The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  “Exactly. He saw Giselle as a way-too-convenient solution to the problem that I could leverage at any moment, Leah or no Leah. Giselle’s loyal to me and she’s low profile, so no one would connect her death to me or OKH if he hid it well enough. Leah finally decided that she’d best marry me to keep Fen off Giselle’s back, so fuck you very much. Again.”

  Well, he did have a point.

  “Giselle was so nervous before the wedding she was radioactive, so Leah told me to make Giselle stay away from her. Stupid shit that I am, I decided that Leah should have her way on her wedding day.”

  “Is that why she was so mad at Leah’s funeral?”

  “That and a shit load of guilt for not following her gut regardless of what Leah wanted. I should have trusted her instincts, but I didn’t want to upset Leah. If Giselle had been with her . . . ” His voice, heavy with regret, trailed off and Bryce said nothing. Another moment of silence passed before Knox collected himself enough to continue. “So now here I am, a year and a half later wanting to be free to pursue this other woman without having to fulfill anything, without putting her in Fen’s line of fire. She’s too young to have to deal with that and I’m not that selfish.”

  That jolted Bryce. “Young? Except for Giselle, you’ve never liked young. You were dating post grads when you were a freshman.”

  Knox didn’t say anything for a while. Then, low, “She’s twenty-three.”

  Bryce pulled back a bit. “Whoa,” he breathed. “That’s a serious change for you. Don’t tell me she’s blonde, too.”

  “Oh, no. She’s a redhead. I haven’t gone completely nuts.”

  “What’s so special about her that you’d go from Mrs. Robinson to Lolita?”

  “You ever heard the name Justice McKinley?”

  Bryce choked on his water. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope.”

  “Does she even know you exist?”

  “She has a crush on me.”

  “Oh, shit. You were her professor.”

  “Substitute professor. For one week. And don’t think that doesn’t give me the willies.”

  “You haven’t had her in any of your classes since?”

  “Once this semester ends, I won’t teach any more classes until she graduates. After I turn forty, I’ll go find her and hope like hell she’s not attached by then.”

  “She’s an atheist, isn’t she?”

  “Why would that make a difference to me? I’m not allowed to step foot in the only church I have any interest in.”

  A companionable silence descended as they ate. After a bit of the edge had been knocked off Bryce’s appetite, he said,

  “So . . . the takeover.”

  Knox pursed his lips and thought for a long moment. “Sebastian hates Fen,” he said finally, “always has, and the feeling’s mutual. But he kept his mitts off OKH in deference to me until Fen went after Giselle.”

  “Really. Why?”

  “Sebastian thinks his sole purpose in life is to be Giselle’s mother. A few days after her fire, he told Fen if I didn’t have OKH on my fortieth birthday for any reason, he’d take it. If I were dead, he’d take it. If he did anything more at all to Giselle, he wouldn’t wait until I was forty to take it. Fen loses the company to Sebastian, no question. If I fulfilled the terms of the proviso, he’d lose it to me, no question. Giselle was fine with that.”

  “Fen thought he was bluffing.”

  “Well, you know. Sebastian does bluff a lot, so it wasn’t unreasonable of Fen to assume that. So after Giselle got shot, Jack Blackwood summoned Fen to New York—”

  “Jack Blackwood? Jack the Ripper?”

  “Yeah, him. Blackwood Securities. He and Sebastian go way back.”

  “Shit. Even I would think twice about crossing that bastard.”

  “Exactly. Fen wasn’t sufficiently cowed by Sebastian’s threat, but he wasn’t going to ignore an invitation from one of the biggest power brokers in the country. When he got there, Jack plunked down solid numbers for him. He told him Sebastian was not only prepared to take it, but he was prepared to burn it down to the ground, to boot. Every last employee, every last nut, bolt, and washer. Sebastian had OKH’s parted-out resale value calculated to within ten bucks.”

