Page 139 of Brutal Kingdom

“What happened to bringing this company into the next century? Isn’t that the shit you spouted for years to get us to go along with whatever you wanted?”

“I’m still expanding the company, but not by destroying what’s already in place. It has to be a smooth transition or the board will never agree, and then we’ll be back to the reason we’re getting married in the first place. Aiden will be in charge, and you can bet we’ll both be thrown out of the company. Or you will. I’ll be banished to the newsroom to cover council meetings and toy drives.”

I stalk out of the room and down the hall to where the art department will be located.

On the drive back to campus, I reflect on everything that’s happened this year, and how I’ll be spending next year. With the world knowing I’m engaged to Isabelle Lance. My last interaction with Jordanna was manipulative and cruel. She’s back to hating me. I need her to keep hating me, so I don’t do what I want to do, which is go after her and beg for another chance. Doing that would destroy everything my dad built. I have to put McKay Media first, and my heart has no place in it.

My last shred of hope at having a life with Jordanna is over. I just wish I could tell her exactly how much she really means to me.

“I’ve found it.”

Simon usually messages me from a burner phone or encrypted email. So why is he calling me from a line that pops up on my caller ID?

“You found what?”

“The smoking gun. The reason this whole plan was set into motion.”

“We already know the answer to that, Einstein. The inheritance.”

“It’s bigger than that, Jordy. I found information about how your mom met Penn.”

“I already know how they met. It was at a museum event a friend invited her to.”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”

I stop typing, to listen to what he’s saying. “What do you mean?”

“I’m looking at a yearbook that has Penn and Johnathan in it. They went to school together, and about twenty-five years ago, they started a company investing in dried up oil wells and leases. They thought they could tap into them and draw the remaining deposits. A lot of people bought what essentially amounted to dry holes. Penn started his hedge fund when that scheme fell through. I’m looking at an email where Johnathan says he knew the investments were fake, and he funneled clients Penn’s way, for a cut of the profits. Johnathan decided to make a run for the inheritance,afteryour father reached out to someone in the Lance’s branch of the family tree trying to piece together Imogen’s history.”

I’m still stuck on the part where he’s saying Bella’s father knew Penn. “Johnathan was in business with Penn?”

“That’s right. He knew all about the Ponzi scheme. This is a crime, you know. They lied to the FBI when they were here investigating the charges of investment fraud.”

“Every time Bella opens her mouth, I expect a lie to come flying out. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“You’re not getting it, J. Johnathan started blackmailing Penn. He stopped asking for a cut of the money, in exchange for Penn hooking up with your mother. He was supposed to keep your family away from Kingsley Hollow. ”

“He did. Until I started writing that article on his company and found out about his scam.”

Penn Waldorf, the gift that keeps on fucking with my life. “Wait a minute, Simon, when you arranged for me to get the application to VDU, you didn’t know the Lance’s were in business with Penn?”

“I knew there was a financial connection, but I thought it was like everyone else’s. That maybe Johnathan invested in Penn’s bogus fund. I saw a document on Penn’s letterhead once. I’m sure Johnathan shredded it. It would have made things so much easier if I had known, but I was so fixated on Bella’s search history that I never dug into it. I saw that she was looking into you, so I did the same thing. Then Pepper’s guy caught me hacking into the same files he was looking into.”

“And that’s when the both of you came up with this plan to bring me here. My first semester could have been so much easier if either of you would have said something.”

“We wanted to watch you, to see what type of person you were. If you fell in easily with Bella and her friends, then we weren’t going to say anything. It would’ve just been trading one conniving bitch for another. Then I saw that you wanted nothing to do with them. The plan was to ease you into all of this, but then Bella and Logan made that stupid bet, so I tweaked the plan a little bit.”

“And what about Logan? Was me falling in love with him and getting my heart ripped out part of this master plan?”

“I told you, J. I never thought the two of you would get together.”

I don’t want to think about Logan. It makes me mad and reckless when I do. “You said you changed the plan. How?”

“Pepper was going to introduce herself to you and take you under her wing. Give the town a chance to get to know you and plant seeds about your identity. That would have been the easier way to do it. Logan told me how he felt about you, so I thought he was gonna let Bella win.”

“But he didn’t.”

Simon sighs as if he’s the one who’s been inconvenienced by all this. “I tried to convince him to let it go, and I’m almost positive he was planning to, but then your ex popped up with those photos, and everything went off the rails.”

---