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“I will buy from you.” He stood up and walked around the desk, picked up a folder and handed it to me. “I had an assessment done on the property. Mineral rights. Water. Everything. There’s no oil. But your father bought the land and used it for access to the river. The engineer I hired gave me an estimate of twenty-five thousand dollars for the land. I will offer you fifty.”
“Double?”
“I want the land. And I’m not interested in haggling.”
“I’m supposed to just…trust you?”
“No, you’re supposed to trust the engineer. All of his information is there. I encourage you to research him.”
I opened the file, which was stuffed with information. I understood some of it. Lots of it went over my head. The last piece of paper was a Google Earth picture of the property. The twenty acres was nestled right into a curve of the river.
“It must be very pretty,” I said, for honestly no good reason.
“I suppose.”
“There’s a building on it.” His silence was odd and I looked up at him. “Does someone live there?”
“There is a tenant. He has paid rent on the building for twenty years. Five hundred dollars a month.”
“Will you kick him out once you have the land?”
“No, Veronica, I will not kick him out. You can take your time, perhaps take the information to Madison, but fifty grand is the best deal you’ll get for that land.”
It was generous. But it wasn’t enough.
“That won’t help my sisters,” I said.
He nodded slowly, like he understood. But he didn’t.
“I don’t want my father’s company,” I said.
“You should,” he said. “It’s your birthright.”
“Birthrights don’t mean much in the King family. Not if you’re a girl.” I’d been rehearsing this speech for hours and was not going to get sidetracked. “I don’t want the ranch. Truly, Clayton, I don’t want any of this.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is!”
He shook his head, the corner of his lips lifted like he was laughing at me.
“The foundation?” he asked.
“Hardly matters,” I said. “My sisters—”
“You’ve always been shit at claiming what you want. Actually—” he corrected himself “—you’ve been shit at even knowing what you want.”
I forced myself not to stand up and walk out of there. It was very, very hard. “You don’t know me.”
“Then say it,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Just tell me what you want. It’s not a sin to want something for yourself, Veronica. It’s not a sin to put your wants in front of your sisters’.”
“But they need—”
He lifted his eyebrow and I shut my mouth.
“Fuck you,” I said.
“Your negotiation skills are remarkable.”
“I’m glad this is funny to you, but Bea is in trouble. Real financial trouble that I can’t get her out of without real money. And Sabrina needs…”
“A keeper?”
“A trust. A safety net.”
“I agree.”
“So why are we arguing?”
“Because you haven’t told me what you want.”
You on your hands and knees in front of my chair, like you were last time I was here.
I shook my head, horrified at the thought. Horrified that part of me wanted that.
“I’ll give it to you,” he said, and my core temperature nearly exploded. He wasn’t agreeing…to that. “You just have to ask.”
“Fine. The foundation. I’d like to have control of my mother’s foundation again. And money for my sisters.” I took a deep breath, hope loosening my rib cage. “It would be a loan.”
“What would?”
“The money you give me.”
He looked at me for so long I wondered if maybe I hadn’t said the words out loud. Maybe I only thought them. I opened my mouth to repeat them but he tilted his head. “What do I get in return?”
“Well, repayment in due time with interest. Like any loan.”
“No.”
“No…what?”
“I don’t agree to your terms.”
“You just said you would give me what I wanted.”
“Certainly. But under my terms.”
“Oh, this should be good.”
“I will pay your sister’s debts and start a trust for both of them, with you as trustee.”
“That’s….amazing…” I narrowed my eyes, waiting for the catch.
“You will have full control of the foundation and in return I want one thing.”
“Clayton, what could you possibly want that I have?”
“You. As my wife.”
9
VERONICA
Somehow I was up and out of my seat, heading for the door before I even realized it. This fucking suit wasn’t protection at all. There was no protection against Clayton. He came, with his humiliation and his cruelty, from all sides.
“Veronica.”
He was right behind me and this office was suddenly as long as a football field. I wanted to run but managed to stop myself. I had some pride.
Didn’t I?
“Is this a joke?”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Fuck you.”
“Veronica…” He had the audacity to touch my wrist. Not grab it, but touch it, and it was enough to send me swinging around, my hand raised to cuff him across his smug, handsome face.
He caught my hand and no matter how I struggled to pull it free he wouldn’t let go.
