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“Yeah? You don’t need to send me a thank you note,” Troy said. Or pay me a thank-you visit, he added to himself.
Conor chuckled, then finally sat on a chair across from Troy. “I’m here because I’ve been thinking…”
A thread of frustration worked its way down Troy’s spine. Thoughts jumped in his head, and he balled his fingers into a fist under the table. He could only imagine what kind of schemes Conor had been cooking up. “Shoot,” he said.
Conor drummed his fingers on the desk. “Well, I heard your father came in town and helped you plan for your wedding party.” A flicker of greed touched his eyes. “That got me wondering how badly you wanted to marry this woman you just met. So I was too quick to agree with your offer of the downtown property.”
Troy snarled. Bile rose to the back of his throat, and he swallowed it, pushing down the lump of contempt. What he really wanted was to get his hands on Conor, man to man, and teach him a thing or two about keeping your word in business. But a part of him held him back, and he settled for clenching the chair arms until his knuckles whitened.
If he fell for it and punched Conor’s lights out, he’d have more trouble than last time. His father wouldn’t believe the same excuse again. And he couldn’t risk it when he was so close to getting what he wanted. “What do you want?” he asked in an evenly tone.
“The property next to the one you’ve tried to use to keep my silence.”
He didn’t need a real estate agent to remind him the property he was talking about would cost him nearly the double as the other. Not only that, he’d have to deal with breaking a contract since that property was currently occupied. A lot of mess to sweep under a rug. “No.”
“Don’t say it too quickly… think about it. How much is this marriage worth to you? Probably much more than those two properties.”
Troy shook his head. Should he just deal with the consequences?
“I hired an investigator who also told me you slept with your brother’s wife. Now everything clicked. I thought to myself, why would Giorgio Gallucci send his first son to Tulip instead of having him spearhead the business in Los Angeles?”
Troy didn’t move an inch. Every muscle in his body tensed. When he’d betrayed Mateo, he hadn’t shared his shame with a soul outside of his family. He doubted his brother had either. But Conor probably had hired some low life who had a way to find out this kind of information—the bastard probably followed Michelle, talked to employees, hacked into her text messages.
“I mean, I’ve seen your sister-in-law and I don’t blame you,” Conor said, then whistled.
Troy surged to his feet, towering over Conor. “I’d think twice before saying anything else. You don’t have your bodyguards here with you today.”
Conor removed a lint from his suit, then chuckled. He stood slowly, his expression sobering until a dark stance took over his features. “You have three days to think about it. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll go talk to your father, and trust me, all my bodyguards will be with me then.”
He watched Conor leave his office, and when the door was slammed behind him, Troy plopped down his chair, hands in his face. What the fuck would he do? He could use his own money to orchestrate a fake selling of the property, and cover the costs of breaking the contract with the company that rented from them.
But what would that mean?
His father would still find the deal odd—and what guarantees did he have that Conor wouldn’t blackmail him again in the future?
It seemed like there was no way he could win—and he hated that feeling.
A day later, Troy looked at the enormous house in front of him. He’d driven to Los Angeles with Lara and left her at his parents’ then drove straight to his brother’s home.
He hadn’t made up his mind about how to deal with Conor yet, but he knew that either way he needed to deal with his brother. That had been what he promised his father, and also promised himself.
He always sucked at groveling, but maybe now was a good time to learn.
He knocked the door, and a few seconds later, someone opened it. He expected it to be a housekeeper or a butler, and not Michelle.
She looked at him, tilting her head to the side. Eyes on his. “Troy?”
“I need to talk to Mateo.”
“Is everything okay with your father? What happened?” she asked but stepped back and opened the door wide, allowing him entry.
Of course she’d assume an emergency had propelled him to visit his brother like this. A feeling of faint sadness filled his chest. How could she expect the best from him when he’d only shown her his worst?
“Nothing happened. I just need to chat with Mateo about a couple of things,” he said casually. Telling her the purpose of his being there would only bring more anxiety, especially to her. He’d already caused Michelle enough damage.
She nodded. “All right. Well, he’s in the home office now.”
“Thanks,” he said, and before she could protest or ask him to stay in the sumptuous living room, he strode toward the office. He’d seen it before—many times. Most of those, happy occasions.
