3. Cole

"So…what did you think?"

My grandmother turned to face me with an expectant smile as soon as John, her long-time driver, ferried the company Rolls Royce onto the stop-and-go shitshow that is Las Vegas Boulevard at rush hour.

"About you continuing to sink company funds into a party for that money pit of a show?"

"No, you silly grandson of mine."

I hadn"t even been half kidding. But Nora slapped my arm as if I"d cracked a great joke.

"I"m talking about Sunny. C"mon, then, tell us what you thought of her."

"Who?"

Nora"s blindingly white, all-capped smile dimmed. "The lass who was literally kicking it up with me before you rudely yanked me from my own party. Surely, you noticed those grand knockers of hers—not to mention her pretty face. She"s a stunner, that one. And she finally came to her senses and parted ways with her last boyfriend. Some boxer eejit. But she won"t be single for long with those looks and personality, mark my words. You"ll need to act fast to seize this opportunity, Coley."

Oh.Aggravation radiated behind my eyes like an incoming headache.

So, Nora had decided to use this ride to our meeting with AudioNation as her chance to try to set me up again. This time with some showgirl from the revue we only kept running because my grandfather had left her his position as chair of the board and an absurd number of shares in Benton Worldwide.

My grandmother refused to accept that I was perfectly capable of setting up my own dates—after an extensive background check and making sure whomever I chose signed a contract listing the exact nature of our relationship, along with terms and conditions for how we"d conduct our bi-weekly sex appointments.

Instead of indulging my grandmother's fantasy, I focus on her complaint. "If you wanted to stay at that party, you shouldn"t have scheduled it at the same time as our meeting with the Lathams."

"I didn"t schedule this infernal meeting. Youdid! And in direct conflict with my annual do, I might add. A less magnanimous gran might accuse you of having done it on purpose."

"Or taken responsibility for forgetting to put her unnecessary after-Christmas party on the official calendar."

As usual, Nora refused to own up to her mistakes. "Well, it"s not a party, per se. More like a treasured tradition. I don"t understand why you need me at this silly meeting anyway."

"Gregory Latham runs AudioNation with an iron fist, and for some reason, he wants your approval for our potential eight-figure deal, even though it has nothing to do with you. Latham needs to know you"re fully on board, so I"m bringing you with me. Believe me, I"m not happy about it, either."

I"d always been a straight shooter—one of the many personality traits I"d inherited from my grandfather.

But Nora blinked at me like an offended little old lady who"d never encountered such behavior before. "Sometimes I wonder if Maria was right when she said there was something broken inside of you."

Maria, the nanny/grief specialist Nora had foisted on me after I came to live with her and my grandfather. She"d quit in a fit after I used my generous allowance to pay some dark web guy to hack into her emails and unearth all her dirty secrets (that was before I met Lobo). If Maria"s angry tears had been any indication, she hadn"t appreciated me countering her incessant safe-space invitations to "open up, tell me anything" with my own questions about the husband who"d given her chlamydia before running off to Florida with another man.

"You"d rather I be like my father?" I asked Nora. "Putting pussy before everything and going along with your little set-up job because you promised me she has nice tits?"

"She also has a sparkling and wonderful personality," Nora grumbled. "I just led with the tits."

"Hard pass."

Nora huffed and went silent. But unfortunately, her refusal to speak didn"t last long.

"I"d rather you be like your grandad," she insisted. "He considered me for more than what I possessed between my legs, long and beautiful as they were."

She let out a sad sigh. For her dead husband or for the legs of her youth? It was always hard to tell with Nora. And I didn"t care enough to ask.

"Your dear granddad understood that even when my looks faded, having someone in his life who he loved and who loved him back was more important than any business meeting. Do you have any idea how many appointments with VIPs he canceled just to have another round with me between the sheets?" Nora grinned. "Over fifty years of last-minute cancellations we had together. Yet when he died, he had tears in his eyes because he said we still hadn"t gotten enough time together. And y"know, Coley, I couldn"t disagree. At the end of a life, love really is the most important thing."

Heartwarming story. But, "My grandfather wasn"t doing multimillion-dollar deals with AudioNation."

"Oh, Coley. You know that"s not what I meant. You work too much. The company is all you think about. It"s no way to live."

Her dark-green eyes filled with pity, as if I were some poor worker bee, not the powerful CEO of an international hotel conglomerate. "I want you to have what I had. Love! Intimacy! Incredible sex! And I truly do believe that Sunny can give you all of that if you convince her to have you. Plus, she"s the granddaughter of my dearest friend."

