of the New York City skyline, and she was drawn to it as if against her will.
Jackson was out there, waiting for her. Jackson, her one true friend. They’d practically grown up together. But instead of cleaning tack and riding in Central Park, she was forced to labor in the mailroom of the family enterprise. She caught a glimmer of her own reflection in the glass and ran a hand through her blue-tinted hair. Her father’s change of tone shattered her reverie.
“Don’t just stand there looking at the scenery. Come have a seat.”
Taylor turned but stayed where she was. Her voice dripped sarcasm. “Are you sure I have time? After all, I have such important duties in the mailroom. Whatever will I tell my supervisor?”
Pembroke spoke sternly but his eyes twinkled. “Get off that high horse of yours or I’ll send you back down right now.” He motioned toward one of the cream-colored leather chairs that faced his desk.
Taylor surrendered and did as he asked. “Really, Daddy, the mailroom? I know you want me to learn the business from the ground up, but this is ridiculous. It’s bleak and dusty, and no one wants to talk to me.”
“That’s because you walk in there dressed like a female tycoon and you take every opportunity to remind them you’re my daughter. Exactly the opposite of what I asked you to do. As for bleak and dusty, please spare me. Everything down there is state of the art.”
Taylor made an exasperated noise. If only her father would cater to her every whim, the way he used to do when she was little. But ever since high school, when she started looking more like a woman than a little girl, she felt he’d hardened toward her. As a result, she found herself assuming a flippant attitude whenever they talked. “Did my brothers have to play this silly game? Did they have to start at the bottom of the ladder?”
“Never mind about your brothers. Don’s been paying his dues in the San Francisco office for two years. Longer, if we count his college internship. Young Greg is still at prep school, but he’s already giving serious thought to how he can contribute to the family business. And Bart...well, we both know Bart’s a lost cause. Let him stay in Paris and paint. When he realizes he’s going to need a real job, he’ll come crawling back.”
Taylor crossed her legs, twining them, with the toe of her right shoe behind her left heel. Girded for battle.
Pembroke gestured with one hand. “How on Earth do you do that? Oh, to be young again.”
Taylor relaxed her posture and uncrossed her legs. Leave it to Daddy to play the age card. She slanted her knees to one side. “Sorry, Daddy. You’re not exactly old yourself.”
“Older than you know. Too old to have my only daughter practically put on boxing gloves every time I call her into my office.” He stood up and turned to stare at the skyline, hands folded behind his back. “I put you in the mailroom because I need someone I can trust keeping an eye out and an ear to the ground for me. Not because I think you need to spend your youth learning to sort packages.”
Taylor wondered how much of that was the truth and how much was him trying to get on her good side so she’d do what he wanted. But what the heck, he was her father. He held the purse strings. She used to have more sway with him than her brothers did. But even then, she always complied with his wishes. She leaned her head against the back of the chair and asked, “What do you want me to do?”
Pembroke turned, all smiles. “That’s my girl. I knew I could count on you.” He returned to his chair, serious again. “I’ve been working on a complicated deal with Lester Garrison. Did I tell you about Garrison?”
“It’s all you've talked about for months,” said Taylor, making a face. “You play golf with him, right? W
hy isn’t he putty in your hands?”
“It’s a long story, but I think you can help me swing this deal. And if you do, I’ll make you a vice president. How’s that sound?”
Taylor sat bolt upright. “Seriously?”
“I thought that might get your attention.” Pembroke opened a drawer and withdrew a folder with the Hazen logo on it. “It turns out, Lester has a son out in Colorado who fancies himself a writer.” He snorted. “I guess every family has a Bart, eh?”
Taylor frowned. She considered her brother a great artist in the making, but she’d been down that road before with her father, and it never ended well, so instead she said, “I thought the Colorado Garrisons were Rudy’s family.”