  Bryce’s eyes widened. “He wouldn’t,” he breathed. “Thousands of people?”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Knox drawled. “Another bluff, but enough of one that Fen wasn’t going to chance it. Having everything you’ve built and love taken away from you by someone who would take care of it is one thing; seeing it completely destroyed for no reason other than revenge is another. And having Blackwood as your enemy just isn’t good business. It didn’t occur to Sebastian—nor would it have occurred to me—to threaten him if he touched any other woman I wanted to marry.”

  “And then Leah suddenly stepped in front of Giselle, too, so she became the priority threat.”

  “Right. The day after the funeral, Giselle told him she’d kill him regardless of what I wanted.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want Fen on death row. I’m not interested in having him dead before the world knows what he did. I’m not going to hide behind Giselle’s skirts and I’m not going to let her have her head. Whatever happens to Fen, I’m the one who needs to do it.

  “After Giselle got shot, Sebastian doubled his stake in OKH and began going to the shareholder and board meetings just to make sure Fen knew he was on the warpath. Sebastian’s blocked a couple of major business decisions just by having such a large voting share.”

  “Causing the stock price to fall.”

  “And Sebastian picked up more shares. The SEC got very upset with him when he refused to explain and stopped approving his buys. Everybody in the country’s selling OKH short now.”

  “So Fen decided to run for office and put Taight’s head on the block since Roger Oth is already running his mouth about the way he shut down Jep Industries.”

  “Right.”

  “That’s what I figured. After Leah was murdered, Wall Street pretty much gave up on you fulfilling the proviso. How much does Blackwood know?”

  “Not sure. Sebastian usually doesn’t explain anything to anyone ever, but Jack’s the one steering the takeover because it’s just so complex. He’s taken out long odds in Vegas on me actually fulfilling the proviso, so I suspect Sebastian hasn’t told him anything. He has a reputation for being crazy like a fox. Nobody’d bet on me at all if Jack hadn’t.” Knox harrumphed. “Not that it’d do me any good.”

  “So what was Taight’s next move or has he made it yet?”

  Knox paused for a moment as if trying to decide how to articulate it. “This has thrown Sebastian for a loop. He doesn’t think politically because he’s never had to. He thinks in terms of the principles of capitalism and he’s always had the money, power, and leverage to do what he wants without really coloring inside any line he doesn’t like. Too, he has people to clean up after him when he goes a little too far. He doesn’t know what to do when he runs into someone with more authority and power than he does, because there just isn’t anyone like that. The only idea he could come up with was to block Fen’s fundraising efforts as much as possible.”

  “That’s weak.”

  “Yep.”

  “So he has no plan.”

  “Oh, he has one now. Blocking Fen’s access to money is the first part. Second part: Kevin Oakley’s going to run against Fen on Sebastian’s dime.”

  Bryce chuckled. “Sebastian Pendergast. Okay, next?”

  Knox smirked. “Have you been watching the news? Oth has been forced to start answering questions about why he called Sebastian to fix Jep Industries in the first place. Sebastian’s people refer the reporters to me and I very subtly imply that once Sebastian got to Jep, he found that the employees’ pensions were at risk. He rode to the employees’ rescue and, being the longsuffering and altruistic citizen that he is, decided to take the publicity hit instead of embarrassing or otherwise demandin
g Oth account for himself. And, oh, damn, I said too much and this is off the record, right? Oth’s going to have to shut his fat mouth about Sebastian’s villainy if he wants to save himself, but by then, the bell will have been rung.

  “Add me to the mix as the attorney representing the man who’s trying to rip my inheritance out from under me, and the whole thing becomes this tantalizing mystery. Either way, it’ll start to make Fen stink to high heaven, not to mention Oth and any of the other five senators who have it in personally for Sebastian. By the time the handoff rolls around, I’ll look like the underpaid little public servant and college professor who was almost cheated of his inheritance by his evil uncle-slash-stepfather.”

  “And Taight will look like the genius saint who decided that if you couldn’t have it, neither would Fen—and spent millions of his own money to take it down.”

