I could feel her restrained sigh. The one that said she still loved me, somewhere deep down, beneath all the disappointment. “I expect you in top form at the gala. You’re going to see to rebuilding your reputation, and this company’s reputation, one handshake at a time. You need to be completely beyond reproach here.”
“Understood.”
I also understood it the first ten times she told me.
“I’ll be flying in on Saturday for the gala. I’ll expect glowing reviews about your behavior on the west coast from every woman I shake hands with at that event.”
“Of course.”
“And if I find out that you’ve been flashing your grandmother’s money around so you can… you know…get laid,” she forced out, which sounded entirely fucking wrong coming out of my mother’s mouth, “we will have a problem.”
“Mom, I don’t need to—”
She hung up on me.
“—flash money around to get laid,” I finished in the silence.
Well.
That was fucking fun.
Getting torn a new asshole by my mother for the dozenth time in three days… really up there on my list of life achievements and good times.
I checked my phone. Half a dozen messages from my team were already waiting for me. Wiley, my senior personal assistant, had been clearing my personal schedule of any semblance of a heartbeat; he’d even canceled the masseuse and the personal trainer he’d booked for me while I was in town. Velma, my senior executive assistant, was already booking meetings for me all over town, so I could shake hands with the preeminent women-in-media of Vancouver—who probably already hated me by reputation alone.
So fun.
How the fuck did I land here, in this steaming pile of shit?
Four days ago, everything was on track. I was already Senior VP at Valhalla. I was engaged to be married by the end of the year. Sure, I’d had some fun along the way. I wasn’t a saint. But I’d done everything my family had ever asked of me.
On my thirtieth birthday, in a mere three-and-a-half months, I’d come into my full inheritance and make partner in the family company. And one day, I’d own the whole thing.
I was the Davenport empire’s golden child. Secure. Untouchable.
Or so I’d been raised to believe.
How could I know my life would implode overnight in the midst of a sex tape scandal?
Last night, my mother had officially ejected me from my sky scraping office at the corporate compound like some sad, perverted disgrace. She wanted me out of my grandmother’s sight, out of the office and out of Toronto. It wasn’t really about the fucking gala. It was about reputation. Appearances. Power.
It was about our family, our company, and my future in both.
It was about me proving my worth.
“How much longer?” I asked Rolf.
“Five minutes, boss.”
Great. I needed a Tylenol and a whiskey chaser, stat.
I thumbed through the messages that were piling up on my phone as it buzzed in my hand. It rarely stopped. I swiped most of them away into oblivion.
Shane had texted again.
Shane:Johnny knows you’re here too.
Shit.