Pembroke waved away the mention of Rudy Garrison as if it were a fly. “Rooster’s too busy playing with his money over in Kuwait, or wherever the heck he is this month. As for Lester, if we’d done this deal three years ago, we’d have been finished lickety-split. But he changed after his wife died. Found himself a runway model. I think he’s getting senile. His kids are not pleased about it, either. And his oldest has taken off to Colorado to put some distance between himself and his father, and to play at being a writer.”
Taylor leaned forward, elbows on the arms of the chair, fingers laced together. “When do we get to the part you want me to play in all of this?”
Pembroke tapped a bony finger on the file. “I’ve arranged for you to go out west and dig up some dirt on Lester Garrison.”
Taylor was confused. “But he’s in New York.”
“I know. But his son is writing Lester’s biography, and I’ve arranged for you to be his personal editor on this project. He’ll write about his old man, you’ll ask keen and penetrating questions, and before you know it, we’ll have plenty of leverage to use on Lester.”
Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to dig up dirt so you can blackmail Lester into agreeing to your terms in the deal you’re working on?”
Pembroke leaned back in his chair and grinned. He was at the age where it sometimes looked like his teeth were too big for his mouth. And never more so than now, as he contemplated besting Lester Garrison in a business deal. He looked like a wolf drooling over a sheep.
“How long will I have to maintain this charade?” Taylor thought at once of how much she would miss Jackson.
“That depends on how long it takes to win Axel’s confidence and get me some useful information. Everything you need is in here. You’ll fly on the company jet. There’ll be a rental car waiting for you.” He slid the folder across his desk. “I wanted to put a map in here, but my secretary told me you kids all use GPS, so….” He shrugged.
Taylor reached for the folder. She peeked inside. Her father had provided her with a report on Garrison industries and a salary schedule for Hazen executives. Her eyes locked onto that right away. Maybe this errand wouldn’t be too horrible after all. At least she’d have something pleasant to think about. “When I get back, I'm a vice president?”
“Once the deal is complete.”
Taylor pinned her father with a knowing look. “Not good enough. Deals and mergers can fall through. When I get back, I get my own office with a nice view of Manhattan, my own secretary, and an upper management position to tide me over until the deal is done. Once that happens, I’ll be happy to move into my new position as a vice president.”
Pembroke threw his head back and laughed. “Taylor, my dear, you are a chip off the old block. It’s a deal. Now go home and pack. You leave first thing in the morning.”
Taylor hugged the folder to her chest as she left the office. On her way down to the mailroom to collect her purse, a smile took hold of her. Vice president. Of what? It didn’t matter. Taylor Hazen, VP of Whatever, with a seven-figure salary that would let her take care of Jackson in spectacular style. She could hardly wait. She punched the elevator button and giggled like a school girl. “Look out, Axel Garrison. Here I come.” She patted the folder. “Poor guy. He’s not going to know what hit him.”
CHAPTER TWO
Wednesday, April 6
Axel Garrison left the town council meeting halfway through, shaking his head in disgust. Then he glanced around to make sure his cousin Thor hadn’t seen his reaction to the heated discussion he’d witnessed. What a waste of a beautiful day. It was already three o’clock. The air was fresh and clean, recently washed by an April shower that was more like a downpour. He splashed through a puddle at the foot of the town hall steps. It felt later than three because of the cloud cover. The weather had more in store.
Until people heard his last name, they didn’t know he was related to his Norse-like cousins. They were all blond and blue-eyed. He was brunet and brown-eyed, like his mother. Rudy and Lester Garrison, his uncle and father respectively, had chosen very different mothers for their children.
He snorted softly as he got into his mud-spattered Ford Expedition. The thought of his father’s second wife elicited an intense revulsion in him, as it did in his siblings. After their mother died three years ago, Lester Garrison seemed to go off the deep end. Everyone understood his grief. What they couldn’t understand was his pursuant marriage to Bambi, the runway model. She was the same age as Axel, and that creeped him out.
