So I threw my shoulders back and put my chin up and walked past, even though that just made me even more lost. Weston’s statement, this is ridiculous, kept replaying in my mind, but I heard it in my father’s voice. This is ridiculous. You can’t do this. Who do you think you are?
He never said it to my face, my father, but he hadn’t needed to. He’d said it by never letting me into his life. He’d said it by giving his company to his nephew instead of his own daughter. He’d said it loudest by thinking that whatever man I married would be more worthy of running his empire than me.
And wasn’t he right? Wasn’t Weston King right?
I was no one and I didn’t know anything. I was just a spoiled girl with a lot of money. I might have a good head on my shoulders, but I didn’t know the first thing about business.
I was such a fool to have thought I could walk into that meeting and take control.
I wiped a stray tear from my cheek as I turned down the hall and the elevators came into sight.
Thank God. Escape.
But then I heard the rush-and-click of shoes running toward me across the marble floor. I turned, expecting to see Donovan. He was the one who’d wanted this scheme to work out the most, and he was the one who would care enough to come after me, but instead... Weston?
I sucked in a breath and willed my emotions to hide inside me, in the deep-seated place that I buried most every feeling of mine that mattered. I’d rather it have been Donovan who’d come after me. It would have been easier to remain stoic and confident in front of him, because while he was admittedly good-looking and sexy as hell, he didn’t make my knees weak and my palms sweat in the way that Weston did.
Weston, with that killer face and those panty-melting dimples. With that wicked grin and a body that wore a suit better than any other man in the room. When I’d realized he was the one who was volunteering to be my groom, I didn’t know if I was overjoyed or in over my head. It had taken everything I had to give him my coolest look while inside I was drowning in butterflies.
To be honest, though I’d decided to approach the meeting with backbone, it was Weston who’d given me the added boost of confidence I’d needed when I’d first walked in the room. His electric blue eyes had sparked energy in me, evoked passion that I knew I owned but hadn’t been able to wield until his gaze first crossed mine. He looked at me and made me feel not just like I was beautiful, but that I was worthy of being listened to. He looked at me like I deserved to be there.
How ironic that he was the same man who made me realize that I didn’t belong.
Based on everything he’d said, I was pretty sure he hated me even though he was coming down the hallway after me. Even though he was now calling out my name, asking me to wait.
I reached out and hit the button for the elevator anyway.
“Just give me a few minutes,” he said, slowing his trot to a walk as he neared. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m only asking for two minutes. Please.”
I scowled, wishing the doors would open. I might have been wrong about the meeting, might have been wrong about what I would do with the company, but I wasn’t wrong to try.
And I wasn’t going to let him make me feel like it again.
It hurt too much coming from a man I inexplicably wanted to impress.
“I don’t need you,” I repeated. “I don’t need Reach.”
“You don’t. You definitely don’t.” His left hand went behind his neck, rubbing the muscles there. “Honestly, we don’t really need you either. Which is why there’s nothing on the line right now if you’ll just come talk to me for a minute. Let me show you something.”
He was right again. Reach really didn’t need me. Sure, they wanted my advertising company—Darrell’s advertising company—but they were doing fine without it. Reach still had massive holdings even without the merger. They would be just fine even if they didn’t go after this one market. They didn’t need me, and his remark was more than a bruise to my ego.
Because it meant I really wasn’t holding any cards.
It was further proof I was clueless and out of my league.
The elevator doors opened with a ding. I closed my eyes momentarily and let out a low, quiet breath.
Then I opened them again, and turned to meet Weston’s piercing blues.
“I’ll give you five minutes,” I conceded. Because I was curious. Because I had nothing to lose. Because he was so goddamn cute with that half-smile and that dimple.
“Come this way.” His grin had widened, the dimple deepening. He walked backward to make sure I was following him, then, when he was certain, he turned around and retreated into the office space. This time he didn’t lead me to the lounge, but toward the opposite corner.
We passed the desk of the woman who had escorted me in—Roxie, she’d said her name when she introduced herself, and then we were inside a corner office that I could only assume was his own. He shut the door behind me and I tensed slightly.
He didn’t notice.
How lucky for men to not have the constant worry about being in close rooms with the opposite sex, but I needn’t have worried either because the walls to his office were glass and anyone could see in.
But then he moved behind his desk and pushed a button, and suddenly the transparent glass went opaque, and we could no longer see out. And, I assumed, no one could see in.
“Wait a minute,” I said hesitantly. “I just met you.” Ironic, considering I had been about to marry him.
He raised a brow in question, not understanding my meaning.
Then both brows raised as he got my drift. “Don’t worry. The door isn’t locked—go ahead and check.”
I did so and found he was telling the truth.
I remained by the door and watched him, as next he walked over to the cabinets that ran along the side wall and opened two up. They were the kind that usually hid a TV screen behind them or a safe. When he opened them, I was shocked to discover a dartboard waited behind.
