The Monster (Boston Belles #3) - L.J. Shen Page 0,102

picked it up at the entrance to my club, on his way in, and showed it to me.

Goddammit, Nix, you’re a clever one.

“Now, Barbara McAllister is a college friend. She is not at all what you believed her to be. But for the purposes of helping me, she put on a show. Her sister has an address in a shithole part of the city. I added her name in the lease, knowing you would find her, see the poverty she so-called lives in, and decide to press her because she is easy prey,” Gerald continued.

“Aisling said that if I gave you information that didn’t match what you’d find on your own, it’d raise a red flag and you’d take the bait. She was right.”

“Did you decide to do all this or did Ash?” It seemed like a sophisticated operation, and Gerald was only good for managing a company that’d been handed to him by his own father. Even that, he half-assed. Cillian was a much better CEO than Gerald ever was, something Gerald secretly resented his son for.

“Well, Aisling did, bless her heart. She is my child through and through, that one. So delicately cunning. So smart.”

So hot.

Though I doubted he’d appreciate that specific input.

Gerald took a sip of his drink, his shoulders rolling as he visibly relaxed.

“Aisling knew Barbara would stand out with her zip code. We wanted to ensure you’d approach her, so we made certain her address led to a trailer park. You took the bait. When you called Barbara, Aisling and I instructed her beforehand. What to say. How to act. We couldn’t chance her blowing her cover. She did a remarkable job, didn’t she? And by the end of the day, you were already on the phone with publishing houses and literary agents, hooking her up with people who wanted to hear her story about the sordid Gerald Fitzpatrick. The new Jeffrey Epstein, right? The fall from grace of the tycoon who wanted too much from too many.”

This was pretty much spot-on, so I couldn’t dispute it. I played into Ash’s hands, and even when we’d met, even when I’d been balls deep inside her, when she cried my name, when she told me she loved me, when she offered me herself on a silver platter, she still plotted against me.

Tried to uncover the truth.

Was an active participant in our mental chess game.

“We got three offers from three different publishing houses,” I said tersely, trying to understand how they managed to cover the last part of their plan.

This was why the headline made sense. Because Barbara told me she had taken one of the deals. That she was going to write the tell-all. The plan was to have Gerald beg me to step in. I, in turn, would have a confession from him, throw my weight a little around Barbara, pay her to keep her mouth shut, and the whole thing would be canceled.

Then, depending on Gerald’s version of what went down between him and Cat, I planned to shed some Fitzpatrick blood. Not a lot. Just enough to satisfy my bloodthirsty nature.

“You didn’t get an offer from anyone.” Gerald shook his head. “Your calls to the publishers went straight to Emmabelle Penrose’s phone.”

I could feel my face morph from anger to disgust. I was played not only by Ash, but by that airheaded Barbie.

As if hearing my internal thoughts, Gerald offered a quick nod.

“Aisling didn’t want you to recognize her voice. She had your calls redirected to Emmabelle’s phone each time you made an inquiry. And once the so-called contract between Barbara and the publishing house of her choice was signed, you were out of the loop. You only ever saw the contract. You didn’t actually speak to any of the people Barbara had spoken to.”

That was true. The minute I hooked Barbara McAllister up with a so-called literary agent—who was probably Emmabelle, too—I stepped aside and tended to my own business, secure in the notion everything would run smoothly.

“How did Ash redirect the calls to Belle?” I narrowed my eyes at Gerald. Everything seemed too flawless to be done without any help.

Gerald smiled a smile that sank into the pit of my fucking stomach.

No.

“Yes,” Gerald replied, and I realized I said the word out loud. “She used the man who knows how to be Sam Brennan better than Sam Brennan—Troy Brennan.”

For the first time in a long time, I had nothing to say. Nothing other than where the fuck was Aisling? Why wasn’t