Knight (44 page)

He didn’t scare me either, but I wondered if he should have.

“Tea it is.” I gave him a refill of the chilled lemon tea. Max’s dark eyes studied me. I ignored him. “Anyone else?”

Darius rattled his glass. The ice clinked. “Another whiskey, my dear.”

I froze. Mom nodded toward the dining room.

She wasn’t serious.

Dad’s
whiskey? The last of the special cask? The whiskey wasn’t just rare—it wasn’t made anymore. Dad savored each and every drop and reserved it only for special occasions like births or funerals or major, multi-million dollar deals.

And Darius had the nerve to slosh it around his glass like two bit moonshine.

I seized his tumbler, but the final straw rested at the feet of Reed.

Hamlet—my fuzzy goldendoodle—betrayed me. He rolled over and begged for tummy rubs from the youngest of my step-brothers.

Reed shared his father’s callous poise, but when he grinned he seemed playful, a brightness that belonged at a beach barbeque, not boardroom. He had a dimple, but only one, on his left cheek. His right side tugged his smile differently, and a scar tore from his neck through his ear. But it didn’t disfigure him.

I remembered he had actually enjoyed the wedding. Unlike Nicholas and Max, he danced most of the night with whatever girl was available. He grabbed me twice. Grandma loved him and lamented that a twenty-four year old man was a bit too young for her.

He was charming for a Bennett. Then again, Reed and Hamlet probably shared the same litter. Reed scratched his tummy, Hamlet fluttered his leg, and that was all the bullshit I was about to tolerate.

“Hamlet.” I had to snap his name twice before he peeled himself from Reed. I pointed to the corner. “Go lay down.”

“He wasn’t bothering me,” Reed winked. “Nice pup.”

I slammed the tumbler against the table. Darius folded his hands.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Sprout, Darius has a rule,” Mom whispered. My step-brothers smirked at the nickname.
Great
. “No business at dinner.”

And my real father had his own rules. Don’t put off what needs to be done. The corn would rot without harvest, and the animals would suffer without water. Atwood Industries wasn’t a
business
. It was a living, breathing ecosystem that would wither and die in the hands of Darius Bennett.

“It’s okay, Bethany,” Darius said. “I expected this from Sarah.”

Max crossed his arms, but Reed ignored the conversation. Nicholas gestured for me to sit.

I declined.

“I watched your press conference today, Darius.” I tried to speak civilly and failed. A soft cough forced its way out. I hid it behind my hand.

“Are you well, my dear?”

“You had no authority to speak for Atwood Industries.”

“With all due respect...” Nicholas said. His voice rumbled deep with the smoothness of melting wax. God, it was disarming. “My father was speaking for the Bennett Corporation.”

“About
us
.”

Mom started to fret. She stumbled over Hamlet and trembled to the stove. She reached in, forgetting the oven mitts. Reed stopped her before she grabbed the roasting pan. He stole a towel from the counter and removed the dish. Mom thanked him, and he grinned again.

“Aren’t you sweet,” she said.

“Just hungry.” He took the carving knife from Mom before she picked it up by the blade. “Let me?”

“Sarah, come sit so we can eat,” she said.

“I don’t have much an appetite, thanks.” I reached into my bag, but Darius interrupted me before I pulled the will.

“My dear, I intend to buy your company.”

The words sliced through me, as if he ripped my heart out and stuffed it in our fields’ tilled dirt.

He thought my father’s legacy was for sale, that he could scrape out the memories and hard work and blood from our own kitchen with a handshake and serpentine leer.

“Get out of my house.”

Mom covered her mouth. “Sarah, listen to your father.”

“He is
not
my father.”

“And she will never see me as such, Bethany. I told you she would be hostile to this idea.”

“
Hostile
?” Now I did sit if only so the few breaths of air cramming into my lungs did their work. “You come in my
home
after making statements about my family’s company as if you are a spokesperson instead of a goddamned demon. How dare you!”

Nicholas raised a hand, as if he could silence me with the graceful motion.

He could, but that didn’t mean I’d ever surrender to their proposal.

“Ms. Atwood. We’ve prepared a very generous offer for your company. Above and beyond its value, and more than what your father would have considered an accurate reflection of your assets. We aren’t trying to undermine you.”

I knew better than to trust a Bennett, even when Nicholas’s steady demeanor shared none of the false bravado Darius wielded as both sword and shield.

“I’m not interested.”

Mom touched my shoulder. “Sarah, we were never meant to manage this company.”

“Mom, you aren’t running the company. I am. And I’m not selling.”

Darius chuckled. “Child, what you do know of directing a multi-
billion
dollar business?”

“I’m not a child.”

“Your mother is right. You aren’t meant to control Atwood Industries.”

“Neither are you.”

Nicholas braced me with a glance before reaching into the laptop bag.

“We aren’t insulting you.” He let the vindictive bite in my words pass. How much patience did he possess? “This is an opportunity to secure your future.”

He pushed the contract toward me. I didn’t read it, but I hadn’t pulled my gaze from his quick enough. His confidence might have been attractive if he hadn’t thought himself infallible. Nicholas actually believed his presented offense was an offer of freedom, wealth, and
charity.

I didn’t need Bennett charity.

And I wasn’t comfortable trapped within the shadow of his stare or the buttery smoothness of his voice.

“When my father died...” I let the word linger. Darius, the bastard snake he was, didn’t flinch. “His will was very specific.”

“And we’ll do our best to honor his conditions,” Nicholas said.

No golden eyes or caramel cadence could save his deal. I set the will on the table. Darius inhaled.

Josiah managed to get power of attorney before Mom married. That passed to me, and I locked the will up tight from Darius with a perverse pleasure. My step-brothers watched as I flipped the pages to the clause that would either protect or damn my father’s company.

