But she was all too aware that most people would see only what they expected to see. In fact, she was banking on it.
“Why are you going to the Whitney Media Board meeting?” Jack had asked much later the night before, when they’d lain side by side on the bed, sated. For the moment. Larissa had felt herself tense. “I thought such things bored you,” he’d continued, his voice no more than idly curious.
She’d opened her mouth to play it off, to deflect his attention in her usual way, but she’d stopped. The only light in the room had come from outside, fickle and pale. They’d been caught in shadows, together on the bed and yet, she’d thought, ultimately so very far apart. And yet … His voice hadn’t been accusing. It hadn’t been derisive. It had been … careful.
“I can’t say that I know if it will bore me or not,” she’d said quietly. “I’ve never actually attended one before. My father and Theo preferred to pat me on the head and send me on my way, because they liked to handle everything.” She’d laughed. “Not that I had any interest in it, of course. I was happy to be free of it.”
She had felt Jack’s big, lean body sprawled next to hers on the wide bed, had felt the thrust of his attention in the dark room, his keen focus on her, even when she’d closed her eyes. It had been as powerful as his touch, as demanding. She’d wondered what he’d been looking for—what he’d been trying to see. Or did she simply, foolishly, wish that he’d wanted to see beneath the surface? She’d shifted, curling on her side to face him, able to pick out the blurred suggestion of his features in the dark, the glitter of his eyes, the comforting solidity of him, so big and so male. It had been so late in the night that it had felt later still. It had felt close, confessional. Intimate. A time outside the rest of their lives.
Or perhaps she’d only wanted to think so.
“My father wants me to sign over all my shares to him,” she’d said. She’d let out one of her best laughs. Tinkling and bright. False. It seemed to rebound off the glass window as if off the city itself, and she’d regretted it. “Apparently he thinks that ending my relationship with Whitney Media will be the same as ending his actual relationship to me. Which, given his obsession with the company, is true enough.” She’d sighed then, shifting position on the mattress. “He is, of course, delighted at the prospect.”
Jack had let out a breath, and Larissa had braced herself, expecting one of his blows. Expecting him to tear her up in the usual way. Would he tell her this was all self-indulgent crap, too? But instead he’d turned so that he’d faced her on the bed, propping himself up on one arm.
“I saw my father at Thanksgiving,” he’d said in a low voice. He’d reached over and brushed her hair away from her forehead, almost absently, making Larissa’s throat feel tight. “He is, in fact, one of the main reasons I loathe the holidays. I’d managed to forget why, in all these years.” He’d shifted. “In between the usual lectures from my grandfather, I got to sit back and watch while my father drank every drop of whiskey in the house, and then proceeded to feel up his practically teenage wife at the dinner table.” He’d let out a short sound, too hollow to be a laugh. “To be honest, I don’t know that he has any idea that I exist. I doubt he remembers that we have a relationship to sever.”
Something had passed between them then, in the dark. Something full and deep, that had seemed to expand inside Larissa’s chest, making her feel at once too big and too small. She’d had to remind herself to breathe. She’d been unable to look away from him. She’d wanted to crawl inside him and stay there until everything that hurt, everything that was complicated, faded away. As if he had the power to make that happen.
“What will you do?” he’d asked, his voice hushed. Reverent, she’d thought, and the scariest part was that there’d been no tiny little voice to castigate her for that kind of presumption.
But it had all been too much, and she’d been too afraid, in the end, to take it any further—that fragile communion. She’d been unable to let herself trust it. Not fully. No matter how much, how desperately, she’d wanted simply to fall into him and believe that he could catch her.
That he would want to catch her.
It had frightened her, as had something else, something far edgier—that she’d wanted something like that at all. She, who had walked alone for so long. And yet she’d wanted it. Him. Hadn’t she always wanted him, no matter how foolish the urge? She’d wanted all of it more than she’d wanted to admit to herself, much less explore.
But she’d been hurt far too many times by her own desires, hadn’t she? There was changing herself for the better, and there was recognizing her own flaws and missteps—and neither one of those things made trusting Jack Sutton anything but a folly of the worst kind.
“Larissa Whitney is not known for her corporate interests,” she’d said instead, her voice perhaps too scratchy. Too obviously, dangerously raw. “She is much too flighty, and probably deeply unintelligent, as well. She would be a distraction, nothing more.”
“She has an Ivy League education and centuries of power in every cell in her body.” Jack had contradicted her in his quiet, sure way, making her limbs feel too hot, too weak. He’d smiled—she’d heard it shape his words in the cocoon of darkness, and his fingers had traced the shape of her jaw, her lips. “I think she can handle it.”
That was what she would cling to today, Larissa told herself now, pushing through the heavy, silent door that led back into the hallway. Not what had happened next, that had left them both covered in a fine glow and sound asleep in each other’s arms. Not his departure—as she had demanded, she reminded herself, and not for the first time—
some time before her alarm went off. He thinks I can handle it. It made something happy and warm move through her, no matter how many times she told herself that it didn’t matter—that it had been just something he’d said in the middle of the night, that she shouldn’t take it to heart.
