“His condition got progressively worse as the years went on. The stress of success and the accompanying pressure made the cycles more acute, sent him into longer bouts of mania. My mother had to focus entirely on keeping him well and ensuring his condition was kept under wraps so the press, the shareholders, didn’t catch on.”
To the detriment of her boys’ emotional well-being.
“We thought we had his condition under control after handling it for two decades. Then my father made a deal with Anton Markovic to buy one of his Russian-based companies.”
Anton Markovic? The sadistic oligarch Juliana didn’t like in her house?
For the first time since he’d starting speaking, a flare of emotion moved through his dark gaze. “My father saw the potential in a post-Communist era and knew it would only grow. Buying Markovic’s company was supposed to cement Grant as the most powerful auto parts manufacturer in the world. Except Markovic sold us a false-bottomed company that was on the verge of bankruptcy. Under normal circumstances, Grant would have easily absorbed the hit but we were overexposed at the time, in the midst of leveraging capital for an expansion. As a result, the debt from the deal almost crippled us.”
She tried to absorb all the information he was throwing at her. “Couldn’t you have gone to the courts?”
“We did. His holding company was bankrupt by then.”
She swallowed hard, not sure she wanted to know where the story went after this. The emotion in his eyes became hard to watch. “Coburn and I told him it’d be fine. We’d rebuild ourselves stronger than ever. But the miscue threw him into a depressive state he couldn’t pull himself out of. There was also the stress of his impending race for governor of New York.” His lashes swept down over his cheeks. “My mother left the house for a half hour one day, thinking he was asleep. I came home to find he’d shot himself.”
Oh, my God. Her heart broke into a million pieces. It was public knowledge that Clifford Grant had shot himself at the family residence. But to find your father like that, by yourself? This time she did get up and walked over to him, setting her hand on his bicep.
“I am so sorry, Harrison.”
He looked down at her hand as if it was an intrusive appendage that had crept into his lair and threatened his solitary confinement. She could feel the emotion he declared he didn’t have vibrating through him. Then his eyes hardened until they resembled an exotic, impenetrable rock, polished by the elements he’d endured until there were no cracks, no dents, just icy determination. “I’m not looking for your pity, Francesca. I told you this because I need you at my side with this deal. I need you to understand where I’m coming from. Acquiring Siberius is the final piece in my plan to cut Anton Markovic off at the knees for what he did to my father. The company is valuable to me only because it supplies Markovic with vital instruments.”
Understanding dawned. Suddenly all of it—Harrison, Coburn, the way they both were—it all made sense. Coburn spent his days running from the truth, Harrison pursuing vengeance.
He wanted her on board so he could land this deal and finish Markovic. Collateral damage in Leonid was inconsequential.
“So we finish the presentation, he signs and it’s done. What does this have to do with me?”
His expression was implacable. “I need you to be a part of this until he signs. Leonid likes you. Kaminski likes you. You will smooth out the rough edges.”
She turned to look out at the park. It was lit by the skyscrapers surrounding it, a beautiful oasis in a cutthroat city of deal makers. It wasn’t lost on her that Leonid was a cutthroat businessman himself who undoubtedly had his share of blood on his hands. No one in a position of power could avoid the gray areas. It was the gray that defined you.
But it was the emotion she’d just seen in Harrison’s eyes that clutched at her heart. A raw incomplete grief that was as present now as it had been when Anton Markovic had torn out his heart.
Dampness attacked the corners of her eyes. She blinked it back and did what her father had always taught her to do. She went with her gut. And perhaps a large slice of emotion. Because no human being should ever have to go through what Harrison had without making it right.
She turned to him and nodded. “Let’s get back to work, then.”
His gaze darkened. “I’m an honorable man, Francesca. I will keep my promise to Leonid if I can. But it will ultimately be up to the board.”
She hoped he could. But sometimes a need for vengeance could wreak havoc on such honor.
HARRISON WAS HAVING trouble sleeping. Dawn was breaking across Manhattan, a vibrant ribbon of burnt orange stretching low across the skyline, casting the base of the skyscrapers in a mist of shimmering fire. It mirrored the turmoil inside of him, the slow burn that threatened to engulf him.
He’d had maybe three, four restless hours of unconsciousness before he’d abandoned his bed and greeted the morning. There was too much on his brain, too much to accomplish, too many decisions that impacted too many people.
He watched the sun, a bright ball of fire, penetrate the mist and make its way into the sky. Today was the day Leonid Aristov would either cement or destroy his seven-year plan to wipe Anton Markovic’s empire from the face of the earth. To do that, he must stretch the truth, make a man believe something that was quite likely not possible.
It was eating at him. Plaguing him. He grimaced and set his elbows on the smooth limestone ledge that bounded the terrace. At thirty-three his conscience was making an unexpected appearance and he had little difficulty wondering why. Francesca. His personal moral compass who sat on his shoulder, reminding him that the world was not black and white. That one wrong did not right another.
Except in this case it did. Leonid would lose his legacy regardless of who bought Siberius. And he would never let Anton Markovic get away with what he’d done.
He frowned into the hazy pink, orange light. Francesca, on the other hand, was a gray area he couldn’t seem to control. A woman unafraid to call him on who he was. The woman whose kiss had woken up something inside of him he’d thought long ago dead...
He didn’t let himself think of Susanna, ever, because he’d done what he’d had to do in the months following his father’s death. He’d compartmentalized his emotions until there was only rebuilding his father’s legacy left, cutting out the rest, including his longtime girlfriend. It had been an act of survival for a twenty-five-year-old who’d lost his mentor and couldn’t afford to lose everything else.
Susanna, a smart, young financial broker, hadn’t been content to live her life with a shell of a man. And who could blame her? When he’d finally come to terms with his father’s death, she’d moved on, found someone who was more “emotionally available.” It hadn’t just been the last few months, she’d told him sadly, it had been her battle over their entire relationship to get him to open up. “It’s never going to happen, Harrison. I give and you take. I need more.”
His fingertips dug into the cool stone. He hadn’t told Susanna he’d been breaking apart inside, that he didn’t know how to let the pain out, because he was inherently flawed by his experiences. He was better off on his own. And his descent into the world of the unfeeling had worked just fine until Francesca Masseria had roared into his life and stamped her do-gooder presence all over his psyche.
He raked a hand through his spiky, disheveled hair and frowned. So that kiss had reminded him he knew how to feel. That he didn’t have the emotional IQ of zero his brother thought he had. She was his employee. She was too innocent for a jaded animal like him and she was messing with his head.
If that wasn’t enough, he had her tied up in knots