Page 21 of His Wild Seduction

Instead, she did something extraordinary.

Meredith Gray said yes.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MEREDITH

Isat beside Josef in the back of the enormous SUV, my hand clenched against the cool leather seats.

He was on the phone, making arrangements for our wedding and Franklin’s funeral simultaneously. Both of which were jobs I’d gladly allowed him to handle.

“Do you have your ID with you?” he asked.

“Me? Yeah,” I replied, glancing down at my scuffed handbag.

“Yes.,” he said to whoever was on the phone. “Prepare the paperwork and email it to me. I’ll print it on the plane. We will be at the airport in fifteen minutes.”

“Plane?” I asked, my mouth going dry.

“Yes. We’re flying to Las Vegas, getting married, and we’ll be back by tomorrow night. Did you want a wake and a funeral or just the latter for your father—stepfather?” Josef asked, his voice businesslike.

The way he said it made me wonder if he still didn’t believe me, but the truth was it didn’t matter.

It was the truth.

“Oh, um, I know he had friends who might want to see him. Maybe the VP of Gray Corps, ugh, Richard Hamilton. He called me after Franklin had the heart attack and I spoke to the lawyers,” I explained.

“But as for me, I really don’t feel up to a whole circus of a funeral or anything like that where he’s concerned.”

Josef nodded. Relief filled me he didn’t make me voice the real reason I would not be attending that man’s funeral.

“Alright,” Josef told me before turning his attention back to the person speaking on his cell phone.

“Tell the funeral director it will be a private affair. Yeah, he can tell the press the family will hold an exclusive service. No outsiders. Any mourners are welcome to visit the mausoleum afterwards. No, no flowers. And finish the report on Richard Hamilton for me. Yeah, I want a new contract drafted for him. Yep, him and all the managers and admins at Gray Corps. Today. I want it done today,” he said.

I exhaled, closing my eyes for a moment. Everything was moving so fast. It was barely one o’clock. The deadline for the loan had passed, but I guess my agreeing to Josef’s terms negated that.

He really was a sight to behold. This new Josef. But he’d always been the kind of man to step up and take over where it was needed.

Images of my stepfather ran through my head.

That time I’d disappointed him when I wouldn’t continue studying dance.

The time he promised to come to my recital, but never showed up.

The time I refused anymore of his etiquette lessons.

I always wondered why he seemed irritated by my presence when I was younger. The nannies he hired never stuck around more than a year or two.

I’d felt their pitying eyes on me when we celebrated Christmases and birthdays all alone in that cold house of his. Franklin was usually off gallivanting with his latest romantic entanglement or finishing some business deal.

The truth was, he was no kind of father at all. We never talked. He didn’t know me.

I had no one growing up.

When I was in my senior year, Franklin made one too many enemies. We’d received threats. The house had been broken into and my room was one of the ones ransacked.

The perpetrator had scrawled “the princess will choke on her cake” in red paint across my walls.

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