That it didn’t mean he hated her any less.
She walked along the corridor, her heels sinking into the plush carpet. The executive level of the iconic Whitney Media tower boasted phenomenal views of Manhattan out of every window, and the interior was no less impressive. Priceless art graced the walls, paying homage to both the Whitney family legacy and Whitney Media’s long history in newspapers, movies and television. Hardwood floors and polished chandeliers shone. Every step whispered of wealth. History. The Whitneys.
Larissa had been here more times than she could count. First, as a child, trotted out on special occasions to pose for the cameras and play the role of cherubic blonde moppet, Bradford’s supposedly beloved child. Later, she’d attended functions as a surly teenager, and after that she’d spent far too much time in this building as Theo’s date. But this was the first time she’d walked down the deeply carpeted halls by herself, under her own power, as someone whose name was etched into the stone of the building itself instead of just an accessory. She decided she liked it.
She glanced at the slim gold watch on her wrist as she rounded the final corner, and knew that she’d timed this perfectly. She smiled politely at the efficient-looking secretary who sat sentry outside the conference-room doors, and paused, pulling in a deep breath to calm her nerves. To prepare herself. She thought of Jack’s hands, tender on her body, cupping her face, almost as if there was affection there. Almost … She thought of his voice, telling her to claim what was hers, whether she wanted it or not. Daring her to try. Daring her to consider herself in an entirely new way, though she wasn’t sure she could have admitted that to him.
And that had been before he’d said those things last night.
I can do this, she thought. I really can handle this.
And then she pushed the double doors open and sauntered inside.
The room smelled of testosterone—the deeply moneyed Wall Street kind, resplendent in elegant suits, four-thousand-dollar hand-crafted Italian shoes and sheer, bone-deep self-satisfaction. The kind that made and lost other people’s fortunes w
ithout notice on various stock exchanges, all before their afternoon tee time. Larissa saw in a glance that she was the only woman in the room, and also the youngest person by several decades. That surprised her about as much as the inevitable look of displeasure on her father’s face—which was to say, not at all.
“Gentlemen,” she said, flashing her famous smile as she moved to the only empty seat and settled herself into it. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
There was a murmur of reply, more uninterested than not, but Larissa assumed that was largely by rote. It didn’t matter. She knew more than enough about every man in the room, and she found them not nearly as intimidating as a scrum of nasty paparazzi snapping cameras at her the morning after some new debacle. She didn’t need these men to be polite, and she didn’t much care if they weren’t. She didn’t need them at all.
“You are five minutes late,” Bradford said in his heavy, disapproving way. “But there is no need to draw this out. The papers are ready for your signature.”
He thrust a finger toward the ominous stacks of paper set out on the gleaming surface before her. Larissa glanced at one, flipping a page or two, marveling at the convoluted language. Like Bradford, it was all a lot of sound and fury to cover the actual, unpleasant truth within.
“At the moment, I hold the controlling interest in Whitney Media, isn’t that right?” she asked idly, still looking at the sheaf of papers in front of her.
There was a humming sort of silence, thick with male shock, and she could all but feel the way they looked at each other—all of them far too busy and much too important to deal with the likes of her. All of them affronted at her temerity. She was a disposable object, to be manipulated at will. Wasn’t that how Bradford had always treated her? Wasn’t that how she’d always behaved?
She was enjoying herself.
“Just sign the papers, Larissa,” Bradford snarled at her. “We have actual business to attend to here once this exercise is completed.”
“Fifty-one percent, if I’m not mistaken,” Larissa drawled, ignoring him. She leaned back in her chair. “Or is it fifty-two? Theo signed his shares over to me before he left. A lovely gift, really, in light of our broken engagement.”
“What kind of game is this?” one of the other men demanded, loud and jowly. Larissa knew that he ran a hedge fund or two, owned the better part of lower Manhattan, and was generally held in some awe in the highest investment circles. And she wasn’t afraid of him, either. She focused on her father, who was turning a spectacular shade of pink as he glared at her.
“Not one I’m interested in playing,” Bradford said, so cold and hard that icicles seemed to form on his words as they hung there in the air between them. Larissa only smiled.
“It’s interesting to me that you threw all your time, energy and emotion, such as it is, into this company, yet never thought to make any provisions for its future,” she said, still in the relaxed tone she was sure was as much an affront to every officious man in the room as was her refusal to simply sign away her birthright as ordered. Or perhaps as was her very presence. “Not very practical, Dad, is it?”
“The plan for the future was Theo, and you’re the one who ran him out of here,” Bradford snapped. “Not that I imagine you care in the least. What is this, Larissa? The paparazzi not paying you enough attention lately? You should fall out of a few more limousines. See if that scratches the itch. But stop wasting our time.”
“This is hardly a waste of time,” Larissa said, still smiling at him. She let her gaze travel around the room then, lighting on each man in turn, challenging each of them. Daring them to contradict her. “This is a board meeting, and I am the majority shareholder. My attorneys tell me that the bylaws of this corporation insist that the majority shareholder sit on the board. And so here I am, at your service.”
