Chapter One 660

Chapter One

Delphine

“Explain to me again, Charlie, how that little cunt has acquired shares in my company…” Tapping my crimson nails on the desk, I give the small man sitting opposite me a tight smile.

The sun had set a while ago, but here we were, still in my office. Glancing out the huge floor to ceiling windows, I watch people on the streets below going about their evenings, little specks of color lit by the glow of the city.

He swallows anxiously as I inhale slowly, trying to calm myself. His pale throat bobs as he attempts to find some words to appease me, but nothing he says right now will dampen the anger simmering away inside like a pot, preparing to bubble over.

“It appears that Jacobson may have sold his stock to the subsidiary ICA Investments.” Charlie coughs and glances down at the tablet in his hand as he scrolls through the report. The same report I received fifteen minutes ago. The same report that had me seeing red.

Arching my brow at my assistant, I urge him to continue. “And who owns ICA Investments?”

Charlie’s chestnut brown eyes dart to the side as he chews on his bottom lip. “That would be…West Holdings.”

“How. The. Fuck. Did. This. Happen?” Rubbing my temples, I try to ignore the pounding headache that seems to be building in intensity. Grabbing the hairpin that had been holding back my honey-colored hair, I yank it free and shake out my loose curls, hoping to ease some of the pressure on my skull. The urge to hurt someone builds the longer I sit here.

My assistant trembles, knuckles white as he clutches the tablet like it’s going to save his life. It won’t. But it might save him if I decide to throw the stapler.

My second in command and closest friend, Hugo, leans back in his chair and taps his chin. His hair is shades of salt and pepper, matching the neatly trimmed beard he’s been growing out recently. His Tom Ford suit is immaculate, like always, and as he brushes some

Imaginary lint from his lapel, I suppress the urge to snort. I’d never met a man quite as vain as Hugo Chadwick.

When he speaks, it’s directed at me and I can see the cogs turning inside his head as we think about how to handle the drama surely coming our way. Hugo knew all about my family scandals. “Do we have any information on why Jacobson sold up?”

“His family have been stakeholders since my great-grandfather created this company.” Tap. Tap. Tap. This makes no sense. I keep drumming my nails on the mahogany surface. My grandfather had brought this desk over with him from France when he first started his business. He claimed to have fallen in love with it when he spotted it in an antique shop near Brant?me, my grandmother being the shop assistant clearly had nothing to do with it.

I wasn’t supposed to be the Harrington sitting in the Chief Executive Officer chair, but I hadn’t exactly been given a choice. No, that was taken from me almost thirty years ago when my brother ran away.

Ran from the family.

From his responsibilities.

From me.

I was barely ten years old, and like all little girls with older brothers, obsessed with him. My brother. My Leon. But his obsession had taken him away from us.

Now proof of his infatuation and reckless youth was haunting me, trying to take everything I’d worked so hard to build.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Some bastard child, born out of wedlock to my disowned and estranged brother, was worth nothing, and certainly not the million-dollar business entrusted to me. I’d given everything to Nexus Enterprises. Everything.

Charlie tugs on his collar, his nervousness feeding the rage inside me. How hard was it to find an assistant who didn’t flinch and shake like a doe caught in my headlights?

“There have been reports of Jacobson’s…debt.”

“He’s always in debt. What’s so different now?” I wave my hand, irritated. That information wasn’t new. Harold Jacobson had been surviving on credit and goodwill since the eighties. His money was always vanishing up his nose, in poor investments or being sucked out of his dick by his latest wife. Yet his shares in Nexus had always been constant.

The tip of Charlie’s tongue darts out, and he swipes it across his bottom lip. “I tried to contact his office, Delphine. But they said…they said…”

Pushing to my feet, I walk over to the drinks trolley I keep in my office for when I have important guests and pour myself and Hugo each a glass of Penderyn. “Spit it out Charlie, or I swear to God I’m going to wring that neck of yours.”

“They said he’s in hospital. Recovering from an accident. ”

Hugo’s eyes narrow and we share a look. “What kind of accident?”

Charlie takes a deep breath before exhaling slowly. As he straightens his spine, I remember why I hired him. He showed potential, plus he liked to gossip. “His secretary said it was a car accident, he had to be placed in a medically induced coma for a few days.”

Handing Hugo the glass, I let our fingers brush before taking my seat.

“Oh dear. It looks like your dear little nephew likes to play dirty,” Hugo chuckles, sipping his whiskey with a wry smile. My nephew isn’t the only one willing to get his hands bloody, and it’s time I put a stop to his shenanigans—his little vendetta against me has gone on for far too long. He was like a feral mutt, always clinging on.

He’d already purchased the home I grew up in as a child when it sold two years ago. Then earlier this year, when I moved from my penthouse into a cute little brownstone, he was the buyer who snapped up the apartment I’d abandoned—something I only found out when ripples started amongst my shareholders. He was coming for the business, and I would not let that happen.

“Charlie, get me everything you can on Weston Edwards. I want to know everything—from which companies come under West Holdings, to who he likes to fuck, and which soap he uses.”

My assistant nods, the tips of his ears turning pink as he taps away on the screen. With a shaky voice, he says, “Weston Harrington. He goes by Harrington now.”

It looked like a few rotten limbs needed to be trimmed from the family tree. I slam my glass down. “That little fucker really needs to learn his place.”

If I didn’t get ahead of this now, my nephew was just going to keep cropping up like a weed, poking its head through the cracks. It was bad enough he’d managed to get his sticky little paws on some of our shares, but now the question was what he was going to do with them. Just what was the ingrate after?

If Weston was behind Jacobson’s accident, there would be no doubt that the other shareholders would be shaken. I couldn’t have them wavering, not when there was a viper in the nest.

“Get me on a flight first thing, it looks like I need to pay a visit to our US branch.” I share another look with Hugo. There was no ignoring this whole filthy thing any longer. “Call Alexi Volkov and book a session at Toska. Tell him I want the Onyx room and a play partner– he knows what I like.”

Pain. Control. Blood.

Those were what I craved, but being the daughter of one of the wealthiest conglomerate families meant my tastes had to be catered for in a way that didn’t draw unnecessary attention.

That’s why I chose my outlets carefully and surrounded myself with people who had just as much to lose as I did. Trust was worth nothing, but mutually assured destruction was a useful tool to wield.

Glancing up, Charlie blinks at me a few times as if processing. “Are you sure? Only you promised your mother you would spend the week at your house down the Gower.”

My headache picks up the tempo, the pounding almost deafening now as I bite the inside of my cheek. Iona Harrington would barely notice if I was there or not. She was too busy swimming in the bottom of her gin glass.

Rolling my eyes, I sit back in my leather chair and sigh. “I’ll send her an email and let her know that I won’t be in Wales this week. Business comes first, she knows that.”

Charlie sucks in a sharp breath. “But Delphine…”

“What is difficult to understand? Get me on a flight, and then get me to Club Toska.”