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I have several staff on hand in the mansion—a butler, a cook, cleaners, and the two waiters who double up as security guards when needed. I don’t need to lift a finger, and I don’t want to. My business takes up most of my time. “Mr. Armstrong, senior, is here to see you.”
I groan. My father, just what I need now.
“Put him in my office. I’ll be there soon,” I instruct the butler, and he nods acceptance and disappears.
“What do you think he wants?” Max questions.
“I know exactly what he wants, but he’s not going to get it.” I push my chair back and get to my feet. “He wants to inspect Shelby, but I’m not letting him anywhere near her just yet. He’s the last person she needs to meet.”
“I agree with you there. Do you want me to keep an eye on her?”
“Please.”
I leave the dining room and make my way through the house toward my office. When I push the door open, I find my father sitting at my desk and reading the papers on it.
“I hope you’ve dealt with him.” He tosses the information I was given about Mr. Belfield stealing from the casino across my desk.
“A message was sent.”
“Good.”
“How can I help you, sir?” I’ve addressed my father as sir for as long as I can remember. He’s never been Papa or Daddy. He’s always been sir.
“You picked the girl up?”
“I did.” I take a seat in the chair on the other side of the desk, facing my father.
A decanter of whiskey sits in front of him. I pour two glasses and push one toward my father. He picks it up and takes a large mouthful of its contents. It’s the finest whiskey from Scotland, aged for many years in a cask purchased by my grandfather, whose father was Scottish. We have some sent over regularly.
“And where is she?”
“Currently she is locked in her room. I suspect reading a book on veterinary science.” I take my own sip of the warming, amber nectar.
“Why is she not in your bed, waiting for you? You did marry her, didn’t you? We need to get on with this, Eaton.” My father’s eyebrows furrow, and I know he’s angry.
“I said I would do this my way, sir, and a shotgun wedding is not the way.”
“I don’t care what you think. I want you married to her before the end of the week. It’s the only way we can get her inheritance. This is my business, and for a long time, it’s been divided. I’ll always regret going into business with her father. He played me from the very start. We need to get back what is rightfully ours. He stole it from me, and as a result, his little girl will pay the price.”
I hold my hand up to silence my father. I wouldn’t have done it when I was younger. I would have been beaten black and blue for showing such disrespect, but as he’s aged, he’s become frailer, and for a man of only sixty, he looks at least ten years older. It’s probably because he’s a heavy smoker and doesn’t look after his body, something I will never let happen to me. He may still oversee the business, but I’m stronger now and can take a few more liberties.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I will not be married to Shelby by the weekend. You hid her away all these years. You left her with a mother who is a drug addict and a whore. She’s weak from malnutrition and has a lot of complex issues. I will do this my way, and that means gaining her trust first.”
My father screws his face up. “You don’t need to gain her trust. You just need to marry her and get her pregnant. I’ll get back everything that was taken from me, and she can go back to her old life. This isn’t going to be a permanent marriage for you, Eaton. Shelby Jones is a means to an end. That’s what her scumbag of a father did to her. Jesus, he even made his wife a prostitute. She was a lovely woman until she met him. God fearing and deeply involved in the community. He turned her into a whore who opens her legs for drugs.”
“And you had nothing to do with that as his business partner, profiting off of anything you could get your hands on.”
“Don’t talk back to me, boy.”
My father and I are sparring now.
“Why did you leave Shelby with her mother? Why not arrange for us to grow up together?”
“I wasn’t going to pay for that bastard’s daughter. She deserved to have it tough because of what her father did to me.”
My father gets to his feet and makes his way across the room to where I have a picture of my mother. She was murdered when I was twelve years old. Shot in the back of the head, execution style. I was so young I don’t remember the details. I know the case was never solved, despite my father’s attempts to find out who did it. All I remember is that the warmth in my life disappeared over night.
My father was always too busy to look after me, so I was shipped off to various boarding schools, the best ones money could buy, to get the finest education. In addition to the usual subjects, I was also taught about my father’s business by the guards he sent to look after me.