  “Yes. It won’t keep Sebastian out of the hot seat forever, but it only needs to work until after OKH is settled for good. Once that’s out of the way, Sebastian can recruit his similarly disenfranchised pals to help him fight any future anti-Taight legislation on their terms instead of letting Sebastian try to do it alone under the Senate’s terms—and with one hand tied behind his back, to boot. Obviously, none of them can step in while OKH is smack in the middle of it because they’re as in the dark as everyone else is, but that won’t keep them from contributing to Oakley’s campaign.”

  That made Bryce burst out laughing. “What do you mean he doesn’t think politically? That’s brilliant.”

  Knox looked up at him sharply. “Sebastian didn’t come up with this. This is Giselle’s brain child.”

  Bryce stared at Knox for a moment, his mouth open, before he closed his eyes and sat back, taking a deep breath. He could feel every last drop of blood in his body rush to fill his cock. He didn’t even care enough to keep his reaction from Knox’s not-so-observant eye and he figured he deserved it when Knox started to laugh at him.

  “Heh. She just gave your IQ a blow job and she’s not even here. Priceless!”

  Bryce couldn’t deny that. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure why that surprised him once he’d finally figured out she’d dropped from that particular family tree. Bryce took another deep breath. “Okay, so you can cross me off your list of people you need to convince to stay away from Fen.”

  Knox grimaced. “Yeah. About that. You got crossed off the list at Fen’s fundraising party. That’s why you’re here wanting to know if Giselle and I are lovers—besides the fact that you stuck your ears where they didn’t belong.”

  It took him a couple of seconds before he understood, before anger exploded in his gut. His jaw clenched. His nostrils flared.

  “Oh, simmer down,” Knox drawled. “It was the only idea Sebastian could come up with on short notice. All he knew was he had to keep your money and Fen separated. I didn’t think you’d take a call from me and you’d be suspicious of Sebastian calling out of the blue. Given that you were the only serious money possibility he couldn’t talk to personally beforehand, he sent Giselle in to get you the hell away from Fen and fuck your mind. She didn’t know your name and we didn’t know she’d met you before. How was I supposed to know you’d evolved from Peter Priesthood into alpha male? You haven’t talked to me in, what, twelve years?” He shrugged. “You were my best friend and you know my history. Sebastian respects your reputation. We didn’t know you’d figure out Fen killed Leah and that I didn’t.”

  “There are a lot of things you two don’t know,” Bryce said, his eyes narrow.

  “Yeah,” Knox snapped, now obviously impatient. “Like, we don’t know what happened that night between you and Giselle because she hasn’t said a word about it. Sebastian said you followed her like a wolf in heat and made sure every male in that room knew she was your territory. Then a half hour later, she came flying through the gallery looking like she’d been thoroughly fucked. You ran after her, missed her, and went back in so pissed that you punched Sebastian when he wouldn’t tell you where she went. Since she didn’t shoot you, we figured there was something else going on.

  “What we do know is that something happened between you, what—a year ago?—you kissed her or something? And she was fidgety for months. We’ve never seen her like that before. When she came home alone from the Nelson that night, she was a hot mess, and she’s been a hot mess ever since.”

  Bryce thought about that, thought about how fidgety he’d been after that kiss in the parking lot, the mess he’d been when he’d gotten home from the gallery. Thought about the fact that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her and had from the moment they’d met at Hale’s.

  He needed to know.

  “So have you fucked her?”

  Knox looked at him speculatively and waved his fork, not answering Bryce’s question. “What happened to you? You’re dropping the F-bomb like it’s the Word of the Day and you took Giselle on and won, which is—amazing—especially for the Bryce Kenard I knew way back when.”

  Bryce grunted. “I don’t know why you have to ask. Michelle. Then it was the fire and my kids dying.”

  “I can understand that, but I think there’s something else. What?”

  Bryce paused for a long time, then said, “I don’t know. I lost some memories after the fire; don’t know if it was the fire or the coma. I think something happened early in my marriage and I think it was significant.” He shrugged. “Then I read Atlas Shrugged.”

  Knox burst out laughing and he laughed until he was coughing and wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh, damn. That’s our family manifesto. If I’d known you were going to go that nuts, I’d have shoved it in your hands in college. You were a downright prude.”

