“This is absurd.” His mother sat forward. “We are not here to coddle your hurt feelings. This family needs the Webster money and you will turn it over, as a dutiful son should do.”
He folded his hands and cocked his head. “I am not a dutiful son—and you will get no money from me.”
The other two gasped, and his mother grabbed on to the edge of the sofa until her knuckles turned white. “What did you say?”
He knew there was nothing wrong with his mother’s hearing so he didn’t answer, merely let them sit with the news.
His mother’s face twisted into the ugliness he remembered so well from his childhood. “Why, you ungrateful little—”
“Harrison, please.” Thomas leaned forward, his gaze wild with panic. “My family . . .”
Harrison said nothing, allowing desperation to permeate the air, rolling and thickening, until he could nearly taste it. This moment was even better than he’d anticipated. It was sweet, a balm to the soul of an eight-year-old boy who’d craved his family’s approval.
As he grew older, he’d realized that approval wouldn’t come. That he was forever branded as the tarnished second son, the one who merely achieved at failing.
His mother lashed out once more. “You never could do as you were told. We should have known you wouldn’t help us, that you would remain selfish. You are a disgrace to the Archer name.”
Unbothered, Harrison allowed her vitriol to wash over him. The moment was too perfect, too precious to ruin by giving her words any power over him. The time for that had long passed.
“Mother, please,” Thomas barked, then turned to Harrison, his eyes beseeching. “What do you want? To see me beg?”
Now they were arriving at a solution. Good.
“I want my ten percent back.”
His brother blinked a few times. “Of Archer Industries?”
“Correct. I want you to sign over ten percent of the stock back to me. It’s what I had before Winthrop disowned me.”
Thomas owned fifteen percent of the stock, while his mother controlled forty percent. Ten percent should mean nothing to them.
“What do we get in exchange?” his mother asked, obviously the shrewder negotiator of the two.
Harrison gestured to the room. “This house, plus an allowance.” No use informing them how small that allowance would be, at least not yet.
“That is insulting,” his brother said. “I demand that you pay off all our debts, as well.”
“No. Ten percent of the stock and I’ll pay off the mortgage on this house. That is my final offer.”
Silence descended as the weight of what he’d said settled in the room. Finally, his brother shifted toward his mother. “It’s what he had before and controlling interest wouldn’t leave the family. We’ll still have the business, the stock dividends, plus this house will be out of debt. I think it’s a good deal.”
Christ, his brother was a terrible businessman. No wonder they were on the verge of losing everything.
“You cannot have a seat on the board,” his mother said to Harrison. “Ten percent and the last name of Archer doesn’t entitle you to that.” When he said nothing, she dipped her chin toward the leather satchel at his feet. “And I suppose the necessary paperwork is in your satchel.”
Harrison withdrew the legal transfer form and placed it on the tea table between them, along with a pen. “Sign at the bottom.”
“Now?” Thomas frowned.
“Yes, now.” He would not put it past his family to renege on their bargain once they concluded this conversation.
As Thomas read the document, Harrison and his mother sat in silence, her gaze shooting daggers at him. Because he knew from experience that it annoyed her, he offered no outward reaction of any kind, his face impassive, as if they were strangers. Her disappointment and hatred bounced off him like one of Maddie’s tennis balls.
Apparently satisfied, Thomas signed with a flourish and handed the papers back to Harrison. “There.”
Trying not to grin, Harrison put the papers away. “I should tell you what this means, both for the business and for you personally.”
“What are you talking about?” Thomas asked.
Harrison put his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers. “With that ten percent you just signed over—my rightful ten percent, I might add—I now possess controlling interest in Archer Industries.”
Thomas’s brow furrowed. “That is impossible.”
“I promise you, it isn’t. I have spent the past few months making tender offers to the largest shareholders. To my surprise, most were willing to sell their shares to me for an inflated price. I now own fifty-one percent of the stock.”
“How was I not informed of this?” his brother asked.
Harrison gave him a small smile. “You’d be surprised the silence a few greenbacks can buy in this town. Any guesses as to what I’ll do next?”
Thomas began breathing hard and sweat broke out on his forehead. “The board . . .”
“Will do whatever I say,” Harrison finished. “Including remove you as president, just as soon as I am able to call a board meeting.”
“You cannot do that!” his mother shouted. “This is your father’s company.”
“Wrong.” Elation surged in his veins, the victory making him dizzy, as he grabbed his satchel and rose. “It’s my company now.”
His brother leapt to his feet, his face turning a deep crimson. “We won’t let you do this. That company is my legacy, my children’s legacy. You cannot just take it over.”
“Simple arithmetic and the shares of stock I hold say that I can, actually.” He started for the door. This meeting was over.
“And what of your wife?”
Harrison paused. The menace in his brother’s question hadn’t been lost on him. “What of my wife?”
“She’s about to compete in the ladies’ Nationals tennis tournament, is she not?”
“And what concern is it of yours?”
Thomas studied Harrison’s face, and his brother must have sensed a weakness because he pushed. “I heard she was devastated by the recent scandal, how she can hardly hold her head up in public. Would be a shame if another scandal distracted her from the biggest match of her life.”
“Or if she tripped and had to withdraw from the tournament,” his mother added. “You know how clumsy young girls can be.”
Hands curling into fists, Harrison took a step closer. “Are you threatening her?”
“No, of course not,” Thomas said, though his tone conveyed otherwise. “We know how much she means to you.”
“More than anything else in the world, I’d say,” his mother put in.
Horror robbed him of speech for a long second. How was he related to these people? Did they care nothing for decency and principle?
You know the answer to that question.
There was no bottom, no limit to how low they would go to maintain their privilege. He could not allow Maddie to get dragged into the gutter with them. If she was unable to play in this tournament because of his family, he would never forgive himself.
Hardening his voice, he stared them both down. “Let me be perfectly clear so there are no misunderstandings. If harm should befall her in any way, if she sheds one tear over anything to do with this family, I will burn your entire world to ashes.”