"That may be the case," Dad says, trying to sit up again. This time he succeeds. "But the thing is that you weren't involved earlier and things happened the way that they happened."
"What exactly is going on?"
He clears his throat and then says, "We are in real trouble, pumpkin. Things have not been going well for some time. I've been trying to keep things afloat by telling the investors what they wanted to hear and hoping that I could get things to turn around, but I have not been as successful as I had wished."
He pauses for a moment and I wait for him to continue.
"Franklin Parks is the only one who can help us," Dad says. "He has connections that are… well, they are astonishing. He knows everybody and everybody owes him. That's why those charges were pressed so quickly. That's why they arrested me in the way that they did and that's why they were dropped just as fast afterward."
"But what does he want?" I ask.
I adjust my seat on the edge of my father's bed, trying to get comfortable without squishing him or any of the tubes running in and out of him.
"He wants you."
Dad and I have never talked about anything this private before. I mean, he knows that I have dated guys and was even serious with a few of them, but we have never really discussed my love life.
I knew that he did not approve of Henry, but he kept the details of his disapproval to himself.
This is the first time that we have ever broached the subject and it's disarming.
"Franklin Parks is a collector, honey. He likes to have things that are exclusive and hard to get and one of a kind. He has built up a large media conglomerate, but up until this point it has mainly been in the online space. He's looking to expand and buy something traditional, perhaps even old-fashioned. That's why he's interested in Tate."
"So, why doesn't he just make you an offer?"
"He has, and it was quite low. It's not enough to get us out from under our debts and it would leave us with very little to spare. Your mother and I did not build this fortune, this empire, to give it away, or worse yet sell it for parts."
"So, why can't you find another investor?" I ask.
"Don't you think that we have tried? We have been trying for two years. Things have been getting steadily worse and, with each quarterly report, things look even bleaker."
"Isn't there anything you can do?"
"I've already been fudging the profits a little bit. All in an effort to keep us afloat."
My chest tightens at the admission.
Putting out reports that do not reflect the truth about a company's profits and losses is a mortal sin in the financial world. Investors rely on that information to make decisions about the stock price and every other investment decision, and CEOs have been put away for many years for doing a lot less.
"So, where do I come in?" I ask.
"Franklin wants you to be his wife," my father says. There's no surprise or intonation in his voice when he says that. He says it in the same flat effect he has said everything else today.
My father is detached, almost as if he's not there at all. He's usually a little cold, a little distant, but this is on a whole new level.
"I don't understand what he wants from me, or why he even wants me to marry him. When I talked to him, he told me that he had no interest in marriage at all."
"I don't know much about his intentions," my father says coolly. "But even if he were to reveal them to me, I would probably not trust them. People in our line of work tend to say things that don't really reflect the truth."
"That's one way of putting it," I agree.
He scoffs loudly and then clears his throat.
"I don't know much about Franklin, and we have investigators working on finding out more about him. But what they did find so far is that you two have actually met before when you were fifteen. He tried to come on to you and you turned him away."
I shake my head, trying to remember when this could've happened.
"It was at your debutante ball. He was hanging out with me and some of my friends from the club. Then at some point, you two had a chat."
Suddenly, I remember the precise moment. It was right outside the main ballroom, and I was standing by the wall, after feeling like I was about to have a panic attack.
I needed some quiet time to clear my head and the last thing that I expected was someone to approach me and flirt with me.
I was there with a date, whom I didn't particularly like, and this older guy came over, at first to just congratulate me. But he kept hanging around and, eventually, his friendliness became a little bit too much.
He made a joke and laughed, touching my shoulder and then my waist. I tried to back away from him, but there was nowhere to go.
Nothing he said was particularly funny, but I laughed along with him just to be nice, the way that girls do when they are uncomfortable.
When I tried to extricate myself from the situation, he didn't want to take no for an answer and I had to physically push him away.
"That sounds about right," he says when I go over the highlights. "He had mentioned that you were the only woman who has ever turned him away and that's why he wants you to be his wife."
"What can I do?" I ask him. “I mean, I want to help but can I really marry him?"
“No, you shouldn’t marry him, pumpkin,” my father says quietly. "Of course, you shouldn't marry him.”
I let out a deep sigh of relief.
"You shouldn't marry him, but only if you're okay with losing everything," my father adds.
Shivers run down my spine and I can't feel the tips of my fingers.
"What are you saying?" I ask him, narrowing my eyes.
"I need your help, Aurora. I have never asked you for anything but now I need your help. This is just a marriage. It's nothing serious or life-altering."
I shake my head, unable to believe that my own father is saying this to me.
"Okay, okay," he says, raising his hands in the air in front of him.
He is trying to calm me down, reacting to the bewildered expression on my face.
"Let me explain," he continues. "What I meant is that it's a big thing that you would be doing, I know that. It would be a huge favor to me and your mother and it would help us immensely. But I don't want you to think of it like your life is over. I know that you're no longer dating Henry, but if for some reason you still wanted to or if you met another person that you wanted to be with, you could, of course, be with him."
"Even if I'm married?" I ask.
"Come on now," he says. “We are all grown-ups here. Infidelity is very common in marriage, even ones that start out happy. I'm not saying that you won't be happy, but just in case you aren't…"
"Of course, I wouldn't be happy, I would be marrying a man that I hate. Or at the very least know nothing about. The only reason for a marriage is to save a company that I have nothing to do with."
My father furrows his eyebrows and he sits up more. Pointing his finger in my face, he narrows his eyes until his irises almost disappear.
"Let me explain something to you, honey," he says, using that word of endearment in a completely different way. "Tate Media is everything that I am and it is everything that your mother is. It is our baby. We have nurtured it from when it was a little seed and now it is a giant fucking oak tree. You did nothing to make it grow and we were okay with that. Now, you are the only one who can save it."