Takeover In The Boardroom: An Heiress for His Empire

“No. It wouldn’t have occurred to him that I would purposefully put Archer International Holdings at risk.”

“No.”

“But apparently the idea that I might marry someone who might do that had already occurred to Jeremy.”

“Yes.” Something about the quality of Vik’s stillness said he might have had more to do with that than her own father’s paranoia.

“So, he was already considering how to get me to marry the man of his choice?” Maddie surmised. “He’s using Perrygate as a vehicle for his own agenda.”

She wasn’t surprised by her father’s mercenary motives, but she didn’t have to like them.

“You would have to ask him.” Vik indicated to the waitress to bring their bill. “I think the reality is more that he is afraid you’ll end up with Mr. Timwater. Your father will do anything to prevent that.”

“To protect the reputation and future of the company.” Considering Perry’s poor luck with his own business ventures, she could understand her father not wanting him to get even shallow hooks into any part of AIH.

“Sometimes, I think you are as willfully blind as your father.” Vik shook his head. “He wants to stop you from marrying a man who would go public with the kind of claims Perry made in his interview.”

“And Jeremy believes you’re a huge improvement.”

“You don’t?” Vik asked, his tone more than a little sardonic.

She wasn’t about to answer that. “Perry has never been in the running.”

“Several articles in the media over the past six years would suggest otherwise.”

“And the media never gets it wrong.”

“You’ve never denied it, not publicly and not to your father.”

“That’s where you are wrong.” And she had no satisfaction in that truth. “I told my father that Perry was just a friend, but he never believed me. He’s always been more interested in his own interpretations and those of the media than anything I might have to say.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but he is stubborn.”

“So are you, in the way you defend him.”

“Would you respect me if I had no loyalty for my friends?”

“Is my father your friend?”

“Yes.” The single word wouldn’t let her doubt his sincerity.

She used to think Vik was her friend, too.

Then things changed.

Now, she was facing the reality that it wasn’t just that her father wanted her to marry Vik, but so did the man himself. Both had their reasons, but while different those reasons all centered around AIH, not Maddie.

She wasn’t sure where, if anywhere at all, she came into the picture, other than as a minor piece on the chessboard. She certainly didn’t feel like the queen.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’LL BE BACK at three to take you to the lawyer’s office,” Vik informed Maddie as she unlocked her door and stepped inside.

“Are you sure that’s not a conflict of interest?”

“Would you rather go alone?” he asked, a mocking twist on the masculine lips she’d spent far too much time studying as a teenager.

“No.” Especially not after witnessing the media circus outside her building.

The paparazzi had always found her interesting, but it had never been like this.

And it was only getting worse as the morning wore on.

She’d managed to sneak out of the back entrance earlier, but the story and her location had spread in just that amount of time. There were almost as many media leeches haunting the other entrances to the building as in front now.

Even the parking garage hadn’t been free of their presence.

She’d expected Vik to have his driver drop her off, but she could only be grateful he had insisted on getting out of the car and escorting her all the way to her apartment door.

He’d kept his body positioned protectively between her and the reporters stalking her. Vik was also very good at remaining silent no matter what was thrown at them and Maddie found it easier not to react with him as a buffer.

“Security will have the parking garage cleared,” Vik said after a short text conversation on the elevator.

“Thank you.”

They stepped off the elevator into a thankfully empty hallway.

Vik looked both ways before leading her toward her door anyway. “You need a security detail.”

She shrugged, not wanting to get in to this argument right now, and not at all sure she would win it.

“When was the last time you had this lock changed?” he asked as she opened the door.

She looked up at him, wishing it didn’t feel like all the oxygen got sucked out of the air every time she did that. “Why would I have it changed?”

“At least tell me you had new locks installed when you moved in.”

“Why would I?” she asked again. “I’m sure the building management took care of it when the previous tenants moved out.”

His expression said he didn’t share her confidence. “You don’t own the apartment?”

“No.” She’d always planned to move into the mansion once she’d turned it into a school after she got control of her Madison Trust inheritance.

“Who has a key to this door, besides any previous tenant?” he asked with sarcastic emphasis on his last words.

Maddie leaned against the doorjamb when he showed no signs of following her inside. “Romi.” She grimaced. “Perry, but he’s not going to show his face.”

Vik just shook his head before pulling his phone out and making a call. “Get the building access cards affiliated with Madison Archer’s apartment deactivated and new cards issued for her, Ramona Grayson and myself.”

He listened in silence for a moment. “Yes, have Ms. Grayson’s delivered to her and the others to my office. I will pass Miss Archer’s on when I see her later this afternoon. I want a security system installed, along with high-grade safety locks while we are gone.”

The day before, Vik’s high-handedness would have made Maddie livid. Today? It just felt like someone was watching out for her.

“You know, for a corporate shark, you’re pretty good at this white-knight stuff,” she observed as he tucked his phone away.

“I make a good ally.”

“But a terrifying enemy, I bet.”

“You’ll never have to find out.”

“Even if I refuse my father’s ultimatum?” She didn’t bother to point out that if she did agree, she could still choose to marry a different man.

They both knew how unlikely that was.

Her youthful affections notwithstanding, she wasn’t about to marry a stranger or a man who had multiple divorces under his belt.

