Page 72 of The Library on Plum Island
“Don’t play dumb,” Todd’s voice rattled with anger. “Monica told you, and you refused to see her or talk things through. I’m here to get you to annul this joke of a wedding, and you’ll then marry my daughter.”
Is he crazy?Alex couldn’t quite believe what Todd was saying. “I will stop you right there!” Alex’s voice was low and laced with steel. “How many months pregnant is Monica?”
“I don’t know!” Todd shrugged. “My daughter was so embarrassed and upset to tell us about it.”
“So Monica never told you how far along she was?” Alex’s brows rose. “Is she showing?”
“She’s put on weight,” Todd told him.
“Let me get this straight!” Alex forced his anger down. “You came all the way from New York to Plum Island to drag me back to New York to marry your allegedly pregnant daughter without concrete evidence that she’s even pregnant.”
“Are you calling my daughter a liar?” Todd was getting more and more worked up. “That’s she making being pregnant up?”
“No.” Alex shook his head.What a freakin’ idiot! How desperate is he to get his name attached to the Blackwells?“I don’t know if Monica is pregnant or not, so I’m not saying she’s lying about that. But I can say with complete certainty that she’s lying about me being the father.”
“I beg your pardon?” Todd growled. “If she says you’re the baby’s daddy, I’m going to believe her over a man trying to fob his responsibilities off because he has a new hot romance going.”
“Then you are a fool for firstly barging in here and spewing nonsense to people I work with. Then there’s the fact that your daughter and I didn’t havethatkind of a relationship. I never asked your daughter to marry me, and I never had any intention to.“ Alex ticked off some cold, hard facts to the man. “I only dated Monica because she asked me if I’d help her out and act as her boyfriend because she didn’t want to marry the man you’d picked out for her.”
“Now you’re lying,” Todd raised his voice. “Making up stories. I wouldn’t marry any of my girls off to a man they didn’t want to marry.”
“I know.” Alex nodded. “I realized that when our fake dating went on for nearly six months and she started hinting about moving in together and getting engaged. That’s when I ended things with her, as I couldn’t pretend anymore.”
“Stop lying so you can make me doubt my daughter so you can get away with not taking some responsibility for my daughter’s pregnancy.” Todd slammed his hand on Alex’s desk, making the contents jump.
“I’m not the one lying to you,” Alex said, relaxing against the chair. He steepled his fingers in front of him. “And here’s another few reasons why your daughter’s story makes no sense. Monica and I parted ways nearly nine months ago, so even if we’d had that kind of relationship, you’d have most definitely known she was pregnant.” He raised an eyebrow. “Then there’s the very real fact that I can’t have kids and haven’t been able to since I was twenty-one and contracted mumps.”
Todd gasped and stared at Alex in shocked disbelief. “What?”
“While I’m not calling your daughter a liar, I’d say she was a very clever manipulator,” Alex pointed out. “She’s already caused enough friction between our families with her lies about me asking her to marry her and lying about the length of our relationship. Then there’s the bogus lawsuit Monica had drawn up against me trying to claim half of my possessions.”
“You expect me to believe you over my baby girl?” Todd growled. “You Blackwells will do anything to protect your precious reputation.”
“And you, sir, alongside your youngest daughter, seem to be trying to do everything you can to become a part of my family,” Alex pointed out. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a new wife to get home to.”
“I didn’t say this meeting was over,” Todd said indignantly. “How dare you accuse my family of this.”
“I didn’t accuse your family of anything,” Alex told him. “And this meetingisover becauseIsaid it is.“ He pushed his chair back. “I would really like you to leave.”
Todd couldn’t believe Alex was talking to him like he was.
“Wait until your father hears about this.” Todd shoved his chair back and sprang to his feet. “You’re going to be sorry.”
“The only thing I’m sorry about is trying to be a good person and helpingyourself-centered, spoiled daughter in the first place.“ Alex couldn’t stop the words from leaving his lips.
Since he’d broken off with Monica, there wasn’t a day she didn’t message him and try to get him to meet with her to discuss their friendship. Alex didn’t know how many times he’d blocked Monica’s number until he was forced to get a new phone number. Getting a new number was a pain in the neck.
“You haven’t heard the last of me,” Todd warned him. “Your father’s not going to be pleased when I pull my equipment out of all the movies.”
“I think you’ll find that there have been a lot of changes in the past year since Alex, my sister, and I took over running Blackwell Productions,” Alex stated. “But we’ve slowly been phasing out Speirs props, stunts, and equipment ever since your inferior equipment nearly killed two people three years ago.”
“That was never proven to be because of my equipment,” Todd almost gloated. “It was bad timing on those stupid stunt people and the engineers. Not my equipment.”
“Now that we’ve found the train that mysteriously went missing from the evidence lot, I’m sure the forensic team will be able to prove otherwise,” Alex said, seeing the man’s face pale. “It seems someone had it dumped down the side of a cliff not too far from the film site.”
Alex put his phone in his inside jacket pocket and started to usher Todd from his office. “That’s what you get when you try to cut corners and hire substandard workers to cut prices. They dump the evidence down a side of the cliff and don’t check to see that it went all the way down.”
“That was years ago.” Todd moved toward the door. “You can’t reopen the case. That stuntman wouldn’t dare.”
