“Not quite. I have a proposition for you,” Nolan says. “If you’re open to hearing it.”
“Of course.” I sit up.
Broderick shifts in his seat, listening, taking notes as Nolan lays out an offer I never could have anticipated.
Nolan Ames is holding strong on the legacy clause. He wants me to “find someone,” to “settle down,” to get fucking married and start a family. He’s also graciously giving me two years because according to him, “you’re thirty-five and your best years are behind you anyway.” He even had the audacity to say I’d thank him someday.
Thank him for what? For a money-hungry trophy wife? For a kid that’ll inevitably be raised by a team of nannies? For a version of my life I’ve never wanted?
People like me don’t do the marriage-and-family dance.
It’s not who we are.
It’s not who I am.
I’m aware of my strengths. I’m also aware of my weaknesses. I’d be a horrible husband and an even worse excuse for a father.
Nolan agreed to put everything in writing—that he wouldn’t offer his shares to anyone else in the next two years, and the board agreed to do the same. I imagine there was an extensive amount of coaxing going on behind the scenes, hence the muting, but I don’t have time to imagine what he could possibly hold over their heads because I’m too busy wrapping my mind around this preposterous, unprecedented stipulation.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” I all but spit my words at Broderick when we disconnect a few minutes later. “He’s insane.”
Broderick rises, his chair groaning beneath his bodyguard-esque frame, and he tosses his pen on the table. Pacing the windows, he inhales hard and heavy, always a man of few words.
“I’m going to need you to actually fucking say something.” I exhale, my patience non-existent. Though my words are sharp, Broderick’s got a chainmail ego. He can handle it, unlike the spineless trout before him. He puts up with my moods, whichever way they swing, and when necessary, he puts me in my place.
It’s why I’ve yet to replace him in the ten years he’s worked for me.
Most people tell me what I want to hear.
Broderick tells me what I need to hear—the truth.
A man can’t make savvy business decisions based on sugarcoated lies.
“It’s a power move,” he says, eyes pointed yet unfocused. I don’t like this side of him. I need my shark, not his shell-shocked alter.
“Obviously.” I clench my jaw. “So what do you propose?”
He stops wearing a pattern into the carpet with his polished dress shoes and turns to me. “How badly do you want this?”
“Do I even have to answer that?”
His mouth forms a straight line, nostrils flaring. “Fine. This is the plan. We hire someone. We find a woman—one we can trust—and we pay her to marry you, have your child, and to do it all in Nolan’s timeframe.”
“Please tell me you’re fucking joking.”
He lifts a brow. “Eight months of this back-and-forth bullshit and the man hasn’t budged, Trey. Hasn’t even come close. You heard what he wants. He’s not wavering on that clause. And unfortunately, he knows he has the upper hand because anyone else would’ve walked by now.”
“This is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.” In my nearly fifteen years of negotiating acquisitions and takeovers, I’ve yet to hear of such a provision. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was being pranked. But Ames has a reputation. He’s a family man. Wife of nearly ten years. Two kids. The bastard even wrote a book on “creating the ideal marriage in an anti-marriage world.” Instant bestseller. He considers himself an expert in that—and many other—arenas.
In my experience, powerful men who think they’re the smartest asshole in the room make some of the dumbest decisions … sometimes simply because they can. The world doesn’t tell men like Nolan Ames “no” just as it doesn’t tell men like me “no.”
I hunch over the table, staring down at the circled name.
Sophie Bristol.
“All right. Plan B. We tell him we’re going to pass,” Broderick says, lifting a finger because he knows I’m about to protest. “If he knows you’re willing to walk away and take your excessively generous offer off the table, maybe it’ll light a little fire in him. Level the playing field a bit. Tip the scales in our favor—or at least equalize them.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we move on and find another company to buy.”
I don’t like the idea of moving on. I want this company. I’ve had my sights set on it for years, and when rumor had it he was looking to sell so he could retire early and focus on being a “family man,” I jumped on the opportunity.
“No.” I exhale. Perhaps I’m being petulant in this moment, but I don’t fucking care. There’s a way to make this happen, I’m certain.
“Then we need to find someone,” he says, “someone who’s compatible with you, someone you find attractive, someone who would be an ideal mother, and like I said, someone you can trust. We could have them vetted by a psychologist if you want, a doctor as well to make sure she’s capable of bearing—”
I lift a palm. He shuts up mid-sentence.
“—now you’re getting too many people involved.” I wave his words away, gaze focused on that name. Sophie Bristol. The syllables roll soft and sensual in my mind. I can only imagine the way they’d feel on my tongue. “I want you to look into her.”
I rip the page from the legal pad and slide it toward him.
“She works here,” I say. “No idea what department. I ran into her earlier. She might be a fit for … this.”
Broderick scans the name before folding the paper into fourths, and then he tucks it into the interior pocket of his suit jacket. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Three
Sophie
Present
I’m in the middle of running a Tuesday report for Miranda in Accounts Receivable when my office phone flashes with an unfamiliar extension.
It takes me three rings to process the name on the Caller ID.
It takes me an additional stomach-dropping ring to answer. “Sophie Bristol speaking.”
In the three years I’ve worked at Westcott Corporation, Trey Westcott has never called me.
“Ms. Bristol, I need you to report to my office.” The commanding tenor in my boss’ voice sends actual chills down my spine—not an easy feat. “Immediately.”
The number of times I’ve physically seen the unknowable powerhouse of a man, I could count on one hand, and all of those times have been in passing—with today being an exception.
From what I’ve heard, a person only gets called into his office when they’re about to be fired. The man likes to dole out pink slips in person. He claims it’s a respect thing, though I can’t help but wonder if he simply gets off on it. Power changes people.
Then again, Westcott’s been powerful his entire life. Born to one of the wealthiest families in the world and orphaned as a teenager, he’s spent the past twenty years turning his $500 billion inheritance into a net worth that tops a trillion dollars.