  “I would’ve been horrified. Attracted, but horrified. It took what little sex I got—all of it bad—and no outlet for my anger with Michelle to make me accept that you were right.”

  Knox, still chuckling, said, “The sweetest sentence in the English language: ‘You were right.’ Congratulations on getting in touch with your dark side and for picking the right woman.”

  “I didn’t pick her,” Bryce admitted after a long silence. “She picked me and she made sure I knew it. Well?”

  “No, I haven’t. Neither has anyone else, might I add.”

  “Don’t split hairs with me. You’re a prude of a different color and I know how you differentiate.”

  Knox snorted. “Okay, no. No making love, no having sex, no fucking, no whatever you want to call it. Not even close. Bryce, she’s my cousin. We grew up together. We’re all members of the church or used to be. What, you figured out we were related, but it didn’t occur to you she might actually be sitting in church on Sundays?”

  “Neither you nor Taight are in there with the program and she hangs with you both. Why should I believe she’s any different?”

  “Well. I see your point, but Sebastian just up and left.”

  Bryce raised an eyebrow. “And you were excommunicated.”

  “Yeah, so I didn’t feel obliged to sleep alone anymore for the temple marriage I wasn’t ever going to get. Giselle does what she wants and what she wants is to save it for marriage like she’s supposed to.”

  “And she’s how old?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “I call bullshit.”

  Knox paused, his tongue in his cheek. “Well. She’s not pure as the wind-driven snow, no. She owns stock in Duracell and has a shelf full of erotica—and her taste runs to kinky.” He shuddered. “But for a woman her age with raging hormones, she’s holding out as well as can be expected. Whatever happened at the gallery with you was completely out of character for her. Sebastian was shocked. Now he’s just seriously annoyed.”

  Bryce had ceased to think. It was too— Too much. Too good, too bad, all at the same time.

  I’ve never done this sort of thing before.

  So she hadn’t—and not only had he not believed her, he’d thrown it back in her face for daring to say it. No wonder she’d looked so horrified. He sur
e as hell hoped he’d made no other dead-wrong assumptions he’d be obliged to account for.

  “So are you done with the church?”

  “Maybe,” Bryce answered slowly, low, “I don’t know. I think so. I don’t fit. I never did.” Knox sighed, but said nothing. He didn’t have to; Bryce knew his opinion and it wouldn’t have changed in twenty years. “Do you really expect me to believe Giselle’s a virgin?”

  “Yes, I do. If she’d have given it up for anybody, it’d been for me—” Bryce flinched. “But no. She’s been . . . how do I put this? . . . waiting for someone to sweep her off her feet.” He waved a hand. “Congratulations.”

  “She ran away from me.”

  “You scared the shit out of her, and not your face, either. She’s always been too invested in her fantasy man to know what to do with a real one. She’s had the law of chastity beaten into her for the last thirty years, same as we all did, but she also has a turbocharged libido and she’s heading to forty. It’s not like there are a lot of single LDS dudes her age who know the drill and would keep their hands off, right? So she doesn’t date outside the church much at all in case she falls off the deep end with the first guy who strokes her just right who would then treat her like shit in the morning. She has almost no control and she knows that.”

  So do I.

  “She doesn’t know I’m a member,” Bryce muttered.

  “Yeah, she does. She went in thinking she’d get a nice evening of philosophical discourse with an unthreatening male about her age she could relate to on a cultural level.”

  Bryce couldn’t help his wry chuckle. “Now, if you and she are that close, why haven’t I ever met her?”

  Knox abruptly stopped chewing and stared at him for a moment with an expression Bryce couldn’t decipher, which was rare enough that it made him uncomfortable. “Huh,” he said after another few seconds. “Well, you were married by the time we got to BYU, so what difference would it have made? She’s exactly what you’ve always liked in women, and I wasn’t about to put her between you and Michelle, since I wasn’t having a picnic being between you. Not to mention what that would’ve done for the state of your soul. You’re welcome.”