Page 22 of Outlier
“So Vicky’s had a raw deal overall, and I’m simply not prepared to let it continue. I want that girl to have what she wants. I want her to haveeverythingshe wants. And as I’m sure you’re aware, Michael Mayweather, she wantsyou.”
I started coughing then, the shock of her words prompting me to choke on my own spit. What the hell? Was Margot trying to act like Vicky’s pimp or something? Or maybe, asmypimp? What was going on?
“Margot, I’m not sure what you?—?”
“Oh, don’t be tedious, Michael,” Margot said as she waved her hand in the air dismissively as if to dispel my so-called tediousness. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Now, down to the negotiations.”
“Negotiations?” My voice was pitched higher than it had been for many years now. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I want you to make a concerted effort to woo Vicky.”
My eyebrows went up. “Wooher? You do realise this is not the eighteen-hundreds anymore, Margot?”
She rolled her eyes. “Men have been wooing women since the beginning of time, young man.”
“What if she doesn’t want to be wooed?” I said, some grumpiness leaking into my voice. I was still a little salty at how Vicky reacted to that kiss, and the fact she now thought we wouldn’t work.
“Believe me, she does. I have a schedule for you. There are some upcoming events that the whole family will be attending, and now, so will you.”
“Events?” I said warily. “What kind of events?”
“Black-tie kind of events. I presume you have a dinner jacket?”
“I’m not being trussed up in some monkey suit just to act as your gigolo, Margot,” I said, my tone even grumpier now.
“Yes, you will,” she said simply.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Michael, have you heard of Highcliffe Investments?”
I blinked, and my mouth went dry. “Of course, I’d heard of them. They were my main backer to expand the business.” Lucy had offered, as had my two billionaire best friends, but I wanted to do it myself. The chip I had on my shoulder wouldn’t allow any other way. And my sister had already helped Mum out, buying her a house of all things. I didn’t want her giving me money as well.
“Hmm.” Margot hummed, looking out at the garden now instead of making eye contact. “That was fortunate, wasn’t it? An outside investor coming in atjustthe right time. Just when you needed the capital to expand but didn’t want to go to your successful author little sister and her billionaire boyfriend.”
My heart was hammering now. Everything I had rested on that investment. I’d just taken on an apprentice. We were making more profit than ever, and it was all possible because of the amazing deal I managed to get with Highcliffe Investments, who valued the company much higher than anyone else I’d approached.
“It would be a shame if that investment was pulled, wouldn’t it?” she said as she continued to study the horizon.
I felt a surge of anger as my pulse beat in my ears.
“I do not enjoy being manipulated, Margot,” I said in a low, angry tone that would make grown men shudder in fear.
This little middle-aged lady just shrugged and gave me a small smile.
“And I don’t enjoy seeing my beautiful, sensitive stepdaughter being turned down repeatedly by the blind idiot who Iknowcould make her happy if he stopped being so bloody stubborn. Hence my founding of Highcliffe Investments for the sole purpose of providing you with the incentive you needed tomake Vicky happy.”
I blinked at the ground and took a deep breath. If it were a couple of weeks ago, before I’d delivered that damn coffee table to Vicky’s scarily tidy but soulless house, before I’d seen her in that oversized T-shirt with no make-up on and her hair shimmering in the sun, before I’d tasted her, then I know I would have told Margot to fuck off and take her investment with her. I’d built up my company before, and I could do it again, with or without Highcliffe Investments.
But seeing as I’d been tortured by dreams of Vicky for weeks, and no other woman even vaguely appealed to me now—plus, in my mind, the moment she swayed towards me in the Orangery Vicky became mine—there was no harm in letting Margot think her blackmail worked. Okay, so I had to wear a monkey suit—it meant I got to see Vicky again, which is something I’d fully intended to engineer anyway. Why not let Margot think she’d won this one?
“You’ve got a deal,” I said.
I didn’t realise at the time, but I would come to regret those words more than anything else I’d ever said in my whole life.
Chapter 10
Nobody touches her
