Page 23 of Denying Davis
He’d died six years earlier at his own hand, and we hadn’t mourned him. We’d known the truth. Some people didn’t deserve the courtesy of remembering the “good times.”
Still, telling Davis the full, ugly, unabashed truth would devastate him. It would spear his heart. The way I remembered it as a teenager, he’d done nothing but idolize his father, a man who in his early years had somehow managed to double the family’s business holdings and made the Armstrongs one of the richest families in America. I didn’t want to destroy the image Davis had in his mind of him. I had no idea what things had been like in the years before his death, but if he still adored his father, it wasn’t my place to disparage him.He may not believe me, and I don’t want Davis thinking I’m a liar.
So, I hedged.
“Your dad was a complicated man. I don’t know how much you’ve been told about that.”
Davis nodded. “I’m well aware.”
“He wasn’t always easy to work for.”
I hated that I was about to commit a lie of omission, but I didn’t see any other simpler way to put this subject to rest. Davis was going to keep insisting I tell him something until I finally did. And what he didn’t know about the exact truth wouldn’t hurt him.
“My mom said sometimes when he drank too much, he’d make a lot of demands. He could be prickly.”
Understatement of the decade.
Davis laughed to himself. “If you thought he could be that way to you and your mom, trust me, he could be double that to me.”
“I doubt that,” I said under my breath. “But anyway, yes, he was acomplicatedman.” This little white lie was getting easier to tell. “And one night, he took out his drinking on my mother. He was—he went beyond the normal anger and severity. He pretty much blew up at her. She had enough, and she quit that night. I remember it like it happened a week ago. She was so upset when she came home. She was done. A few attorneys showed up at our house soon after, and insisted that she sign a non-disclosure agreement, since they didn’t have one on file for her. They also insisted we never contact your family again—and your family would sue us if we did.”
There. I’d said it. I’d given him an explanation. Well, half of one.
Davis stared at me for a few seconds. “That’s it? That’s all it was?”
I released a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.He believes this.“Yes. That’s what happened. She knew how powerful your family was, and she didn’t want to get tangled in a legal mess.”
He shook his head as if in disbelief. “All this time, I’ve been thinking it was something so much worse than that, something abhorrent or irreversible.”
“No.” I took care to keep my voice steady. I needed to give him no indication I’d left anything out of my story. He’d bought it, and he needed to keep buying it. “That’s pretty much it. He was a very driven man, and he insisted on taking these extra precautions. He wasn’t sure we could be trusted.”
Don’t ask too many questions, don’t ask too many questions…
It felt almost like betraying my mom to dismiss what happened to her, but I didn’t know how else to phrase it. I was damned if I told him the truth and damned if I didn’t.
“My father was an asshole sometimes. He was a far from perfect man, and there were often moments when I regretted being his son.” Davis’s mouth twisted. “But he’s dead. And he did that, no one else. Nothing else. Whatever agreement he made you sign, it’s null and void now.”
I gawked at him. “You’re kidding.”
Surely, it’s not as simple as this?
“I’m the sole heir to all of the Armstrong holdings. Every company, every asset. Grandfather might not retire for years, but he’s made thousands of business decisions since then. Hundreds of contracts.” He paused, as if solidifying something in his mind. “And I sincerely doubt he still cares about something that happened over a decade ago.” He waved a hand. “Practically ancient history.”
My stomach lurched. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
“But he—” I went back over what I remembered about the contract. It had been years since I pulled it out and read it, but most of the points remained burned in my mind. “It was ironclad.”
“Not anymore. Grandfather asked me the other day if I’d take on a role with the company. He wants me to start working in Pittsburgh in a few weeks and take over some of our business there.”
I blanched. “He does?”
Davis nodded. “But I’ll simply tell him I won’t go until the agreement regarding you and your mother is nullified. He wants me to get involved with the company as soon as possible, so since you’re not bound by whatever bullshit agreement my father forced you to sign, I think we can take a major step forward.” Davis spread his hand. “How about that drink?”
“Okay,” I replied. “I think we can swing that.” After all, who would possibly police an old contract after all this time?
Leave it to my father to block whatever he didn’t like with a tangle of legal mumbo jumbo and fear. One of his worst qualities was his uncanny and paranoid ability to see everything through the prism of how it would affect him, and how he could make things swing the way he wanted. I saw him do this time and again growing up, and it disgusted me that it still reverberated into my adult life.
