Grump’s City Girl (Boots and Heels #2)

25. Beau

Chapter 25

Beau

T he stress got the better of Cassie, and she slept five hours into the eight-hour flight. I could have napped, too, but the words that French asshole had said kept looping through my head like a yo-yo.

I’m tired of living in the shadows. This time, your family will feel what it means to be invisible .

What did that mean? The more I ran it through my head, the more I realized it felt… very personal. If I were any judge, it felt like something a close person to the family would say, like an employee who had been burned too many times or a competitor who had been knocked out of business because of her family and had lost everything.

It sounded like someone hell-bent on making Cassie’s family pay through their teeth, because it didn’t feel like this mysterious person was coming for Cassie alone. He would not have mentioned family if he only wanted to take Cassie down.

Sighing, I sank into the comfortable first-class seats she had booked for us, knowing I would give anything for a hot shower and a proper meal. All we had eaten in the last seventeen hours—or was it twenty? I couldn’t keep track anymore—were greasy burgers and tasteless tacos, and I was sure I had overdone it with coffee. While I wanted to sleep for a week, I couldn’t.

Not now.

Cassie stirred and lifted her head from my shoulder. “What time is it?”

I checked my watch. “Two thirty in the morning, sweetheart. Are you hungry? You must be starving.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, brushing her hair away and slanting me an eye. “I am sorry I passed out on you.”

“Oh, what a tragedy, having a beautiful woman sleep on my shoulder,” I drawled, and she snickered before reaching up for the call button. “I had a dream that I’d slugged Vigo.”

“More than I did?” I rolled my neck. “That one's as dirty as a polecat. I owe him a couple more face shots.”

She spoke to the flight attendant about some food and coffee, then turned back to me as the man left. “I can’t help but wonder what Vigo said about what the man framing him wants to do to me and my family.”

I waited until the attendant set her food before speaking to her. “It’s worrying me too. Do you know any enemies your family has?”

She nearly choked on the coffee. Then, she wiped her mouth and sighed. “Too many to count, Beau. It’s a hazard of being on the top of the food chain… everyone and their mother wants to tear you down.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “I can see that. I suppose your dad will have more to say about it when we meet him.”

“I hope so,” Cassie muttered while setting her cup aside and tucking into her meal: roast beef covered in some fancy sauce, sweet mash, and asparagus. “Dad must know what this goddamn riddle means. The thing is, Dad is a nice person, but he doesn’t pull his punches with business, and I’m thinking whoever is threatening me, us, is a spurned employee Dad had cut off.”

“I thought something similar,” I admitted. “That person is going through some serious pains to humiliate you.”

“Tell me about it.” Cassie sat back in her seat and sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “I should have bought a neck pillow before we boarded.”

“My shoulder wasn’t enough?” I slid her a look and pretended to huff. “Now, I’m offended.”

She giggled, then lifted the armrest and huddled into my side, tucking her legs to the side. “Let’s get some more shut-eye; we’re going to need it when we get there.”

“Ah, so now you want me as your cushion,” I teased her.

“Yes, now shut up and let me sleep on you,” Cassie nuzzled closer.

We got out of customs by the time dawn was breaking, and since I had never been to Montana before, Cassie was behind the wheel with two more cups of piping hot coffee in the cup holders.

“I need a shower,” I muttered, “I have never been on an airplane twice in one day, and I'm sure while I’ve been covered in literal bullshit before, I have never felt this grimy.”

“Don’t worry.” She shot a look at me. “We’ve got enough bathroom and hot water to give you as many showers as you want. But we need to talk to Dad first.”

The city of Helena was a bit like Atlanta… The buildings got higher as we got closer to the center of the city, and we came upon a building, all steel and glass, that made me crane my head back to the cricking point. “Slap me twice and send me to my mama,” I gaped before whistling. “That is a hell of an office, sweetheart.”

“It’s the headquarters of Carrington Corp,” she nodded to the all-steel logo on a mounted dais with two interlocking C’s. “I spent many days here as a kid, and I came back after my master’s as an intern for marketing.”

“Intern?” I asked. “You didn’t take over management at once?”

“That’s not how Dad works,” she said. “A lot of other family-led businesses would instantly let their kids take over, but my dad hates nepotism. To him, family or not, you start at the bottom like everyone else, and then you move up when your work speaks for you. I’m Vice President of Marketing now, but it took a while.”

After clearing the gate, she drove us into an underground garage and parked in the VP-marked spot. Then, she cut the engine off before sagging into her seat. “Is it physically possible to be jet-lagged and energetic at the same time?”

“I wish I could tell you, darling,” I said, rolling my neck. “I want a week’s worth of sleep at the same time as I want to ride a bucking bull halfway across Wyoming.”

She angled her head to me, “Can you do that?”

“Fuck no, but that's how I feel,” I laughed, popping the handle. “C’mon, let's go talk to your dad and figure out what to do from there.”

We entered the building and crossed a foyer whose tile work probably cost more than my house and half the land it was on, heading to a gleaming elevator.

Men and women in sharp suits walked by, and I felt like a sore thumb sticking out from a rotting, skeleton hand. A few people shot looks my way, clearly asking who this country bumpkin was and if I had made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

“Ignore them,” she said quietly while punching a button. “Most of them have never been outside the state.”

The elevator came, and we hopped inside. She pressed on the fifteenth floor button, and we shot up, my mind whirling as fast as the gears carrying us. A warm hand grabbed mine, and reflexively, I tightened the grip.

