Page 65 of The Wife Deception
I shook my head and went to the vacant chair at the head of the table. "He's very territorial. I'll speak to him." Everyone had frozen, waiting for my command until I said to Finley, "You can continue."
"Anything wrong?" Victor spoke in a lowered voice.
"Why?"
"You've never been this late for work. Even when you were interning."
"Oh. Everything is fine." I just have an irresistible wife that I have an insatiable appetite for. "I got caught up in a family thing, and I forgot to tell my assistant, that's all."
The answer seemed to satisfy Victor, and he turned his attention to the presentation. The meeting ended soon after. Kelly was waiting for me in my office when I got there. "Do you know that a lot of people are afraid of coming onto this floor, let alone my office?"
Kelly was unaffected, sitting comfortably in the visitor's chair.I marched over to the other side of the desk and sank into my chair. My computer was already booted up, displaying the latest earnings report. The company made a higher profit than expected. I turned my attention away from the screen and to the man in front of me.
"What is it, now?" I asked Kelly.
"I come bearing bad news."
"Of course you do."
"It's nothing horrible, but I thought you should know why Kenneth is not signing."
"He wants more money?"
Kelly clasped his hands on top of the table. "One of my little ears on the inside overheard a conversation between your boy Kenneth and his major investor."
My interest piqued. "You still have your men inside?"
"A few actually work for Kenneth and have been for a long time. Their disgruntlement led them to us. But they didn't know I was done looking into Kenneth. Anyway, he told me he heard Kenneth and the investor arguing. Apparently, Kenneth doesn't want to sign the deal because he's looking for someone else to buy him."
"The motherfucker!"
"I know. The investor apparently likes you, and thinks you'd be a good fit, but Kenneth thinks otherwise. He's going to use your offer to find another buyer."
"Fuck." My fist hit the desk. An unintentional reaction that shook the monitor and everything else on the table. Why would he do that after tying me to his granddaughter? As far as I knew, she was his sole heir. Doing this would ruin her inheritance. Not only that, but he was risking losing the company entirely by pulling out so late. There was something else I was not seeing. A man like Kenneth didn't want to sell his company to me. He didn't want to sell it, period. He probably wanted his blood to inherit it."What's wrong with the guy?"
"Have you spoken to him recently?"
"No." I was too wrapped up in his granddaughter's arms to think about thegrandfather. Was she part of this? Make me complacent while they snatch back the deal from under me."And your wife," Kelly said. "What is she saying?"I thought of Aelin's sweet, innocent face. But she wasn't innocent, was she now? She was a mercenary who probably had been working with her grandfather all along. The whole thing left a bitter taste in my mouth.
"We haven't been talking about it. I don't like bringing business home." Which wasn't true and Kelly knew it was a lie, but he didn't show it. Kelly sighed, got up from his chair, adjusting his jacket. "That's all I wanted to tell you. Remember, this is all rumor. The insider might have misheard."
"Yeah, but Kenneth is a little weirdo who likes to take risks, even if they're to his detriment."
Kelly shrugged and nodded. "Are you done with the dossier?"
"I'm halfway through," I lied. The dossier had gone to the back of my mind since I read it that time he gave it to me.
"Should I contact your wife's cousin? She might be useful to us, since it looks like Kenneth cut her off."
"Yeah sure. We need all the arsenal we can get."
"Weird to name cousins like that, don't you think? Aelin and Aire?"
I felt like a brick had fallen down on my head. The room shrunk, and the air felt thin. I took adeep breath to calm myself down. The next words that came out of my mouth sounded cool and businesslike, the opposite of what I was feeling inside. "Yeah. Now that I think about it, hold on contacting the cousin and focus on verifying what you heard."
Kelly nodded. "Sure thing, boss."
As soon as he left, I took out the dossier from my drawer and opened the family section. What I read shocked me. That fucking bitch.
