A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,66
father’s face.”
Willa smiled sweetly around her clenched teeth. “My father left his office to me to do with as I see fit. He trusted my judgment. Of course, if he were alive, I would have given him my full support. But in my father’s absence I made a rational, serious, thoughtful choice of who to endorse based on all the available information. Isn’t that what a United States senator is supposed to do?”
Paula mumbled something about supposing that was true. Thankfully, as the woman held out her microphone once more, Willa spotted the big black SUV and her driver pulling up at the curb.
“I’m sorry, Paula. There’s my ride. I’m afraid I have to go. It’s been lovely chatting with you.”
About as lovely as a bad case of jungle rot. Willa smiled warmly at the second bodyguard who jumped out of the SUV and came inside to escort her to the vehicle.
She muttered under her breath to him, “Your timing is exquisite.”
“We aim to please, ma’am.”
The SUV whisked her back to Vengeance and the guards deposited her in her father’s office in the mansion. Today she planned to tackle Merris Oil. She had no intention of involving herself directly in the business, but she’d inherited her father’s seat on the board of directors, and given Gabe’s dire predictions regarding the company’s future, she felt a driving need to educate herself as quickly and thoroughly as possible on the oil business.
Her father’s correspondence pertaining to Merris Oil was a mess. Without an efficient congressional staff to keep him marginally organized, his records were a disaster. Willa spent much of the afternoon simply sorting paperwork into piles. Clearly, John Merris had never heard of a thing called a filing system.
She spent close to an hour on the phone with some vice president at Merris Oil trying to get him to tell her whether Merris Oil was or wasn’t oil fracking, and never did get a straight answer from the guy. He seemed to think that, based on her gender, she was incapable of comprehending the possible variations on the process, nor could her delicate sensibilities handle hearing about the pros and cons of doing it as a company. She was thoroughly frustrated when she gave up, hung up and took a break to eat.
She grabbed a quick bite of supper in the kitchen with Louise. Apparently, Minnie was out to dinner with friends. Willa was delighted to see her mother rejoining the human race. For a while there, she’d been really worried about her mother’s ability to recover from the shock of John Merris’s murder.
She went back to work, plowing through various Merris Oil reports and making frequent visits to the internet to read about different oil-drilling techniques. She had just dived into the daunting pile of financial reports when she heard a lot of female voices in the front hall.
Seizing on any excuse to avoid the profit-and-loss statements, she stepped out into the foyer, folder in hand, to say hello to her mother and thank whoever’d managed to peel Minnie out of her bed.
Willa recognized all of the dozen women, who were of an age with her mother, and longtime friends of the Merris family. “Hi, Mom. Ladies. Did you have a nice dinner?”
Minnie turned to her, and Willa’s smile froze. Her mother’s eyes were bloodshot and Minnie wove a little as she completed the turn.
“There she is,” Minnie said acidly. “My loving, sweet, loyal daughter. You just couldn’t wait to stick a knife in your father’s back, could you, you ungrateful little bitch?”
Oh, no. Minnie was on the warpath again. She steeled herself not to overreact and said evenly, “Father’s dead and buried, Mom.”
“At the rate you’re going, you’ll be burying me before long, too, young lady. You’d just love that, wouldn’t you? And then you can have all of this for yourself.”
She knew her mother was drowning in a cocktail of booze and medications, knew Minnie didn’t know what she was saying and wouldn’t remember it tomorrow. But a little voice in the back of Willa’s head whispered that maybe this was really how her mother did feel about her. Had the liquor and drugs brought out long-hidden truths about Minnie’s real feelings?
Lord knew Willa had suppressed a whole lot of anger and resentment of her own toward her father over the years. But she’d always thought of Minnie as her silent ally in the suffering and self-effacement. Had Minnie seen her as the enemy all along?