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“Are they from families we would know?” She asks, and my hand tightens on Cyrus’s knee, her father doesn’t miss the interaction as I ease my grip.
“I honestly don’t know or even care who their families are.” Cyrus snaps.
“All of Cyrus’s new friends come from very influential families, Briar Academy’s student body is made up of top bloodlines.”
“That’s good to know, we only want the best for Cyrus, but she does come from money and needs to surround herself with like-minded people.”
This time it’s Cyrus that digs her nails into me. “Celine, I was wondering if we could talk in private,” Cyrus asks her. I know that she is diverting this conversation and giving me time to talk to Mitchel alone.
“Of course,” Celine says, and both women stand and walk inside.
Mitchel watches as they leave before he turns back to me. “So, what are your intentions with my daughter?”
His tone has changed from father to business man, the switch is easily noticeable.
“Total transparency, they were not always noble, but that’s why I’m here. I need to know where you stand with my father, but your clear distaste for me says that you’re not friends with him at all, even though he has led me to believe that.”
“Your father is not a man I would normally associate myself with.”
“I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I need out from under his thumb, and sir, I honestly don’t know how to do that without it impacting Cyrus. If I don’t win the fight, if someone is stupid enough to fight against me now that I have taken my cousin’s points, you know as well as I do that you have already signed the contracts. I came to see if you were working with him or if he is blackmailing you.”
Mitchel stares at me, he is trying to work out if he can trust me, the son of a man who clearly has something on him.
“He is blackmailing me, and his first mistake was thinking that I would bow down to the demands of someone trying to extort me for my own child. That is all I’m willing to say on the matter. No offence, but you’re Malcom Briar’s son, and I wouldn’t put it past him to use you against me.”
“I thought you might feel that way and came prepared. Cyrus will kill me for saying this, but my father is blackmailing her too. I have hired the best to fix it.”
“What do they have on her?” He asks, his brows furrowed, annoyed at himself that he didn’t know.
“A sex tape, but that is her story to tell. But the man I have working on it isn’t just deleting it but compiling evidence of my father holding a sex tape that consists of three minors since they were all underage at the time the tape was taken.”
“Why would you do that for my daughter?”
“I love her, she is stubborn and headstrong. She doesn’t let me walk all over her, and she calls me on my crap. She recently reminded me that the man I want my mother to be proud of wasn’t the man I was becoming.”
“My first impression of you was wrong, but fixing her blackmail doesn’t erase mine.”
I take a stab in the dark. “He knows that you’re sleeping with the help.”
Mitchel’s eyes go wide, and he looks around. “You’re very perceptive, but no.”
“Does your future wife know?”
“No, and she doesn’t need to. I have made some mistakes in my life, and Celine is one of them.”
“My father got to her, didn’t he?” I ask, shocked that I didn’t think of it sooner. Mitchel isn’t the weakest link in his family.
“My wife was ill before she died. I met Celine at an event, and we hit it off. Your father has proof that I had an affair before my wife died, and if Cyrus found out, it would kill her. And she hasn’t been strong in a long time. I wanted to leave Celine, and your father has it in her head that if I do, she could tell her story to the press. Which I could easily squash before it hit print.”
“You know that she is better off hearing it from you. You’re all she has left, and she is stronger now. If she found out from anyone else, that she couldn’t forgive.”
“What could who not forgive?” Cyrus asks, and I stare at Mitchel, neither of them will be able to move forward. I didn’t dare ask Mitchel what my father really wants from him, because the man clearly is trying to figure out a way to get out from under my father.
“Where is Celine?” Her father asks.
“She got a call and said she would be ten minutes.”
Mitchel nods and gets up and pulls the sliding glass doors shut and locks them.
