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“Well, it’s true. I did. Graduated university with honors and whizzed through a wretchedly difficult MBA. I thought I deserved a pat on the back for that. My dad had other ideas.”
“Go on.”
“My plan was to take a year off and hitchhike my way through Europe. Decide what I wanted to do with my life. Find myself. All that jazz. Unfortunately, my father had waited long enough for me to shape up and grow up. He wanted me to step into the family business sooner than later.”
“And that business is…?”
“My great-grandparents opened one of the first furniture manufacturing companies in North Carolina. They stayed on top decade after decade. My father happily picked up the reins when it was his turn.”
“But not you.”
“It looked like a prison sentence to me. I tried to talk to my dad. He was having none of it. So he went behind my back and devised plan two.”
“How Machiavellian.”
“You don’t know the half of it. He and another of the big companies saw financial difficulties looming in the distance. They decided that consolidating would give them both an unbreachable stronghold in the area. And they were right. It wasn’t enough to agree. Both men thought the deal was only as good as the personal investment.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The other guy had a daughter my age.”
“A blond, beautiful daughter.”
“You got it. Vanessa was wealthy in her own right, but there was never enough as far as she was concerned. My father hatched a plan for the two of us to meet and offered her fifty thousand dollars if she could get me to commit to her. Daddy dearest knew I’d end up tied to the woman and the business, and he would have achieved the endgame.”
“You weren’t suspicious?”
“I was twenty-four years old and horny from morning to night. Fate drops a gorgeous blonde in my lap. What was I supposed to do? She laughed at all my jokes, offered sex with no strings attached, and did her best to make me fall in love with her.”
I was hanging on Finley’s every word. I couldn’t imagine him being manipulated by anyone, much less a woman. “Did you? Fall in love, I mean?”
“I fell in lust. I’m not sure I knew what love was. The scary thing is, it would have worked if I hadn’t stumbled onto the money trail. My father kept his checkbook in the middle drawer of his desk at home. One afternoon I was looking for a paperclip. A damned paperclip. The check register was open, and there was her name and the amount. When I confronted him, he didn’t deny it. He said I was too arrogant and stupid to know what was good for me.”
“Oh, Finley.”
“We had a monstrous shouting match that stopped just short of me bashing his head with a fireplace poker. Bella came in during the middle of it and burst into tears. I walked out and never went back.”
“Never?”
“I had worked all during high school and college. Contrary to my father’s belief, I wasn’t really irresponsible. I had a nice nest egg saved up. I spent a few nights on a buddy’s couch coming up with a plan. A week later, I was on a plane for Europe. And you know the rest.”
I sat in silence, trying to absorb everything he had said. “You’ve never mentioned your mother.”
“She died when Bella was three and I was eight.”
“Did your father every remarry?”
“Yep. Six months after I left for Europe, he married Vanessa.”
The blunt statement stunned me. Finley had been betrayed several times over by the man who should have been firmly in his corner. “Oh, God. That’s dreadful.”
“Yeah. Needless to say, I didn’t go to the wedding. Those were pretty much the most humiliating months of my life. Dear Bella refused to lose contact with me, even though with the mood I was in I wasn’t much of a brother.”
“I don’t understand. You said Bella’s getting a doctorate. Didn’t your father pressure her into the family business as well?”
“Bella was always brilliant. Everyone knew she was destined for a bright future. Besides, my father is very old fashioned. The whole father-to-son lineage thing is important to him. Very biblical.”
“Has Bella ever visited you here?”
