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“Your terms?” My father must have lied about the two million. “Then it was you.”
“Clarke wanted me in the family. He felt I’d be a good influence.”
“Cut the crap. What did you have over him?”
Her lips curled up at one end. “He owed me. Didn’t he?”
I studied her. “For sleeping with you?”
She nodded. “I was only fifteen. I have proof, and he knew it. And I could’ve had him charged, but I didn’t. Because I loved your father.” She took my hand. “And I love you.”
“Strange kind of love. Blackmailing someone who can’t stand you into marriage.”
“It didn’t feel like that at Aspen. You fucked me all weekend. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t. That was drunken, wild me. I left him behind.”
“Well, I want him back. And this gold will buy him back.”
I sat down in an armchair by the elevator and placed my head in my hands. What am I going to do? Our flights were booked for the following day.
“We need to sign now so they can arrange the transfer. Or I get it all.” She paused. “If you want to remain a free man, you need this.”
“I’m trying to decide which is worse: trapped in jail or trapped into marrying you.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said with an ugly smile.
Seething with rage, I ached to punch a wall and or break something.
“How long?” I asked.
“Two years. Then you get half. Three billion.”
“Then I go to jail, don’t I? Because Tamara wants her cash now.”
“She’ll get her money as soon as it comes through.”
“So you’re hoping within two years I’ll fall in love and become a doting husband?”
She shrugged. “I can make you happy.”
I scoffed at that impossibility.
If I went to jail, what would happen to Manuel? What would happen to my relationship? But then, if I married Britney, Miranda would run.
Indecision had me by the throat. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. I had to think about Manuel’s future, and I would have a record, tarnishing my future.
Even if I sold the estate, the penthouse, and the two remaining Pollocks, I would still fall short of paying Tamara, by about half a billion.
Could a brilliant lawyer get me off these trumped-up charges?
A protracted court case would become a blood sport for the media, and the Peace name would be forever affiliated with the ugly chapter.
Time was against me. If it weren’t for that bloodied T-shirt, the case, according to Hank, probably wouldn’t stand up in court. And how did Tamara find that goddamn T-shirt in the first place?
When questioned, I’d argued the T-shirt was to clean up the blood. But she’d alleged that I’d tossed my T-shirt out, which meant I was hiding something. If only I’d been the one to call the ambulance and not Britney.
I’m fucked.
My father’s trickery had landed the biggest blow. He’d dangled a two-billion-dollar carrot in front of me. With the benefit of hindsight, the stipulation that I fly to Geneva with Britney to claim my inheritance should have alerted me to the ruse. But I would have gone to jail without the money.