She calmly ignored the higher volume of the muttering, and watched her father instead, as he fixed his ferociously cold glare on her. If he could have wrapped his hands around her neck, she knew without a shred of doubt, he would have. She found that there was a certain power in knowing that, however sad it was. However little it said about their relationship. But this was not the cold, controlled Bradford she knew. This man was far angrier. This man, she realized, finally had something to lose.
He’d never cared much about his daughter. But Whitney Media was something else entirely. Whitney Media mattered to him. It was the only thing that ever had. She felt a deep jolt of an old sort of pain at that, but thrust it aside. He didn’t deserve her longing for might-have-beens. He never would.
“You have voted your shares through a proxy for years,” Bradford said, clearly seething as he stared at her. His hands were in fists. If she were a better person, Larissa knew, she would not take such pleasure in that. But she never had been any good, had she? As her father had been the first to tell her. “You can hardly expect anyone to take you seriously now that you’ve decided, for some perverse reason of your own, to change that.”
She let her smile deepen, Mona Lisa to the last, as she leaned back farther in her seat and lounged prettily in the manner she knew infuriated him.
“I don’t feel that I need a proxy any longer,” she said simply. “But thank you.”
“Then there is the small matter of your obnoxious and embarrassing notoriety,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. His icy glare sharpened, became a weapon—a direct attack. She ordered herself to remain perfectly still—seemingly unaffected. “You are, quite clearly, not fit, Larissa. Not in any way. Not for anything, and certainly not to sit on this board in any capacity.”
He thought he’d won. She could see it. It gleamed there in his eyes.
“Then I suppose it’s a tragedy that there is, in fact, no morals clause,” she replied coolly. “No commentary on unrelated behavior, whether falling out of limousines or the Gramercy Park Hotel or the front door of the Whitney mansion. Not a single ‘too notorious to take her rightful place’ entry in the bylaws, I’m afraid.” She let her smile sharpen. “Of course, the entire board would be disqualified if there were any of these things, given that notoriety and bad behavior is largely in the eye of the beholder, don’t you think?” She shrugged without dropping her gaze from his. “Just think what I could make of yours.”
“Sign the goddamned papers.” He bit out the words, and it was if the rest of the room disappeared. There was only Bradford. Only the father who had loomed over her whole life, casting his shadow far further than he should have done, and far deeper. But that was her past. This was her future, and she got to decide how it went. Starting here.
“No,” she said quietly, powerfully, enjoying this moment perhaps more than she should, but knowing that it was the first step toward a new, better life. A real life, at last. She wished that somehow Jack could have seen her turn into the person he’d suggested she could be in the middle of all that rain on Endicott Island. But that was a bittersweet kind of pain, better left for another time. She let her smile turn to something close to real. “I’m sorry, Dad, but I’m not going to do that.”
Another night, another gala.
Jack managed to keep the expression of boredom from his face as he dutifully stood with his grandfather on the splendidly lit and amply heated outdoor terrace of the Museum of the City of New York, high up on Fifth Avenue with all of Central Park spread out before them, dark and inviting, on the other side of the street. Not for esteemed hostess Madeleine Doremus Waldorf any petty concerns about the weather or the season; she was known for her outrageous society events, and this one, held out of doors when the temperature hovered around seventeen degrees, was precisely the sort of thing she adored. There were enough space heaters to make sure that the younger socialites could show off their Pilates-toned arms in their sleeveless sheaths, the older society matrons murmured about Madeleine’s “daring,” and all Jack could think about was Larissa Whitney.
More specifically, the fact that he knew she was here tonight, and yet he had not se
en her at all. More specifically than even that—the fact that it had nearly killed him to leave her the night before last, naked and soft and warm as she slept, and he still did not understand why he’d done it. He could so easily have stayed, despite what she’d said, what he’d tacitly agreed to do. He’d wanted to stay. But he’d found he could not bear to be another man like her father, who ignored what she said to suit himself.
He was in so much trouble.
“Don’t see how standing around in the December air like lunatics will raise any money for this charity of hers,” his grandfather said in his gruff voice. “It’s far more likely that we’ll all die of hypothermia first.” He muttered something else that sounded a lot like foolish women, which Jack diplomatically chose to ignore.
There was a lot of that going around tonight. Jack was ignoring his own highly inconvenient and terrifying feelings for the most inappropriate woman in New York. He’d been ignoring those for quite some time, if he was honest. Possibly for five long years, were he to get technical. He was studiously ignoring the ramifications of that line of thought. He was also ignoring the inevitable presence of his father, some thirty feet away, making an ass of himself with his child bride. Jack was taking his cues on that from his grandfather, who had been icily ignoring his son-in-law for well on forty years.
“Happy holidays, Grandfather,” Jack murmured, as close to sincere as he could manage under the circumstances, which was, perhaps, not terribly close at all. His grandfather’s canny blue eyes, so much like Jack’s mother’s, swung to meet his, the usual cool assessment in them raking Jack from head to toe.
“I’d be a lot happier if I could die in peace, knowing that the Endicott line will not end with you,” he said, his brows drawn together. “But apparently, you would prefer to insult every heiress in Manhattan instead of living up to your responsibilities.”
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