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“Relax. You see Taylor every day.” Bella chuckled. “After all, I’m the one being set up here.”
Rhonda shot her a look.
“Yes. You’re right. I’m worrying about nothing. This is the first time Taylor and I have seen each other outside work.”
“Don’t you go for Friday drinks every week?” she asked, frowning.
They did. She knew they did.
“As a group. And we sort of dance around each other.” Rhonda shrugged.
Lord, give me strength.
Bella was far too direct to play those sorts of games. It was one of the things she’d liked about Cain. He’d confidently asked her out and not once had she questioned whether he wanted her.
Until he didn’t.
She’d met Cain in college, and the two of them had been inseparable. He was perfect.
He’d also been completing his Bachelor of Science in business and Bella had spent many months envisaging him helping her run Kennedy Enterprises when she inherited it.
Cain didn’t know her real surname and that she needed to marry to receive her shares of Kennedy. When she did, between her mom and her, they would be the majority shareholders and they planned to exit Randall Scott.
Only when the power balance put Scott in a weakened position was her mom willing to take him on.
It made sense to her as a grown-up woman now. As a child, not so much. But what she had learned as she began to understand what her mother had endured was how important it was to keep her identity private. And to find a man who loved her for who she was.
Not what she would one day have.
Cain was that man. They had told each other they loved one another, and she was patiently waiting for them to finish college and his proposal.
Then she could claim back Kennedy Enterprises, her family estate in the Hamptons, and all the other assets that belonged to the Kennedy’s.
Not Randall Scott.
After Tina left, she almost immediately met Ward Montgomery and they fell in love. They never married—because surprise, surprise, Randall had refused to divorce her—but her mom and Ward had three children: Knox, Levi, and Atlas.
Her half brothers, or bodyguards, as Bella liked to call them. All three of them towered over her and were as broad and protective of her as their handsome father.
It was cute.
And annoying.
Over the years, she had heard Ward try to convince her mom to take back what was rightfully hers. Ward was the founder and owner of a luxury fashion company with brand names that rivaled the big names. He was a successful businessman in his own right.
“Leave it, Ward.” Her mom would say. “The trust protects Bella. When she gets her shares, we will be in a much stronger position. You don’t know him.”
“I’ve met him. You know I have. I’m not intimidated by him and if I didn’t think it would traumatize you, I’d be pushing harder.”
“I know, darling.” Her mom had said. “With my heart the way it is, I will not let that son of a bitch kill me.”
Bella hadn’t understood what her mother meant then, but she had the day she’d died. Tina had a heart condition and eventually it had taken her from them all.
Her eavesdropping had explained one other thing.
“I only wish we had overturned the antiquated rule before my father died.” Tina had cursed. “We were just about to when they died in the car accident. Now Bella must marry to get her shares. It’s silly in this day and age.”
Instead, Bella had inherited her mother’s Kennedy shares the day she had died. As the eldest, she got 80 percent, the rest were divided between her half brothers. Something she planned to remedy when she took possession of the company.
