Tag sets me on my feet and I dig out my cell. “It’s probably my parents,” I explain, checking the screen to see whose call I missed.
“Talk to them,” Tag says, giving me a quick peck on my forehead. “I’ll catch Mom up and then meet you upstairs. I’ll bring our bags up in a few.”
I nod, hitting Dad’s number and heading for his office. He answers on the first ring. “Hey, Dad, we’re back. I just wanted—”
“Are you alone?” he interjects, his voice dripping with restrained urgency.
“Yes, why?”
“Weatherly, I have to tell you something, but you have to promise me that you won’t let on like you know just yet. I need to talk to Donald and see what our options are.”
Donald? Donald is Dad’s lawyer.
“Talk to Donald? About what?” There’s a pause that really isn’t all that long, probably, but my father’s behavior has managed to marinate the seconds in trepidation. “Dad, what is it?”
“We had an investigator look into Tag. Just as a precaution.”
My heart sinks. I can feel it thumping in the pit of my stomach, stirring up enough dread to make me queasy.
“And?”
“One of the first things that he found was a tie to a shell corporation. The same corporation that tried to buy Chiara.” I say nothing. My mind is spinning too fast for me to respond to him right away. “We refused, of course, but he must’ve hired someone who knew his way around business holdings because he somehow managed to discover that neither me or my company holds the majority of the interest in Chiara.”
“Wait. What? You don’t hold the . . . Then who does?”
“You do. I put sixty-two percent of the stock in your name when you were just a little girl. When I saw how much you loved it there, I wanted it to be part of my legacy to you, and part of your future. She was to be a gift to you on your wedding day. I didn’t mention it because, obviously, you didn’t marry someone I approved of, but it seems he already knew. The second offer, that time from another shell company between him and someone named Kiefer Rogan, was directed to you as the primary shareholder. But still, he didn’t give up. He just changed his tactics.”
“Dad, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Tag tried to buy Chiara. And I’m saying that when his offer was refused a second time, he didn’t give it up. He found a way to get it anyway. By marrying for it.”
My head is pounding so hard I have to sit down and rest my head in my hand. I know what he’s getting at. The knowledge of it, the understanding of it is glaring at me, laughing at me, screaming at me like a living presence in the room. A cruel, vicious, inescapable presence that lurks in every dark, dusty corner.
“Are you absolutely certain about this, Dad? I mean, I know you don’t approve of Tag, but—”
“Weatherly, I would never make something like this up because I disagree with your choices. You’re my daughter, my child. I’ll do everything in my power to protect you. Even if that means protecting you from yourself.”
“Is that what this is? You think I’ve made a mistake and you’re trying to—”
“I’m not trying to do anything. These are the facts. I’m simply informing you that your husband had an ulterior motive for marrying you and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him worm his way into getting what he wants at the expense of my daughter.”
His voice is angry, but I know it’s not all because of me. William O’Neal is likely much more upset that someone has nearly gotten the best of him in a business deal and he never saw it coming.
He didn’t see it coming and neither did I.
Ohgod ohgod ohgod! How can this be happening? How can this be true?
I feel like a child who has walked outside her charming woodlands cottage and stumbled onto a bloody battlefield. Inside my bubble there was this surreal sense that all these unexpected things were working out so perfectly. But now I’ve been pushed out the door by my father, pushed out into a reality that tells me I’ve been a pawn all along. The realization is beyond devastating.
“Weatherly, listen to me. You cannot let on that you know just yet. You have to let me get together with Donald on this. Damage control is imperative.”
I feel sick. Literally sick. My stomach can’t decide if it wants to hurt or swim, and my chest feels tight with carefully bottled emotion. And I can hardly think past the black hole of devastation that’s sucking at my heart, threatening to pull me into weightless oblivion.
“I won’t say anything, Dad. But what am I supposed to do? I mean . . .”