Page 106 of For Her Own Good

Stealing a glance at my phone to see if there’s a little blue blinking light to tell me there’s a text—hopefully from Lowry—I miss Tad rising to his feet at the other end of the table that’s still a cluster of serious people in expensive suits making incredulous noises. But he gets my attention with a clap of his hands, same as he gets everyone else’s.

“I’d like to bring a few matters to the board’s attention.”

Preternatural dread creeps down my spine. I don’t have a good feeling about this. And from the way Tad is looking at me, I shouldn’t.

“Ms. Patrick’s announcement is as surprising to me as it is to the rest of you. Especially given how Jameson Patrick felt about Jerome Garrett. To say they were on unfriendly terms is an understatement.”

He levels me with a look meant to be stern, meant to shame me and reach that little part of me that gets hit hardest by disapproval. Except that Tad’s approval doesn’t mean jack shit to me anymore. I don’t believe he ever wanted what was best for me, nor do I believe that handing him the reins to Patrick Enterprises would be the right decision. He may have played the lapdog and yes-man to my father, but I don’t think he’d stay faithful to my father’s vision on his own.

“As the person who holds a controlling interest in Patrick Enterprises, any decision Ms. Patrick makes will have a profound impact on the prospects of this company and its shareholders. We have a fiduciary duty to ensure that anyone making these types of decisions is fit.”

Fit? Oh my fucking god, this little rat bastard. Death is too good for this fucker. I will show him precisely howfitI am by throwing a goddamn chair.

“I happen to know that Starla Patrick has some interesting fetishes in the bedroom.”

I’d thought blinding rage was an expression. That and seeing red. I knew what they meant of course, but not how they felt. Spending so much of my life being emotionally numb on some level hadn’t prepared me for when I got hit with all of these more vivid, visceral feelings. I’ve learned over time how to manage most of them even if it takes me a while to process them, but now I’m taking fury straight in the face.

How dare he? And how could I have been so wrong about him? I knew he was a dickhead, but I didn’t think he’d go this far. Weren’t these the things he’d told me Jerome Garrett would pull because he was a slimeball? And all this time, it was Tad who was planning to throw my dirty laundry all over my father’s boardroom. Lower than Salacious B. Crumb, this motherfucker.

Lillian Johnson appears to feel the same way, her blond eyebrow raised and the corners of her mouth turned down. “I’m assuming you know this from your time as Ms. Patrick’s significant other, which would mean you also enjoy these same things as part of your sex life. So I’m not sure what you think you’re going to accomplish with this stunt. It reeks of sexism, and I won’t tolerate it, never mind consider it when making business decisions.”

Thank heaven for Lillian. She scared me to death as a kid because she looked at me like I was some kind of vermin, but as I’ve grown up, I’ve come to understand she just doesn’t enjoy children. Which doesn’t make her a bad person, and I appreciate her efforts to encourage my father to make Patrick Enterprises a better and more equitable place for women. So yeah, thank goodness for her unabashed feminism because while I’m doing my best to maintain a bored, disinterested expression, my fingers are clutching my pen hard and it will be a minor miracle if it doesn’t snap in half.

Tad puts on that faux-apologetic look of his, and sucks his teeth. What a fucker.

“You can understand I was in a bit of an awkward position. I was dating the boss’s daughter for god’s sake, so if she wanted to call medaddyand have me spank her… I’m not proud of it, and it wouldn’t be something I would engage in otherwise, but you’ve got to keep Starla happy. Everyone knows that.”

Lillian looks almost bored as she glowers at him. “Why are you bringing this up now? It’s obviously been true for quite some time and you’ve never mentioned it before.”

“I would’ve shrugged it off, honestly. Not my thing, but I doubt anyone’s getting hurt so what does it matter? Except that when you put that into the context of Starla dating a gentleman named Lowry Campbell, it gets more concerning.”

Lillian sighs heavily and taps her very expensive pen on the tabletop. “Can we get to the issue at hand? I don’t need to spend any more of my precious time troubling myself with who Ms. Patrick dates or what she does on her own time. It’s never been an issue before, and the fact that it’s an issue now is redolent of misogyny. You’re testing my patience. So make your point or shut the hell up, Tad.”

The corners of Tad’s mouth turn up, smiling as though he were waiting for this moment, and perhaps he has been. My own stomach curdles, not so much on my own behalf, but on Lowry’s. This is going to be wildly unfair to the man who has loved me with everything he has and has been almost achingly perfect, lack of returning my last text notwithstanding.

“Doctor Lowry Campbell is a psychiatrist. He was, when Ms. Patrick was a child,herpsychiatrist for a period of four years. At which point he took a job in Chicago where he lived for the past fifteen years, and married a woman named Maeve Maxwell. Does that ring a bell for anyone?”

“The oatmeal heiress?”

Tad points at the man who volunteered this guess with an enthusiastic finger. “Yes, precisely the one. So, apparently, things didn’t work out withthatheiress, so Doctor Campbell leaves Chicago approximately nine months ago and comes back to Boston where he quickly becomes involved with…you guessed it, Starla Patrick.”

I’m hoping for Lillian to dismiss this entire dog and pony show as a ridiculous waste of time.Can we all move on now, please?But she doesn’t. No, she brings that pen to her lips, pensive.

“What Ms. Patrick does in the bedroom on her own time is none of our concern as long as it doesn’t affect the business and I’m not buying your argument that it does. Taken alone, I would tell you to jump off the Pru, Tad.”

I don’t like the way she’s phrased this. Yes, she loathes Tad—because who doesn’t—but she’s not outright dismissing his preposterous accusations against Lowry, against me. Never has Lowry tried to influence my business decisions, and if he had, I wouldn’t have listened. If anything, he recuses himself because he’s aware his knowledge about the corporate world is inferior to mine. To think I would give him my ear or let him take advantage of my clout or my money is absurd. How insulting.

“However?” Tad’s brows are halfway up his forehead and I can tell he’s waiting to pounce on the verdict Lillian’s about to hand down.

“However…Doctor Campbell reappearing in your life right now is extraordinarily convenient timing. Your father passed recently, you’re vulnerable, and you already have a predilection for, well, men of a certain type. He’s older, he’s already been in a position of authority over you, and he’s established a level of trust with you that renders you vulnerable to his manipulations. I hate to say it, but Tad might have a point.”

Chapter 36

Starla

That was an unqualified disaster.Possibly the most humiliated I have ever been, and definitely the angriest. The board meeting had to be called after the riot that erupted when Lillian fucking Johnson—who I had sort of counted on to have my back at least about the Lowry thing if not the Jerome Garrett thing—totally fucked me over. Goddammit. Goddammit.

I text Holden on my way out of the meeting:If everything’s in order, pull the trigger on the Garrett deal.

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