Page 106 of Second Chance for Mr. Alden

He eyed me. “When was the first time I tried to kidnap you? Refresh my memory.”

“Four months ago. Someone attacked me on the street. At first, I thought they might have been trying to get my purse, but with everything else going on I figured it wasn’t that.” I stopped to stare at him. Why did I feel like I was in an episode of the twilight zone?

“Continue.”

“Then at the Tesoro Mi Couture event. Someone tried to grab me outside. It was why I was in hiding.”

Jareth’s gaze sharpened on mine before turning away from me. “Victor, reach out to Antonio. Tell him to find out who’s behind Ms. Sulton’s kidnapping attempts.”

I scoffed. “Come on. You’re going to tell me it wasn’t you?”

“It wasn’t me.” He sounded sincere. My instincts that told me something was wrong were silent.

“Then who?” A chill crawled up my spine.

“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” he asked, searching my face.

I nodded.

“Without solid proof, it’s just my opinion. I think your parents might be behind it. By keeping you out of the way until your thirtieth birthday had passed you wouldn’t be able to access your shares.”

A sharp pain hit me square in the chest. My parents had never been the warm and cuddly type, but this was even beyond what I thought they were capable of. I think it hurt even worse that my father might have known. While he always did what my mother wanted, I never thought he’d have allowed her to go this far.

“I’m sorry.” I hated that Jareth of all people was the one offering me a glance filled with pity.

I shrugged and wiped away the tears that had spilled down my cheeks. Who knew I had any tears left for them?

“This is so fucking ridiculous.” My parents were complete fucking criminals, Jareth was driving me nuts, and at this point I just wanted to know what the hell was going on. “I’m kind of out of fucks to give at this moment, Jareth. So if you could skip to the part where you tell me why you’ve got it in for my parents, I’d appreciate it.”

Sympathy flashed across his face before it hardened into a mask. “You asked why we’re here?”

I nodded.

“This is where my father killed himself.”

“Holy shit.” I gasped. That was a plot twist I wasn’t expecting. With all his hemming and hawing I didn’t expect him to come right out with it.

“Your parents fucked him over, made him their fall guy, and then as the story goes, he killed himself here rather than go to jail.”

Memories bubbled to the surface of newspaper articles about an employee embezzling money from the company and then killing himself before it went to trial.

“You don’t think he did it?”

“No! Absolutely not.”

“So you think by marrying me and getting control over this company it will get back at my parents.”

He sighed. “Or getting control of the company and destroying it from the inside out works too.”

I sucked in a breath. “You can’t do that.”

“I can. It’s easier to do it at the helm, but over the past two years I’ve been able to poke holes in the business. It’ll take longer, but it’ll collapse just the same.”

My stomach hurt at the thought of him destroying the place I’d grown to love, the place my grandparents built. “What if I help you take down my parents? What if we find another way?”

He regarded me with a thoughtful look. “Why would you help me?”

“Jareth, you’ve met my parents. They are worst fucking people on this planet.” Although Jax’s parents were up there too. “I don’t mind destroying them, but I’d like to be able to save the legacy my grandparents built. They were good people.”

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