Their incomprehensible relationship was the reason he’d decided to try the fresher air in Colorado. He couldn’t stand to watch Bambi fawn all over his father whenever Lester was in the room, then go about the business of spending his money when he wasn’t. None of Axel’s siblings had managed to get through to his father about the possibility of her being a gold digger, and when Axel took a turn at reasoning with his old man, sparks flew. Lester had lost his temper, and Axel met his father’s anger with some temper of his own.
On top of that, just last November, his father had had the audacity to announce at the Forbes wedding that Axel would be the next in their group to walk down the aisle. Axel remembered cringing as his father slurred out his toast.
“Here’s to the bride and groom,” he’d said, raising his glass. “Ray, you’re a fine man, but not even you deserve a bride as beautiful as Maria. May you both live forever and have ten children. And speaking of children, it’s about time my lot started to settle down. I make a toast to Ray and Maria, and I make a promise, that my oldest will marry within a year! Cheers!”
The argument that had ensued on the drive home after the wedding had been monumental. No voices were raised. That wasn’t Lester’s style. But he could pack more menace and aggravation into a quiet sentence than any man alive, and by God, he wanted grandchildren! When Axel had snidely suggested that he and Bambi make their own, Lester’s response had been pointed and cold.
“I’ve made a huge investment in your education, and you fritter it all away on this daydream of being a writer. For God’s sake, at least do something that will bring in some cash. And if you can’t do that, then make me some grandkids. Maybe success skips a generation.”
The result was Axel’s decision that they needed space if they were ever going to get to a point where they could have a civil conversation again. Axel didn’t want to lose contact completely. He loved his father, and Lester’s scathing words had hurt him deeply. How could he rave on about how important money was when he’d complained for years that it was all his brother Rudy valued in life?
Eventually Axel realized the wedding toast was also part of his father’s competition with Rudy. Thor and Ulysses Garrison, Rudy’s sons, were already married, and Thor even had two kids for Rudy to bounce on his knee.
Well, Axel wasn’t about to get married just to puff up his father’s ego. Besides, he had four siblings—Tony, Dustin, Andrea, and Katie. Let them have kids!
He felt a twinge of guilt as he recalled Lester’s brush with ill health. There had been some scary moments after Axel’s mother died. Lester had suffered from a major depression before he married Bambi. Could his father be worried that he might not live to see his grandchildren? Axel brushed that off. Lester was probably fine. If some
thing were wrong, surely he would have confided in one of the girls. Either way, it wasn’t doing them any good to fight over that stupid toast.
So Axel took a trip to Colorado to see his cousins. The next thing he knew, he was buying property and loving the view. He’d already written half his novel since arriving in Eagle’s Toe. It was also a relief not to have to talk to his father every day. A little silence, he figured, would be golden. And his plan was working. Their conversation the week before had been almost cordial.
“Axel, it’s Dad.”
The phone call had come out of the blue, and Axel's response was instinctive. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” said Lester. “I figured I better call, because if I wait for your apology, we might never talk again.”
Axel knew that those words were the closest he would ever get to hearing his father say he was sorry. They’d exchanged some hurtful words during that last fight. Still, he was cautious. “Okay, Dad. I acknowledge that we are equally stubborn. What’s up?”
Lester sighed heavily. “Well, son, I’m not getting any younger, you know. And none of us lasts forever.”
Alarm bells went off for Axel. He’d never known his father to admit his own mortality. Maybe something was going on that he didn’t know about. “Dad, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
To Axel's ear, it sounded like his father was trying very hard to convince him that all was well. “Would you tell me if something was wrong?”
Lester’s temper flared. “Can’t a man talk to his oldest son without a visit to the Mayo Clinic?”
Axel relaxed. That was more like it. “Of course, Dad. I just.... We may argue, but you know I love you. Most of the time.”
Lester laughed, a rough hacking sound. “That’s why I wanted to say, ah, well...oh, dang it all, when I told you it was foolish of you to waste time trying to be a writer, I was taking a cheap shot. I know you have talent. In fact, I want you to write my life story.”
Axel wasn’t sure he was hearing correctly. “Your biography? Really? Are you sure you’re okay?”