And stapled to the middle of the dartboard was a black-and-white printout of a man’s face.
I squinted and took a couple steps forward, examining the face. “Is that... Nash King?”
I didn’t know a lot about business, but everyone knew who Nash King and Raymond Kincaid were. Anyone who had any sizable investments had a relationship with Weston and Donovan’s fathers in some form or another. Nash was one of the financial kings—har har, the pun—of the United States. He and Kincaid owned so many banks that together they were one of the leading financial institutions of the world.
Why was Weston throwing darts at a picture of his father’s face?
I turned to look at my almost-groom. His hands were shoved casually in his pockets and his eyes were cast down, embarrassed.
He shrugged. “It’s kind of an old picture now,” he said. “I just printed something from the Internet. It would have been even more awesome if I’d brought in an actual portrait, but I’m lazy.”
I felt the whisper of a smile on my lips. “Weston King. Do you have daddy issues?” Was that what he’d brought me here to show me?
“I didn’t say I had daddy issues,” he said defensively. Evasively. “But it blows off a lot of steam to throw a dart at people’s faces every now and then. I’m not going to say that I have or haven’t occasionally placed Donovan’s face in that spot, but I am telling you that it works. Hold on.”
Suddenly, he was in motion. He jiggled the mouse on his computer to wake it up, and then typed something on the keypad. He pushed a few buttons and a moment later, I heard the printer spitting out a piece of paper.
He ran over to it to retrieve the document, and then, snatching up his stapler, he walked back to the dartboard and pinned a new picture up over the one of Nash King.
When he stepped back, we were looking at the famous profile picture of Dell Dyson. It was on his website, on his Wikipedia page, on the book he’d written, on any sort of byline. He’d always thought it made him look powerf
ul, but I only ever saw his arrogance in that expression, in the tilt of his head. I had hoped to see it next as I removed it from the wall of my new office, but here it was.
This was what Weston meant to show me.
Oh, boy.
Weston stepped back from the cabinet and held both his hands out to display the dartboard, Vanna White style. “Go ahead.”
“No way,” I scoffed, but I did spin around, surveying the room for something to throw. “I don’t even have any darts.”
He was already scurrying back to his desk. “What was I thinking?” A moment later he’d pulled a handful of darts from his top drawer and was handing them over to me.
I laughed, a small chuckle, mostly to myself as I regarded his offering. Talk about ridiculous.
But then, there I was, taking a red dart from his palm and setting up my stance, lining up my aim. It wasn’t a fantasy I’d ever had, but the second it showed up before me, I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t tried it myself.
I’d never thrown darts before. That was probably reason number one.
I’d taken archery in school, though, and been fairly good at it. Still, nothing, not even that class, had ever made me feel quite as much like I was Robin Hood taking an arrow from Little John as I did right now.
I pulled my body back, rocked forward, let the dart go, and watched it smack right into Dell Dyson’s tie. It quivered directly in the middle of his perfect Windsor knot.
Man, did it feel good.
“Wasn’t that fantastic?” Weston whispered, as though he knew that admitting it might feel dangerous. “Do another.”
This one didn’t take any encouraging at all. I grabbed a green one.
I drew back and let it go. It sailed with a whoosh and landed in the corner of the paper, not hitting any of his face or body at all.
“Ah. Shit throw. Try again,” Weston encouraged.
I did. Again and again. A yellow dart and blue and another red. Another blue. Each time thinking of a new offense.
This one is for the company that completely blocked women from holding executive positions—including your own daughter.
This one for the seven consecutive years you landed on the worst places to work list for people with families.
This one for the thirty-seven percent difference in pay rates between men and women that exists at Dyson Media.
This one for the summer that you invited me to stay with you in Paris and then left me alone with the nanny, while you entertained at your other houses.
This one for every birthday you forgot.
This one for every Christmas gift that was picked out by your secretary.
And this one for every time that you said you would visit, that you said that you would show up, that you said that you wanted to be there, and you never, ever were.
I was shaking when all the darts were gone.
“Bullseye,” Weston said beside me, oblivious to the ragged state of my emotions. “Literally. Bull’s-eye, as in, you got that one right in between the eyes.”
He went to gather the darts off of the board, and while I was staring at his long, lean backside, perfectly sewn into his tailored suit, I found words spilling out that I never meant to confess. “I thought I had more time,” I said quietly.
“Huh?” Weston seemed appropriately confused. “Oh, you can go again after I get them all. I don’t own that many.” He turned back to pulling out the rest of the darts.
But I didn’t mean what he thought I did.
I swallowed and strengthened my voice this time. “I thought I had more time,” I said again. “I thought that it would be years before my father died. I traveled after college. I spent time in Europe. I was enjoying my youth. I didn’t know he would have a heart attack in the middle of the night. He was only sixty-one and was fairly healthy—or so everyone thought. Nobody expected him to...”