I pushed the document to Darius. His expression slimed into a forced civility.

“In the event of Mark Gabriel Atwood’s death, Atwood Industries and all assets as defined in Section 3 (a), shall be passed to his blood male heir.”

“A
male
heir?” Darius’s voice scraped over the word.

Nicholas cast a glance to his brothers. Max frowned. Reed tossed Hamlet a piece of the pork loin. I waited for the hammer to fall or a mic to drop.

“A technicality, my dear,” Darius said. He cleared his throat. “He didn’t specifically name any of his children. And rightly so. He believed the company would pass to one of his sons, but no one anticipated their untimely deaths.”

“The clause stands.” I hoped I was doing the right thing. “And I’ll honor my father’s wishes. As of today, I will hold Atwood Industries in a trust until I have a son.”

Mom shook another pill from the bottle. Darius said nothing, but the rage, condemnation, and frustration in his clenching jaw read easier than the rest of my father’s will.

The only thing more glorious than Darius’s failure would have been to witnessed such
hatred
with him behind bars, where the murdering son of a bitch belonged.

Nicholas wasn’t deterred. He flipped through the rest of the pages with a cursory glance.

“You could fight this,” he said. “Ms. Atwood, I understand your aggravation, but we are offering you...everything.”

“Everything can’t bring my father back.” I stared at Darius. He took my mother’s hand, bringing her fingers to his lips with a sneer. “But this is his land. His legacy. Selling it would be no better than selling his memory. I won’t do it.”

I stood. Nicholas followed, but Darius burned where he sat.

“I have work at the office,” I said. It was true, I just wasn’t sure how to do any of it. Damage control, investors to call, reports to write, labs to turn in at school. I nodded toward my
brothers
and relished a deep breath that rejuvenated me more than any hit from my inhaler. “Excuse me, I won’t be able to stay for dinner.”

I lashed the bag over my shoulder. Darius didn’t dare watch me leave, but my step-brothers stared as I stalked from the room. Suddenly, I wasn’t the only one tense in Darius’s presence.

Nicholas, Max, and Reed silenced, minding their father like the good little sons of the devil they were. Victory tasted sweet, but I didn’t envy their ride home.

I made it to the car before the bittersweet laugh bubbled inside me. Dad would have been proud. My brothers ecstatic.

But me?

I collapsed in the driver’s seat, staring at a home where I couldn’t stay and land I relinquished to an imaginary son that bluffed my way to momentary freedom.

But at least the Atwood name, fortune, and future were safe. I almost hoped the Bennetts would try to fight for what didn’t belong to them.

If only to watch them fail.

Life was a struggle to secure two necessities.

Family.

Power.

With one came the other. It was a simple formula my father preached since I was born, and one I repeated each day as I grew into the man he decided I would become.

My father declined Bethany Atwood’s offer to stay for dinner after my new step-sister made one very impetuous mistake.

She challenged him in a way not even Mark Atwood had ever dared.

She’d stake her life on a company that wasn’t hers and a name that bullied, intimidated, and stole every ounce of begrudged respect it earned. My father wasn’t a forgiving man, and hers was an insult he wouldn’t soon forget.

The limo ride to the airport commanded silence. I studied Mark Atwood’s will, marveling in how brilliantly he wove his final wishes to honor his
sons
. Sarah’s name wasn’t mentioned. If she knew or cared, it didn’t show. The girl waved the will like a flag, as though a strip of paper would protect her.

It wouldn’t. And she’d soon learn what a terrible, regrettable mistake she had made.

I handed the paperwork to Max. He didn’t care to read it, but, under our father’s scrutiny, he took the papers and shuffled the pages. He wasn’t a man who studied contracts and parsed the law. That was my role. I doubted he’d find any other conclusion.

Sarah Atwood played her hand all in—no bluffs, no cheats, and every scrap of luck the Atwoods had saved since they clawed their way into an elite world which didn’t belong to them.

Mark Atwood rotted in hell and danced in glee at this turn of events. It wouldn’t be long until my father lost his patience and sent Sarah there as well.

The private jet waited to depart. My father boarded in silence and slipped into his cabin. My brothers left him to brood. My attention drifted to the window and the fading airport below. The cornfields extended even this far from their farm. Acres upon acres of land—all under the control of one little girl who had no idea how much trouble she caused.

“She’s cuter than I remembered.” Reed kicked his seat back.

Max smacked the ass of our private flight attendant and earned her giggle. “Careful. That’s your sister.”

“Family first, huh? What’d you think, Nick?”

I poured over the will. How the hell had we lost this? “I wouldn’t want to be Sarah Atwood at the moment.”

Reed shrugged at Max. “Didn’t look like she wanted to be Sarah Atwood either.”

“How bad is it if we don’t get this deal?” Max asked.

I wouldn’t discuss the possibility, not with our father so close. The cabin wasn’t soundproof, and I couldn’t insult his judgment within earshot. Family and power were the most important aspects of life to him—and it was his reason for marrying the Atwood widow and debasing our name to offer the girl more money than their company was worth.

“We’ll devise a new plan,” I said. “A new course of negotiations. This isn’t over.”

Max lowered his voice. “He has me talking to investors.”

“I am as well.”

His fist clenched. “You and me got different ways of talking, Nick.”

“And neither method is effective at the moment.”

Reed stole the will and flipped around the document. “So we expand. Do something besides agricultural support and engineering.”

“For how long?” I asked. “We don’t have the luxury of time. The best we can do is free a couple million and form a project outside the corporation.”

Max raised his eyebrows. “The Atwoods had the assets we needed.”