“Don’t be scared of my dad,” she said. “Many say his eyes are like scalpels filleting your skin, but that's just him in the workplace.”

“I’ve dealt with hard men before,” I replied as the elevator dinged, and we stepped out into a carpeted corridor and headed down to the office beyond it.

But when we got to the second door, the office itself was also guarded by at least three separate security guards, who all shot me wary, attentive looks as we approached them. You’d think with all this security outside that the Vice President was inside.

“Miss Carrington.” One of them nodded and stepped aside.

As soon as we got to the frosted walls, Cassie gasped and pulled her hand away from mine. “Mom!”

She yanked the door open and saw a woman, blonde as could be, hair up in an elegant twist and diamonds glittering at her ears, slapping a paper down. “You asshole,” the woman said, trembling, “You did this!”

“Mom,” Cassie said, her gaze shooting to the man behind the table and the woman. “What’s going on?”

“Ask your father, Cassie,” the lady said, “All this time, I didn’t know your father here, sired a child outside of our marriage. You have a younger brother, Cassandra, by merely four months. Your father had two women pregnant at the same time, and now, he is paying for it.”

I rocked back on my heels as if I’d been punched, and I saw the moment the light went off in Cassie’s mind, too.

I’m tired of living in the shadows. This time, your family will feel what it means to be invisible .

Three roundhouses and a side of uppercut could not have floored me any better. Christ above, this really was a family affair.

“…Dad?” Cassie’s voice was smaller and more vulnerable than I had ever heard her before. “Is this true?”

The older man, gray at his temples, braced his forearms on the table and hunched over; the sag in his shoulders showed defeat. “Yes… it's true. To my everlasting shame and disappointment, it's true. The boy, his name is Samuel, and I-I tried to keep him as separate from our lives as much as I could, but now, he’s out for blood.”

The lady, Cassie’s mom, lips thinned to bloodlessness. “How did you try? Did you pay his mother off? Set them up in a chalet in Europe? Did you send presents every birthday and Christmas?”

Her dad looked as lost and torn as I thought anyone in his place would be. “I made sure they were… comfortable, made sure they had food and sent him to school with the strict confidence that the boy never knew my name. I lost track after he graduated high school. I don’t know if he changed his name or what, but he disappeared. His mother told me he’d crossed the country to go to college in New York, but that is as far as I could find.”

“And now he’s threatening us,” the lady said. “He wants half your inheritance or else.”

“He was the one who blackmailed Vigo into almost releasing that tape of me,” Cassie said. “And he’s threatened Beau’s family too. He’s not going to stop until we stop him.”

“Stop him? How?” Dad asked, brows lowering. “He’s a ghost.”

“He’s contacting us,” Cassie replied. “There must be a way to stop him. Speaking of that, have you heard from the men guarding Beau’s family?”

Mutely, he slid a paper to Cassie, “As far as they are concerned, it’s a bluff, but they are keeping an eye on them anyhow. The boy, his father, and his wife, who is a pilot, are covered by their coverage.”

“Thank you, Sir,” I finally spoke up.

He looked up and nodded curtly, then faced his wife. “Ilyana, please let us talk this over.”

“Talk,” she scoffed. “There is no talking… I will have divorce papers drawn up by this evening. You made your bed, Charles, you will have to lie in it.”

“Mom, no,” Cassie spun, her face frantic. “Don’t do it! Do you see? This is what he wants. He wants to break us apart when we need to stick together. If we do, he’ll pick us apart, one by one. I know you are angry, Mom, fuck, I am floored, but Dad made a mistake?—”

“And hid it from me for twenty-seven years,” Ilyana spat. “Do you know how betrayed I feel? How?—”

“It’s like knives in your back,” Cassie replied. “And salt rubbed in the wounds. I know… I felt the same way when Vigo told me he’d gone to sell the tape to save his own rotten skin. Our secrets are being used against us, Mom.”

Suddenly, the landline on the desk rang, and Mr. Carrington jabbed a button and answered it without looking at the phone. “Not now, Ronald, I don’t have time for the shareholders?—”

“This is not your precious assistant,” a computer-generated voice came from the speakers. “You must know who I am by now, but I am not done with you yet. Ilyana, do you care to tell your husband and daughter your secret? The one you have kept for thirty-five years? The man you almost killed and left for dead.”

Ilyana’s face went white, and her knees went out from under her, but I darted forward and grabbed her before she hit the ground. “Whoa there, lady! Stay with me.”

“Have you told them how you sunk a knife into his gut and left him for dead on his apartment floor after you begged him to take you in?” the voice taunted. “Little seventeen-year-old you, kicked out of home with nowhere to go. You used your body for food, for shelter, for your profit, and then you found a man, simple enough to be swayed by your lie of loving him.”

“He took you in, gave you everything, but you found him repulsive, and when you’d gotten what you wanted, refused him the one thing he wanted. You stabbed him, grabbed his money, and ran.”

Cassie looked green, her father grim, her mother white as death.

“Don’t talk about beds, Ilyana… your bed is swimming in blood,” the man taunted. “Each of you Carringtons has secrets. You know what they say: whoever has no sin, let him cast the first stone. Beau, how sweet of you to follow your slut back to her parents. This corrupt, selfish Carrington family is who I am after, and if you get in the way, you will die first.”

The line went off blaring, and the silence that fell over the room was so heavy I could chop through it with a butter knife.

“Mom,” Cassie said, then turned to her father. “I think it’s time we have a real talk, and I mean real. There are no secrets anymore. He is set on destroying us… we need to hobble his knees first.”