Cain blinked. Stared at the man wearing the mocking grin. Shock buffeted him, momentarily rendering him deaf except for two blaring words—wedding contract.
What the fuck?
That sense of unease exploded into panic and a strangling sensation of claustrophobia. His fingers curled inside his pocket. But ingrained, brutally taught lessons kept him still. Maintained his stoic composure. Betrayed nothing of the fear ricocheting against his rib cage.
Revealed nothing of the weakness.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, voice calm.
“I’m talking about you, Cain Farrell, marrying my daughter. Your father promised you to me. Signed you over to me, actually.”
Gregory chuckled as if the thought of a father selling his son like medieval chattel amused him. Hell, since the bastard was doing the same to his own daughter, he probably did find it funny. He opened his jacket and reached inside, withdrawing folded up sheets of paper. Rising, he extended them toward Cain. “I took the precaution of bringing a copy of the contract with me. Please take your time and review it. I assure you it’s all binding.”
Numb, Cain retrieved the papers and circled his desk. Unfolding the contract, he laid it out and studied it. Silence ticked by in thunderous pulses, echoing the pounding in his veins. And the longer he read, the more consuming his fury became. As he flipped to the last page of the three-page agreement and spied his father’s bold scrawl next to Gregory’s more elegant signature, Cain’s body ached with the force he wielded to restrain himself. To not roar his outrage to the ceiling. To not flip his fucking desk. To not lunge across the space separating him from the smirking bastard across from him and wrap his hands around his scheming neck.
“You call yourself a businessman,” Cain ground out, his voice the consistency of gravel. “You forgot to add a couple more names. Extortionist. Blackmailer.”
Gregory didn’t even possess the decency to appear ashamed of his actions. Lifting a shoulder in a Gallic shrug, he arched an eyebrow. “No need to get insulting, Cain. One thing I learned during my climb up in this world, no one is going to offer handouts to a poor man with a high school education. I made my own success. Forged my own paths when people of your world closed them. And I did that by any means necessary. So if you expect me to apologize or feel ashamed for how I got here, then you’re in for a long wait that will only end in disappointment.”
“Save me that self-serving drivel,” Cain snapped, uncaring if Gregory glared at him in return. “There are plenty of people who start from the bottom, who put in the work, the sacrifice to claw their way to the top without resorting to criminal behavior. So you weren’t born with a trust fund. Over ninety percent of people aren’t. But you denigrate their efforts and shame them by justifying this—” he jabbed a finger at the offensive contract “—with where you started from.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never gone a day without in his life,” Gregory sneered, a ruddy color flooding his sharp cheekbones. A cold rage glinted in his green eyes, and Cain correctly deciphered the disgust there. For him.
“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me, Cole,” Cain growled, planting his fists on the desktop and leaning forward. “Because if you did, you would’ve never walked into my office this morning. Take this.” He flicked the three sheets of paper, and they slid across the furniture, teetering on the edge before fluttering to the floor. “And get the hell out.”
Gregory didn’t bend to pick up the contract or remove his stare from Cain’s.
“Oh see, that’s where you’re wrong. I know all I need to when it comes to you, Cain,” he murmured, a corner of his mouth kicking up in a smirk Cain hungered to knock off his face. “While your father entered into this arrangement because of his conceit and ego, he assured me you would comply because of one thing. Your loyalty to your mother. A love for one’s mother—it’s a powerful thing,” he continued in a silky tone. “And I don’t doubt that you would do anything rather than see Emelia Farrell’s name splashed across tabloid rags and dragged through the gutter by unscrupulous reporters. They would be relentless if they discovered that she had an affair while still married to your father. And they would be absolutely rabid if they received evidence of that affair—pictures, emails, texts...video.”
Bile rushed from his stomach in an acidic torrent. It burned, searing him. For an instant, he caved to the pain and briefly closed his eyes. But immediately, images of his mother’s face if this news became public swam across the backs of his lids. Devastated. Humiliated. Broken.
His mother, beautiful, proud, kind and so damn strong. In order to be married to Barron Farrell she’d had to be. She’d been the one stable, loving constant in Cain’s life—gentle where his father had been harsh. Affectionate where he’d been cold. Protective when he’d been the aggressor. She’d suffered during her marriage. Once upon a time she’d probably loved his father, but his belittling, verbal assaults and constant infidelities had whittled that devotion to scraps. And his insistence on “making a man” of Cain with his fists had eradicated even those remnants.
His mother had endured for Cain, and the knowledge, the guilt, ate at him. She could’ve left Barron at any time, but he would’ve fought her for custody, and with his power, money and influence, Barron would’ve won. And she’d refused to leave Cain to Barron’s “tender mercies.” So she’d stayed until Cain had been old enough to fend for himself both financially and physically.
Emelia Farrell had paid her dues.
So no, he didn’t blame her for stepping outside her travesty of a marriage and finding comfort where she could. Just... Christ. She’d made a mistake choosing this man.
“Another crime you’re confessing to, Cole,” Cain snarled, loathing scalding him from the inside out. “It’s against the law to release that kind of material without the other party’s consent.”
“Sue me.”
Cain straightened. Better to insert as much distance between them as possible. “And your daughter? She doesn’t care that the man she’s willing to chain herself to is only marrying her because of blackmail? That he doesn’t want her, doesn’t love her? Or is she like you, and all she cares about is digging her hooks into a wealthy man so she can bleed him dry?”
“My daughter does what needs to be done for her family,” he replied, smoothly. “And I don’t need your money, Cain. I have more than enough of that. But if my daughter is married to a Farrell, doors that money can’t buy will be opened to her.”
“To you, you mean,” Cain spat.
Another shrug. “Boston society is clannish, disdainful to those who weren’t born in your rarefied circles. You know as well as I do that wealth will only propel a person so far. Will only grant them entrance to the building, but not a seat at the table. If you’re born with a setting and a name card at that table, then you can’t talk to me about how to gain a place there.”