I trailed off, remembering how I’d found out he’d been rushed to the hospital by hearing it on CNN. I’d reached his secretary easily enough, who informed me that I’d been “on the list,” but “further down,” and she just hadn’t gotten to calling me yet.
I was in the air flying to France to be with him when he’d officially died.
I shook off the memories of his death and funeral, a whirlwind of commotion where I’d been made to feel insignificant and inadequate at every turn. The memories were still too fresh and unprocessed, too near the surface to think about without turning into a sobbing mess. Truly, they might always be.
“I was already registered for a master’s degree this fall in business at the University of New York. I had planned to learn...” My voice trembled. I swallowed again before going on. “It just took me by surprise.”
Weston had gathered all the darts by then, but he stood frozen, listening to me, as though he didn’t dare to turn around, as though afraid any movement might break my monologue, and the honest truth was, it might.
I would have never said any of this to Donovan. I would probably never have said any of this to Weston if he were facing me. If those blue eyes were boring into me, I’d have assumed he could already see into my soul.
But while his back was turned, right here in this moment, the truth continued to pour out. And even though he was just a stranger politely listening, it felt good to lay everything out.
So I went on.
“I took poli-sci as my undergrad because it doesn’t matter what your bachelor’s degree is before you get your MBA, and I thought a background in politics could be helpful. And I like politics. But now I’m woefully unprepared, and I’m watching Darrell run, and systematically dismantle, this company. I could let this go. I could take the next four years to become the best business leader possible, to find out everything that I need to know to lead an empire of this extent.”
I took a step toward him.
“But if I wait, it would be selfish. It would be because I don’t feel ready. Because I’m scared. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of other people depending on that company to be their livelihood, and others depending on it to be the place they look to for quality entertainment and programming. If I have a chance to change the lives of the people, the women who work for him, if I have a chance to change the lives of the people who watch entertainment put out by Dyson Media, and if that chance makes those lives better... Weston, I feel like I have to take that chance. Whether I’m ready or not.”
I turned away with a sigh. I’d said everything, and now I felt dumb. Too dumb to even be able to face his backside.
Behind me, I could hear the rustle and shuffle of movement. He stopped a foot or two behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body, smell his cologne. It made me flushed and dizzy and my heart started to race.
“I could teach you,” he said quietly.
“What?” I turned to face him, not understanding what he meant.
“I’ll teach you about business while we’re together.” He tossed the darts back onto his desk and jammed his hands back into his pockets, admittedly a very arresting look. “A tailored, condensed MBA. Everything you need to know to find the right people to run the company. Everything you need to know to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of. The Weston King Crash Course in Business.”
My skin felt itchy and my insides were fluttering.
Too many times, though, I’d gotten excited by promises from my father, promises he didn’t ever keep. I’d listened to my mother ask what the quid pro quo was so many times.
I’d learned from both parents. I’d learned to be circumspect.
I tilted my head, my mouth parted slightly. “And why would you do that, exactly? My advertising company can’t possibly be worth that much to you.”
Weston threw his head back in a way that said he wasn’t really sure why he’d made the offer.
But then he said, “Let’s just say I have a soft spot for companies that are vulnerable. And Donovan wants it. And I owe Donovan. We’ll leave it at that.”
I studied him for another moment. It didn’t feel like a bad idea, but I also knew that you weren’t supposed to use feelings in business—I wasn’t completely ignorant in the field. I couldn’t see a downside, though, either, anyway I looked at it.
And I really wanted my father’s company. The more obstacles I faced—the more everyone else told me that I couldn’t—the more I needed to do it, if only to prove I could to myself.
“Okay,” I said, such a little word to begin such a big arrangement. But all mighty things started out small. Even the Mississippi River started in some little puddle of bubbling water somewhere.
Weston nodded once, taking it in. Then he drew in a breath, and I could see he was really taking it in, maybe even kind of regretting it.
My stomach dropped.
Then his expression changed as he suddenly had an idea. “Let’s do this right.” He reached into his suit pocket, and I wrinkled my nose as I tried to peer over and see what he was doing. A second later, he pulled out a small box and set it in the palm of his hand.
Immediately, I started giggling.
“Stop giggling,” he said, practically laughing himself. “We have to be serious about this. This is a real serious moment between us.”
“I can’t help it! I’m a giggler.”
“First rule of business,” he said, “if you want people to take you seriously, you can’t giggle.”
I sucked in my cheeks, making probably the silliest expression I’d ever made. Weston tamped down his smile as well, though not all the way. I kind of wondered if that half-smile was permanently on his lips, wondered if he even noticed it. It was fitting for the occasion, the tiny upturn of his lips as he opened the black velvet box and pulled out the gorgeous platinum ring with tiny diamonds surrounding a large one that had to be at least four carats.
I could almost believe he meant this. Could almost believe he was enjoying it.
“Give me your hand,” he said, taking it before I’d actually given it to him. Goosebumps sprouted up my arm at his touch, or maybe just because I was so thrilled that this was finally happening, I was that much closer to my dream.
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