Page 97 of Owen

Sitting at the desk, in the seat across from Owen, Stanley then goes on to say what I feared. “But how will you pay off that debt and with what?”

“It’s not my debt. Surely the insurance payout from the fire will cover it?” Owen looks exasperated as he unbuttons his shirt and loosens his black tie.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Does the debt not die with them?”

Stanley scoffs. “These are not normal people you are dealing with here. This is the Sandersons.” He pauses. “And what the Sandersons want, they get. They may not be mafia, but they are the closest thing to it.”

Owen scratches his beard, appearing agitated, as Stanley adds, “You know your father’s finances better than anyone. Surely you knew what he was up to.”

Owen’s frown deepens. “Although I worked for the business, he never shared his personal investments with me and I was given a finance director title in name only to head the finance department and only for the printing side of the business. I had no clue about anything else he got up to. My job title made him look like he was doing the right thing by his son. It was all for show. I may have worked for the family business, but I was no more than a glorified bookkeeper who sometimes won a contract for him here and there. I am not like my father. I am not a liar or a gambler.”

“But you are a coward,” Stanley fires angrily. “You left my daughter at the altar.”

Shaking his head, Owen disagrees. “I never wanted that marriage, neither did she, and you and I both know it. Let her marry Adam Blumenthal, who she was screwing behind my back when we weresupposedto be engaged.”

Stanley winces at that news. “And who were you fucking about with?”

“I was faithful to her.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?” He shakes his head.

“Believe what you want.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you weren’t already fucking that woman you brought with you today? It’s a little convenient, don’t you think?”

Owen’s nostrils flare. “Unlike your spoiled little princess,that woman is worth one hundred of her and I met herafterI left your daughter. I won’t say this again, so listen carefully. I was faithful to Evangeline, and I tried my best to please her, but ice queens don’t appear to have hearts.”

Stanley holds his hands up as Owen defends himself. “Okay, okay. I believe you.”

I hold my breath, watching my powerful man, and wait for his next words.

With elbows on the desk, he threads his fingers together and looks up to the left, as if deep in thought. “We can’t keep revisiting the past. What’s done is done between our families. But humor me because I’m curious. In return for some contact names to help us break the American publishing market, the fancy marketing plan you pulled together to win my father over, and of course, how can we forget the lovely Evangeline that was thrown into the deal, what else did he offer you in return exactly? Because the way I see it, and before all of this shit with my father began, we didn’t need the money. But you and your business did. You were, or stillare, a much smaller business than ours.” Owen eyes him suspiciously. “You must have thought all your Christmases came at once when our print business burned to the ground? Did you get much business from that tragedy?”

I almost punch the air at Owen’s confidence as he asks all the questions he’s been mulling over with me since the fire.

“Your father needed a wife for his son,” Stanley justifies, looking nervous as he plays with the tail of his black tie.

“My father lives in the shadow of his ancestors. But if you do the same, you always get the same, and hethoughthe needed a wife for his son. He didn’t. You’re lying, Stanley.”

When Stanley doesn’t reply, he pushes him. “So what was it?” Owen clears his throat. “The cultures of the businessweren’t aligned. The printing market for newspapers and magazines is in decline and job losses were inevitable when we merged. So what exactly did he offer you to make you want to merge your company with his and sell your daughter off like some cheap-ass auctioneer? I have to hand it to you. You did have great ideas about moving into the indie-author world to open up new opportunities, but you could have done that all by yourself. So what was the offer, Stanley?”

Owen leans back in his father’s black leather chair and drums his fingertips against the arm. “I was the one who showed your father how to bet against the stock market.”

“Jesus Christ. You do know when the stock market rises, it has the opposite effect, and you lose everything? You don’t turn a profit doing that.”

“I knew the risks, but your father didn’t listen. He behaved like an addict, desperate for his next big stakes win. But when he did make a profit, he got greedy and reinvested it. The more he lost, the more he bet, desperate to win back his money.”

“When did this all start?”

“Over a year ago.”

“And?”

“He lost it all.”

“How much?”

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