Page 86 of All Twerk, No Play

And then a chill went down my spine as I recognized the logo.

On the backstop behind home plate at Yankee Stadium.

On overdue payment letters addressed to my mother.

On the “Foreclosure” sign of my stepdad’s business.

Seventeenth richest person in America.A fucking billionaire.

Bile rose in my throat as I realized what I’d volunteered for.

She lifted a thick hardcover off her bookshelf featuring his face:Sinclair’s Skyscrapers: An Unparalleled Legacy.A handwritten note on the title page confirmed my suspicions:To my treasured granddaughter Victoria, the bright future of SinclairLarsson.

I choked on my spit. “You’re the bright future of SinclairLarsson?”

Her mouth puckered like she was swallowing lemons. “I was on my 18th birthday, when he wrote that.”

Victoria flipped to the centerfold photos and tapped on a smiling woman balancing a toddler in a frilly dress and pigtails on her hip.

“My mother, Regina Sinclair Blackstone, was the Chief Operating Officer of The Sinclair Group.” The book lingered on that page, the spine cracked. I’d assumed that Victoria hadn’t had time to hang family photos, but this book might be the only safe place to keep this truth about herself, on the bottom shelf between her textbooks.

“My grandfather Richard had been preparing her to take over as CEO.” She held out a weathered copy ofFortunemagazine with the same redheaded woman, a few years older, and a white man with close-cropped dark hair and gray eyes. The headline said, “Regina Sinclair and Arthur Blackstone: The Future of New York Real Estate.”

Regina and Arthur. The power couple from her drunk ramblings.

“When she died …” she cleared her throat. “Dad barely functioned. Richard was so devastated, he made some poor business decisions. Not enough to declare bankruptcy, but close.”

She started to pace, her voice flat, detached from her emotion.

“My dad didn’t want Mom’s legacy shattered, so he stepped in to save The Sinclair Group. He led a round of layoffs which saved the company in the short term but made him a villain to the staff. Richard was over-leveraged with the banks and selling his personal property would have tipped people off. So he found an investor: CalvinLarsson.”

Her face scrunched in disgust. She flipped a few pages in the biography, tapping a photo of her grandfather with a smarmy-looking blond guy, probably 20 years younger.

“Calvin was a self-made billionaire from an internet startup, but he wanted what money can’t buy: reputation. After fifty years as New York’s premier real estate empire, the Sinclair namemeanssomething.”

She took a rough breath. I put down the book to steady her shoulders, her arms trembling beneath my fingertips. She blinked in confusion, like she’d lost track of time and space. I gathered her materials, guided her to her living room, and sat beside her on the couch.

“Calvin bailed him out with three conditions: addingLarssonto the business name, retaining my dad as COO, and …” her eyes rose to the ceiling, “a marriage between our families.” She blew out a heavy breath. “My grandfather was 63. He married Calvin’s 32-year-old daughter Beverly.”

“Gross,” I said immediately.

“Right? The grossest,” she grinned at my rapid reaction. “Beverly agreed for the wealth and status, not Richard. She never got pregnant like Calvin hoped.” She gazed out the window, her gray eyes stormy. “Calvin also had a son. Spencer."

Shit. She’d mentioned him when she was drunk: the dumb twat from New Jersey. I forced down my anger, mentally preparing to punch the shit out of a heavy bag during my next workout.

“Spencer started paying attention to me when I was 15. He was 22, finishing his MBA at Columbia. The girls at my boarding school fawned over him when he visited. He sent flowers and took me for long walks through town for ice cream.” Her lips tightened. “Staking his claim.”

Her gaze locked on the book. “Richard wanted me to take over as CEO, but without my mom to guide me, he said I’d need support. Spencer would‘help out’as my CFO. My father hated the plan, but I wanted Richard's approval so badly that I went along with it.”

Her thumb traced her ring finger. This was the cheater. The ex-husband. Fuck.

“He proposed when I was 18, during the New Business section of a board meeting. When he dropped to one knee, holding my grandmother’s ring, I was speechless. The next thing I knew, the ring was on my finger and Richard was shaking Calvin’s hands. They set the date for the summer after my freshman year of college so the wedding wouldn’t distract my studies.”

From her pile of paperwork, she retrieved an aged newspaper—The New York Timeswedding section—where she stood next to a blond guy who oozed arrogance.Goddamn, she was stunning on the cover, beaming at the camera—so young, hopeful, andalive. An ache formed in my chest at the lightness in her expression that I'd never seen.

“Spencer was everything I wanted: handsome, rich, successful. He showered me with expensive gifts, bragged to everyone about being with me. I thought if I married him, I could be CEO and fill the gap my mom left. Just like Richard always dreamed.” Her eyes softened, tracking out the French doors to her terrace.

“For a wedding present, Richard gave us the townhouse in Chelsea where I grew up. Told us to start filling it with kids. Spencer wanted me to transfer to Columbia, but I wanted to graduate from Yale, like my mom did. I spent my summers and weekends living in our place in Chelsea, working at SinclairLarsson. Everything was going according to all their machinations, until one Friday my classes ended early. I surprised Spencer in his office,” she drew her lips into a tight line. ”Found him with his secretary.”

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