Nora"s pitying look morphed into a wicked grin. "Oh, if Glo were still alive, I imagine she"d be right here beside me, plotting ways to get the two of you together. You should have seen the way Glo and I burned up the town before your grandad plucked me out of the Benton Girls line...."

Now she was invoking some dead friend I"d never heard about until Nora wanted to set me up with her granddaughter?

Refusing to indulge this conversation any further, I pulled out my phone and started returning work emails.

Alas, Nora didn"t need my attention to continue. She prattled on through several more stoplights.

"And that"s why I"ve decided to give my chair seat and shares in Benton Worldwide to your brother if you don"t agree to woo and marry Sunny."

Hold on.What?! I abruptly stopped typing an email to Agnes about scheduling a follow-up call with Gregory Latham for tomorrow.

"You didn"t just say you were going to give your chair seat and all of your shares in Benton Worldwide to Max?" I asked Nora, sure that I"d heard her wrong.

But she heaved one of her overly dramatic Irish sighs. "Yes, I"m aware this decision of mine is not ideal for your little deal with the Lathams. Max called me personally to tell me how very much he despises the idea of giving residency rights to…what did he call it? ‘A soulless corporation disguised as a music label that actually gives a fuck.'"

She sniffed, as if we were talking about some minor difference of opinion, not giving billions of dollars' worth of shares and controlling interest in the company to an international playboy who'd never set foot inside our boardroom. My half brother literally phoned it in to every quarterly meeting.

"Why would you do that?" My hand tightened around the phone I"d never used to teleconference into an important meeting of the Benton board. Not once. "You are aware, giving your chair seat and shares to Max would kill the AudioNation deal."

"Yes, but..." Nora shook her head. "I"m afraid this is the only way I can get you to take me seriously."

Not to put too fine a Logan Roy point on it but, "Nora, you are not a serious person. If you do this, Max will win."

"It"s not a competition," Nora insisted. "I know that you and Max have history…"

History?"We fucking hate each other," I reminded her because, apparently, she"d forgotten in her insanity to see me married to some showgirl.

"That"s why I told your grandfather he should at least have considered giving Maxie a vice president position, too, when he brought you into the company." Another put-upon sigh. "Maybe if your brother had been given more responsibility, he wouldn"t be gallivanting all over the world, as opposed to mending his rift with you."

"Or maybe he would"ve driven this company right into a brick wall, like my father," I shot back.

Triple Ice. That was what my employees called me behind my back.

And I liked it.

But the old anger rose like a volcano, threatening to crack the icy mask I"d constructed and worn proudly during my tenure as the CEO of Benton Worldwide. "I"m the grandson who didn"t fuck off. The one who took over for your son and put the company back on course. We"re turning a considerable profit now. Because of me. And you're threatening to give Max, of all people, your controlling interest in the company I saved?"

"Yeah, why not?" Nora shrugged. "Max is a gas, and I bet he wouldn"t fight me so hard on marrying Sunny."

I stared at her. Lobo, the founder and head of the Los Lobos Cartel, was always available to do my dirty work. But he drew the line at grandmatricide. I"d asked. Back when Nora somehow convinced a majority of the board to keep on the Benton Girls Revue, even though it had been running in the red since the "90s.

"Coley, don"t look at me like that," Nora simpered. "I know this is a harsh move on my part, but it"s my dying wish to see you married to this woman."

"Are you actually dying, Nora?" I asked from between clenched teeth.

"Not yet," she admitted cheerfully. "But I will, one day. And I want grans before that day comes."

"You have grandchildren."

"Chubby lil" great-granbabies!" Nora clasped her hands, and her expression went dreamy. "Grans I won"t fuck up, like I did you and your father. Now that your grandad"s gone, I realize the true meaning of life and love, and I"m ready to give all that love to a child who won"t call me by my first name. Plus, Sunny will make a lovely mother, won"t she?"

Nora leaned over, and her voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "If we"re speaking frankly, I don"t think much will be required of either of us once you get her preggers. She truly is the best wife you could ever hope for, Coley. You"re so lucky I"m making you do this. Anyhoo, you have until the next board meeting to put a ring on it, as that delightful Beyoncé would say."

She couldn"t be serious. "The next board meeting is in March!"

"It only took your grandad three days to propose to me," Nora pointed out. "Then, y"know, three months to draw up the iron-clad prenup. But still. When you know, you know. Would you look at that? We"ve finally arrived at the big red schlong!"

Nora broke off from her extortion speech to smile up at the AudioNation headquarters—a red glass skyscraper that admittedly looked like a red dildo, sticking up as it did among all the mid-rise office spaces surrounding it in the Downtown Las Vegas central business district. "No need to pull all the way into the garage. You let us out here, Johnny. That traffic was ghastly, wasn"t it?"

