agree.” Her father gave her a stern glare. “Or I will cut her out of my life completely.”
The words were painful enough to hear, but the absolute conviction in her father’s voice stabbed straight through Maddie’s carefully cultivated facade to the genuine and all-too-vulnerable emotions underneath.
“Over this?” she demanded, waving her hand toward the printed articles. “It’s not true!”
“You will not continue to drag my name and that of my company through the mud, Madison.”
“I don’t do that.” While she’d managed a certain level of media notoriety, it had never before been because of anything even remotely like the lies Perry had spewed to the tabloids.
Her father began reading the headlines out loud and weak tears burned the back of her eyes. Maddie refused to give in to them, wishing she could be as genuinely emotionless as the steel-gray-haired man flaying her with other people’s words.
“I told you, he lied.”
“Why would he?” the media fixer asked, sounding interested in an almost clinical way.
“For money. For revenge.” Because she’d turned him down one too many times and compounded that by refusing his latest request for a loan. “I don’t know, but he lied.”
How many times did she have to say it?
“It is time for definitive measures to be taken,” Jeremy said, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“On that at least, we can agree, beginning with the demand for a retraction. I can do my own interview.” Even though she hated that kind of direct contact with the media.
She considered offering the ultimate sacrifice of integrating her Maddie Grace life with that of socialite Madison Archer in order to combat the negative image that clearly concerned her father.
Jeremy dismissed her offer with a slicing gesture. “I believe I’ve made it clear that the current scandal is not my primary concern.”
“What is your concern?” she asked, confused.
“The capricious lifestyle that has resulted in your unacceptable and notorious reputation.”
“You want me to come work for AIH?” she asked with zero enthusiasm and even less belief.
The last time the issue of Archer International Holdings had come up, her father had made it clear he no longer harbored dreams of her one day taking over.
His harsh bark of laughter was all the answer she needed. “Absolutely not.”
“You want me to get a job somewhere else?” She could do that.
She preferred using her education as a volunteer teacher’s aide, but if it would help her relationship with her father, she would get a paying job—which hopefully wouldn’t conflict with her volunteering schedule.
More derisive laughter fell from her father’s lips. “Do you really think any reputable charity or business would hire you right now?”
Heat climbed up her neck, ending in a very rare blush. She’d become adept at hiding her emotions, even suppressing her blushes of embarrassment a long time ago.
But suddenly, she realized that if it did become known that Madison Archer was Maddie Grace, the school might be forced to disallow Maddie’s volunteering. All because a man she’d thought was a friend had turned out to be a lying, manipulative, opportunistic user.
“He wants you to get married,” Vik informed her, no indication in his tone or demeanor that he was joking.
Her father did not jump in with a denial, either.
For the first time, she looked around the room to see how the other occupants were reacting. Her father’s media fixer and PA were both busy on their tablets, ignoring the conversation now, or giving a pretty good pretense of doing so.
One of his managers was looking at her with the type of speculation that left Madison feeling dirty, but the fact he had the articles about her spread out in front of him could have something to do with that, too.
The other manager was reading through the paperwork and the man who Maddie did not know was looking at her father, his expression assessing.
Vik’s expression was enigmatic as always.
She met her father’s gaze again, finding nothing there but implacable resolve. “You want me to get married.”
“Yes.”
“Who?” she asked, unhappily certain she already had an inkling.
“One of these four men.” Her father indicated Vik, the two other managers and the man she did not know. “You know Viktor, of course, and I am sure you remember Steven Whitley.” Jeremy nodded toward a manager she was fairly certain had been divorced once already and was nearly twice her age.
Maddie found herself acknowledging both men with a tip of her own head in some bizarre ritual of polite behavior. Or maybe it was just the situation that was so bizarre.
He indicated the manager whose look had given her the willies. “Brian Jones.”
His expression was benign now, almost pitying.
“I thought you were engaged,” she said, her voice almost as tight as her throat. But that couldn’t be helped.
Hadn’t Maddie met his fiancée at the last Christmas party?
“Are you?” her father asked, annoyance clear in his tone. “Miss Priest?”
His PA looked up from her tablet with a frown. “Yes, sir?”
“Jones is engaged.”
“Is he?” Miss Priest didn’t sound concerned. “He is not married.”
“But I will be.” Brian stood. “I don’t believe I’ll be needed for the rest of this meeting, if you’ll excuse me, sir?”
“Did you read the contract?” her father demanded.
“I did.”
“And you are still leaving?”
“Yes, sir.”
A measure of respect shone in her father’s eyes even as he frowned. “Then go.” He nodded toward the stranger on the other side of Maddie as if the introductions had not been interrupted by the defection of one of his candidates. “Maxwell Black, CEO of BIT.”
Maxwell smiled at her, magnetism that might actually rival Vik’s exuding from him. “Hello, Madison. It’s good to see you again.”
He wasn’t overtly sexual, but there was a vibe to him that made Maddie wrap her arms protectively around herself. This man carried power around him the same way Vik did, but with a predatory edge she hadn’t experienced from her father’s heir apparent.
