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And I knew better.
I entered my dad’s office, and his head snapped to me, shock scrolling across his face when I locked the door behind me.
“Cole, what are you doing?”
“We need to talk.”
I sat on the couch across from him and explained everything I had learned from Drake and Grace tonight.
The key.
Bastian.
Fitzy.
Viktor.
All of it.
Dad scratched the corner of his jaw, deep in thought. He hadn’t spoken a word for several minutes, taking it all in.
“At least now we understand some of Fitzy’s behavior,” he said after a few more minutes of contemplation. “But Grace having an Elders key doesn’t change anything.”
“Yes, it does,” I shot back.
“This only puts more of a target on her head.”
“Grace has leverage over him,” I insisted. “Something none of us have on the old man.”
He sat back in the oversized armchair, resting his dress shoe on his knee. “Even without the key, Fitzy is still worth over two hundred and fifty billion dollars. Grace won’t inherit a cent until he dies. Besides, women can’t become members of The Founders Society.”
“It’s not about the money. That keyispower. And we both know Fitzy won’t allow anyone to have that over him. He hasn’t killed Grace because if he had, he would never know what she did with the key.”
“I understand the predicament,” my dad said with an attitude. “I don’t need my son to explain it to me.”
I inched toward him, anger surging through me. “Then do something about it! We finally have a way out from under the old man. No more following his stupid rules.”
Dad placed the highball glass on the desk and rose from the chair. “This is about your feelings for Grace. What have I told you about mixing business and pleasure? The two can never go together without one jeopardizing the other.”
“I don’t have feelings for Grace,” I lied. “I’m just doing my job.”
Grace had asked me if she was just a job to me.
Of course not.
She was everything.
I’d never met a woman I wanted to keep around for more than a few weeks. Grace was special and not in a clichéd way. It wasn’t because she wasn’t like other girls. My attraction to her came from something more profound, a need to connect with her on a cellular level.
I asked her to write a bucket list so that I could learn everything about her. What were her dreams? Her desires? And I wanted to be the person to give them to her.
“Grace is important to you, Cole.” Dad rose from the chair and put his hand on my shoulder. “I understand. I felt the same way about your mother when we first met. I would have done anything to protect her. Still would. But you have to let her go. Grace isn’t like your mother. She doesn’t have the same freedom to choose who she wants to love. Her grandfather will never allow it.”
“That’s why she needs to use the key,” I said with anger dripping from my tone, my body shaking. “She’ll never be free of the old man if she doesn’t cash it in.”
“Cole, I said no. You have no right to that key, and neither does Grace. Where are you keeping it?”
“It’s well hidden.”