"Gets worse and worse every year," John agreed from the front seat as he pulled over to the curb. Proving he"d been listening to every word of our conversation.

Nora clamored out before I could argue with her any further.

But that was fine. I was done arguing.

Some accused me of being a nepo baby, following in my father"s footsteps of becoming the CEO of Benton Worldwide without deserving it. They had no idea how hard I had to work to save this company from the brink of bankruptcy. And my grandmother just flat-out refused to appreciate it.

Both my grandmother and those naysayers failed to understand that you didn"t become an effective CEO by leaving it all to chance on your inheritance. Or by playing along with the marriage schemes of meddling old ladies.

I smiled and glad-handed through my meeting with Gregory Latham and his sons, Geoff and Griffin. Geoff was the music industry version of me, the eldest scion who everyone already knew would take over as CEO of AudioNation when his father was finally ready to hand over the reins. His other son, Griffin, was a semi-retired-but-still-popular country trap artist. One we hoped would serve as our first residency when the AudioNation deal went through.

Which it would. I"d make sure of it.

As soon as I arrived home at my penthouse suite on top of the Benton Grand, I pulled out my special burner phone to make the call.

"Calling instead of texting," Lobo answered without bothering with a greeting. "I"m assuming you need something you don"t want written down for the record."

There was a reason Lobo and I had remained friends beyond my stint in juvie, which my grandfather had paid handsomely to cover up. "You assumed right."

"What do you need?"

"Dirt." I bared my teeth at the memory of my grandmother actually thinking she could blackmail me into doing what she wanted. "I need any dirt you can find on a woman named Sunny."

"Sunny what?"

"No idea." I clenched my jaw. "But she works for the Benton Girls Revue."

"That"s all my guy needs," Lobo assured me. "I"ll get back to you."

Getting back to me took longer than I thought it would. Six weeks. Over which Nora sent me increasingly threatening texts.

How about Realtin, if it"s a girl? It means little star. Nice proper Irish name that will keep with the girl"s naming convention on Sunny"s side!

I spoke to Kelsey Weitman about your upcoming nuptials, and she thinks we should put on two weddings. One in the Benton Wedding Salon for the press release and a small private ceremony at my place for friends and family. Let me know what you think BEFORE the March board meeting!

Max finally called me back. He"s in Greece. He says he"d be HAPPY to marry Sunny!!! Abe says it will take a while to transfer all my shares, tho, so let your nan know how you plan to play this hand I"ve dealt you.

As if herlooking up baby names, consulting with the Benton Grand"s wedding director, and conspiring with Max weren"t enough, her most egregious act of extortion arrived by courier in late January.

A small leather box with a handwritten note attached.

Here"s the wee bauble your grandad gave me when he asked me to marry him. Of course I made him upgrade me within a year of the ceremony, but I think it would be perfect for Sunny! She"s not flash, like me. Too bad. She"s so pretty, flash would look good on her. Almost as good as a Benton baby bump! Make it happen, Coley. OR MAX WILL!!!

I opened the box to find a simple emerald engagement ring with a gold band.

And pondered whether I should run the grandmatricide idea by Lobo again. Surely, he"d reverse his stance on killing old ladies once I explained the extreme lengths Nora was going to in order to make me fall in line with her blackmail marriage scheme.

Fortunately for Nora"s chances of surviving the year, when I came home from work that night, I found the burner flip phone lit up with a new text from its only contact: "Got something for you."

"Lo siento for how long this took," Lobo said when I called him back. "Your girl was squeaky-clean. Good girl through and through as far as we could see at first. Went to nice private schools before getting her degree in dance at UNLV. Drives a used car she paid for in cash. Doesn't even have a student loan."

No, doubt because of my grandmother. If Nora was fond enough of this woman's grandmother to force her granddaughter on me, I was sure Nora wouldn't hesitate to pay this Sunny's private school tuition and college bills.

"I thought I was actually going to have to tell you we couldn"t find anything," Lobo admitted. "But then I told my guy to check her bank accounts one last time before I gave you the bad news, and...well, check the text message I just sent you."

I hung up and forwarded the text with the Dropbox link Lobo had sent me to an account I could access from my laptop—but it officially belonged to an unnamed employee at the shell I used to cover up some of my less ethical business moves.

"Gotcha," I whispered to myself when I discovered the bank statement. It revealed a six-figure transfer from the Glo Johnson Charity Fund into Sunny"s savings account, followed by a complete withdrawal before she shut it down, leaving behind just her personal checking, where she received her Benton Girl paychecks. I wasn"t an Asian tourist, but Happy Lunar New Year. To me.