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But all Maxwell said was, “The deal depends on you going into rehab and staying until the doctor releases you.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Grayson tossed the papers on his desk with a jerky movement. “There’s not even a time limit.”
“No, there isn’t. You’re staying until you have developed a new way to handle your grief.”
“It’s not just about grief. Not anymore,” Grayson surprised Maxwell by admitting.
He’d known that, but he had not realized the older man was that self-aware.
“All the more reason to fix the problem now.” Maxwell wasn’t offering an out.
“It’s not just a problem you can fix.”
“I disagree.”
“Then you go to rehab.”
“I don’t need it. You do.” The man didn’t need coddling.
He got enough of that and sweet understanding from his daughter. It was time for Harry Grayson to be the man Romi thought he was.
Grayson said with a lousy attempt at defiance, “I don’t have to sign this contract.”
“And I don’t have to merge with your company. I can take it over without your cooperation. That’s not what’s at stake here.”
“What is?”
“Visiting time with Romi.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You aren’t going to keep hurting her. One way or another.” Maxwell was under no illusion it would be easy to stage an intervention in Romi’s life with her dad, but she was strong.
She would want Harry Grayson healthy more than her own comfort, no matter how much she might rather avoid the problem.
“She won’t let you take her away from me.” The words were strong, but the worried expression that accompanied them said Grayson wasn’t as confident as they sounded.
“You underestimate my powers of persuasion.” Maxwell, on the other hand, had no doubts about his own abilities.
“You underestimate her loyalty and strength of love.”
“She won’t be the one saying goodbye. You will.”
Showing his brain still functioned, Grayson stopped arguing. “You’ll do whatever you have to do to get your way.”
“You know my reputation.”
“I do. It’s why your offer of a merger surprised me.”
“Accept what I offer.”
“Why? So you don’t have to take what you want?”
“For Romi’s sake.”
The other man’s face crumpled. “She’s a good daughter.”
“She deserves a healthy father.”
“You must care about her or you wouldn’t be pushing this.”
Maxwell didn’t know if Grayson was trying to convince himself or Maxwell, and he didn’t care. He simply waited for the older man to agree to Maxwell’s terms.
“Fine. I’ll sign the contract. And the codicil.”
“Good.”
Maxwell made a call and his bodyguard and personal administrative assistant came in to witness the contract. As a licensed notary, his secondary assistant notarized the contract, too.
Cold-bloodedly efficient? Maybe.
But it worked for him.
“You’re almost scarily resourceful.”
Maxwell didn’t deny it.
Grayson was cursing that truth fifteen minutes later when his bags were packed and Maxwell assigned him a bodyguard-babysitter that would make sure the other man would end up in the rehab center and stay there.
* * *
Romi breezed into the house at five minutes after noon, feeling anything but breezy.
But living by the mantra Never Let Them See You Sweat, she strove for nonchalance as she walked into the living room, where Mrs. K had told Romi she would find Mr. Black waiting for her.
His suit jacket removed and tossed over the back of a chair, his tie loosened and tailored slacks stretched attractively across his muscular thighs, Max relaxed on the sofa. The Grayson family photo albums covered the coffee table in front of him.
Max looked up from the one open in his lap. “Your mother was a beautiful woman.”
“Yes, she was.” Romi set her handbag down and crossed the room.
“You take after her.” He offered her a view of the album that required she sit beside him to see it.
It would have been churlish to refuse, so she didn’t. Tugging the hem of her tunic dress into place, Romi settled next to him. “Thank you, but most people think I look like my dad’s side of the family.”
“No.” Maxwell gave a decisive shake of his head. “Your eyes are not only the same color as hers, but the same almond shape as well.”
“She was a brunette.” Romi’s hair was the same color as her Grandmother Grayson’s had been in her youth. Not that she’d ever met the family matriarch.
“You can see that it was the same fine texture. Like silk…” Max made the words a caress. “And it was straight like yours.”
He grasped some strands of her hair between thumb and forefinger before sliding them down, maybe to show how silky her hair was?
For all the time Romi had spent studying the pictures of her mom, she’d never seen the things Max pointed out.
“I’m a shrimp compared to her.” Four inches taller than her daughter, Jenna Grayson had been a willowy beauty.
“Same pixie-shaped face.” He pointed to the pointed line of her mom’s jaw. “See?”
Romi found herself nodding, caught by his sincerity.
“You also have the same way of holding your head when you are amused. Look at this picture, and this one.” He grabbed one of the other albums.
“You really have been studying these. How long have you been waiting for me?” she asked, touched in a way she didn’t want to admit.
Max set the album down and gave Romi a look she didn’t understand, like he was trying to read something in her face. “Your father and I finished our business nearly two hours ago.”
“And you waited all that time for me?”
“Yes.”
“Why not leave and come back?” Or at least work on his table here? Why spend the time going through her family’s photo history?
“I found enough to occupy myself.”
He had, but certainly nothing she would have considered Maxwell Black spending his morning doing. It was just so domestic. And of all the words she’d used to describe this man, domestic was not one of them.
No matter how much he might care about his mother, she’d never thought of him as a family guy.
The strange intimacy of the moment getting to her, Romi stood up. “Let me just check in with my dad and then we can go to lunch.” She didn’t offer to change her clothes.
She’d
worn a 1960s-inspired tunic dress in a bright pattern of yellow and white circles on a black background with leggings in the same shade of yellow when she left the house this morning. She’d had a strategy meeting with the local chapter of her favorite environmentalist group early that morning and then coffee with a woman instrumental in starting a series of successful charter schools around the country.
She couldn’t believe her and Maddie’s dream of starting their own charter school was so close to realization. Viktor Beck had offered to buy them a building as a wedding gift to Maddie.
Pretty wonderful, really.
Another reason Romi thought the guy might well be the right one for her best friend.
If her clothes were good enough for her meetings, they were good enough for Max.
She wasn’t going to try to sex up the outfit.
Max stood as well. “Your father is not here.”
“What?” He’d gone into the office? Today? “I thought—”
“You know we had a business discussion today.”
“Yes.”
“It went well.”
“Good.” She didn’t have much else to add. “I don’t really have much to do with Grayson Enterprises.”
In case he didn’t already realize that, but her dad had never once suggested Romi give up activism and her dream of running a charter school for the corporate world.
Max nodded, but he said, “I think in this instance, you will be interested in the outcome.”
“Why?”
“Because it will affect you.”
“I don’t think so.” Not in any way that really mattered.
Romi didn’t have anything like the Madison family trust, but her Grandfather Grayson had left her enough money to help finance her dream of the school. She’d been shocked when the lawyers contacted her when she was a sophomore in college, but not too proud to take the money.
Even back then, she and Maddie had been talking dreams and Romi had known she needed money to get them off the ground.
Her dad had started his own trust for her on her birth.
She wasn’t the heiress Maddie was, but Romi couldn’t care less if her dad sold off his company. He didn’t spend enough time there anymore for her to think it really mattered to him, either.
