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She inhaled deeply again, then let it out slowly as she looked back out her window.
“They first found the cancer while I was away for two months in West Palm,” she said.
“In rehab?”
She nodded.
“Same place where I first met Johnny,” she said. “Anyway, they decided—my father told me later—not to tell me because it would have interrupted my treatment.”
“They?”
“My father and half brother, who really was the catalyst.”
“Catalyst? For what?”
“For marginalizing me. He essentially convinced my father, as well as got some board members and other officers at the companies to agree, that I was too young and unstable to be in the positions I was. Especially without my father being there.”
“Wow.”
She looked at him.
“Yeah. ‘Wow.’ At first, my father was not convinced. But as that goddamn disease quickly progressed, as it ate away at him and his mental and physical capacities weakened, he began to agree to certain changes. Small ones at first, then the bigger ones. In the end, I was left overseeing only the philanthropy arm, with a set budget of five million a year. My father’s estate, which held the vast majority of Morgan International shares, was redrawn to provide me personally with a million every quarter.”
“I feel uncomfortable asking, but four million a year isn’t exactly hardship, is it?”
“And that makes me sound like an ungrateful five-star bitch, too, right?” She did not allow him to respond, and went on: “I would agree. Except for the fact that he convinced my father that for the company’s sake—specifically the preservation of the Morgan family fortune—that I would have no access to the principal, only the quarterly payments that would end when I died. Meaning, at that point my principal would be distributed to the surviving family.”
“Which would be Mason.”
“Precisely.”
“But we’re still talking about four million a year, no?”
“Matthew, the pharmaceutical company is valued alone at eleven billion. Everything else nearly doubles that. It is unjust and an outrage that Mr. Morgan manipulated my father in his weakened state so that he could take control while patting me on the head with quarterly payments. Greed, power, ego—that sums up the son of a bitch.”
She paused, and when she looked him in the eyes, he saw tears welling.
“Do I need more money, Matthew? Or course not. Not personally. But, goddamn it, neither does he! So I’m pressuring for the release of my share of the principal—not just the payments, the whole principal—for two reasons. One, because I will see that the money goes to good causes now, as my father wished.”
“And two?”
She smiled.
“Because it will drive Mr. Morgan absolutely crazy. He loves believing that no one can get to him.”
Payne looked out the windshield in thought, then turned back to Camilla Rose.
“And you are saying that that is why Mason Morgan arranged for someone to shoot John Austin?”
“I told you, he hates Johnny. Especially after Johnny told him he was going to help me. For the record, I do not need Johnny’s help. But I do like the fact that he thinks Johnny’s interference could cause him problems, particularly if we married. There is a clause that says that should I marry and have issue, the quarterly payments on my death would continue.”
“The payments would go to your spouse
and child? Or just the child?”
“Just the child . . . or children. It was designed that way to cut off gold diggers looking to marry, then make out like bandits in a divorce. As my mother did.”
“Interesting. And are you going to marry?”
