Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club #3) - Claire Kingsley Page 0,94
was right. “She was trying to catch them this whole time, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she was. I admit, I probably encouraged her. But a chance to expose Maleficent was hard to resist.”
“Fuck. Why didn’t I listen to her?”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve spent years working with Althea. She helped you build this business. You should have been able to trust her.”
“I should have listened to you, and I should have listened to my wife. Then none of this would have happened.”
“Is she still your wife?”
“Fuck if I know. Althea set her up. Made it look like she was stealing money from me.”
“Oh, Cox. You didn’t believe her, did you?”
I glared at him.
“You’re right. I’ll cancel the teddy bear. This is going to take a lot more than an adorable stuffed animal.”
“It’s worse than that.”
“Worse than accusing her of being a thief?”
“Althea had her served with divorce papers on Monday.”
Oliver’s mouth dropped open. “No wonder Sophie went dark. I haven’t heard from her all week. How did Althea do that without your signature?”
“Somehow I doubt she’d balk at a little forgery.”
“Good point.”
I straightened my jacket. “Have building security on standby to escort her out.”
“I’ll take care of it. With pleasure. And I’d like the record to show that I’m refraining from any exclamations of a celebratory nature.”
“I appreciate that. You can gloat later.”
“You know I will.”
“Yeah, I know. Time to get this over with.”
I left Oliver to handle the details and went straight to Althea’s office.
Her door was closed, but I didn’t bother knocking. She didn’t deserve a single courtesy after everything she’d done.
She looked up from her laptop, her eyebrows lifting in surprise. “You’re back.”
I shut the door and stared at her for a moment. I was so fucking angry. But it was more than that. It was worse. I wasn’t just mad, I was hurt.
“There are only a few people in this world that I trust. Up until a few days ago, you were one of them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what you did to Sophie. I know it wasn’t her who took money out of my accounts. It was you.”
“Cox, why would I—”
“Don’t, Althea. Let’s skip the part where you deny everything. It’s insulting to both of us.”
She folded her hands on her desk, the phony shock melting from her expression. “Okay. Fine. But you have to know, I only had your best interests at heart.”
“Really? That is a fascinating bit of bullshit. Do my best interests also include a hostile takeover of my company?”
Her mouth opened and her confident demeanor slipped. “No. You have the wrong idea.”
“And there you go insulting me again. I know that you’ve been working with Dominic behind my back. I know you two plan to force me out and put him in charge so you can sell Skyline. That’s all pretty straightforward. I get it. You stand to make a shit ton of money if we sell, and I wasn’t cooperating. So you decided to go around me.”
She stood. “Not exactly. You don’t understand what I’m trying to do here.”
“No, I certainly fucking don’t.”
“Dominic is just a pawn. We both know he’s useless. A week out of rehab, he was already out partying. But for the time being, he does have good PR. Who doesn’t love a redemption story? So I’m letting Dominic convince your investors that there’s trouble at Cox Development and he’s ready to save the day and do the right thing by selling Skyline and returning their money.”
“And what were you planning to do once you had your pawn sitting at my desk?”
“It won’t ever get that far. Dominic isn’t going to take over. But word of unrest and a project in trouble has elicited a lot of interest in Skyline. Now we not only have one buyout offer, we have three.”
“So you convinced Dominic to screw me over just so you could start a bidding war and drive the price up so I couldn’t refuse. And once I agree to sell, you just screw over Dominic instead.”
She smiled triumphantly. “Precisely.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Cox, this is brilliant. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but everything is very delicate. I had to be careful. And you’ve been… preoccupied.”
“I know what you’re getting at, and that’s what I don’t understand. What does any of this have to do with Sophie? Why work so hard to get rid of her?”
Smiling, she stepped closer and put a finger on my chest. “I’ll admit, that part was personal.”