Vik reached out and cupped her nape, stepping forward until mere centimeters separated their bodies, the heat from his surrounding her in a strangely protective cocoon. He didn’t say anything, just caught her gaze, his dark eyes compelling her to some sort of belief.

Her breath escaped in a whoosh, unexpected and instant physical reaction crackling along her nerve endings while her heart started a precipitando. “Viktor?”

“You will never be my enemy, Madison.”

“You’re so confident I’ll do what you want?”

“I’m confident in you, there’s a difference.”

There so was. He couldn’t have said anything more guaranteed to get to her. People who believed in Maddie were a premium in her life. And less by one after this morning.

Dark espresso eyes continued to trap her even more effectively than his hand on her neck. “Trust me.”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked with an attempt at sarcasm.

“No.” His reply held no responding humor. Tilting his head, he stopped only when their lips almost touched. “You don’t, and do you know why?”

“Tell me,” she said in a voice that barely registered above a whisper.

“You already do.” Then his mouth pressed against hers and the drumbeat in her chest went to the faster paced stretto, while electric pleasure sparked from his lips to hers.

A sensation she’d only known once before despite the fact she’d tried kissing other men. Six years ago when she’d thought the best way to celebrate becoming an adult would be to tell the man she’d been infatuated with for years that she loved him.

Even the memory of that old humiliation could not diminish the feelings of ecstasy washing over her from this elemental connection.

The kiss didn’t last long, just a matter of seconds, but it could have been hours for the impact it had on her. When Vik pulled away and stepped back, Maddie had to stop herself from following him.

“Three o’clock. Turn your phone ringer off. I’ll text.”

She nodded, her mind blown by a simple kiss. Which did not bode well for her emotional equilibrium.

She fought acknowledging the possibility that tycoon Viktor Beck might well be more dangerous to the almost twenty-five-year-old Maddie as Archer business protégé Vik had been to her as a teenager.

“Go inside and lock the door, Madison.”

She nodded again, but didn’t move as she tried to reconcile the present with the past.

He shook his head, a curve flirting at the corner of the usually serious lines of his mouth. “You’re going to be trouble.”

“That’s what my father says.”

“I was thinking of a very different kind of trouble.” Vik traced her bottom lip. “Believe me.”

“Oh, really.” Her lip tingling from his touch, warmth infused her that corresponded to the heat in his voice.

His smile became fully realized, and it was almost as good as the kiss.

She wasn’t the one who was going to be trouble.

“Oh,” she said again, this time without intending to, her body reacting to that warm expression in ways she just didn’t with other men.

Vik waited in silence, no sense of impatience in evidence, but Maddie knew every minute he spent with her cost his tightly packed schedule.

She nodded to herself this time. “See you later.”

Maddie stepped back into her apartment. Closing the door on him was a lot harder than it should have been.

She threw the dead bolt and a second later there was a double tap on the door. Vik’s goodbye.

Using the pay-as-you-go cell phone she’d bought to provide Maddie Grace, volunteer, with a contact number, she called the school and let them know she wouldn’t be in for at least a couple of days. She couldn’t risk being caught in her Maddie Grace persona and having the best part of her life exposed to the media furor.

The next call she made was to Romi, who started cursing in French when Maddie told her friend that Jeremy Archer was using Perrygate to try to push Maddie into an approved marriage.

Maddie didn’t tell Romi about the threat to her own father’s company or Maddie’s response to it. Romi would demand her friend not sign the papers.

“Are you going to do it? Are you going to marry the man you’ve been crushing on for the last ten years?”

“That was a schoolgirl crush. I’m twenty-four years old now.”

“And still a virgin. Still avoiding relationships.”

“I’m not exactly alone in that.”

Romi’s silence was as good as a verbal acknowledgment.

“Besides, I could marry one of the others.”

“Right.”

“Maxwell Black offered a marriage of convenience with children by artificial insemination.” She couldn’t help a small smile at the memory of her father’s reaction to that offer.

She knew Romi would get a kick out of it as well.

“Max was part of your father’s deal?” Romi demanded in a tone a couple of registers above her normal one.

All of Maddie’s humor fled. “You know Maxwell.”

Silence. “A little.”

“More than a little if you call him Max.”

“We went out a few times.”

“You never told me.”

“It’s no big deal.” But, threaded with vulnerability, Romi’s tone said otherwise.

Maddie warned, “I think he found Perry’s claims about our supposed sex life intriguing.”

“I know.”

“You what?” Maddie practically screeched, her own problems forgotten for the moment. “How do you know that?”

“Do you really need me to spell it out for you?”

“You’re still a virgin.”

Romi had said so and the woman might be a hyperactive, borderline political anarchist and more than a little eclectic in her dress style, but she never lied.

“Technically, that is true.”

“Technically?” Maddie drew the word out.

“Look, Maddie, I don’t want to talk about it.” Vulnerability now saturated Romi’s voice, defenselessness that Maddie could not ignore.

“Okay, sweetie. But I’m here for you. You know that, right?”

“Always. SBC.”

“SBC.” Sisters by choice.

Maddie’s mom had called them that the first time when she was explaining to the elementary school principal why the girls would do better with the same kindergarten teacher.

He’d refused to change their assignments and Helene Archer had called in the big guns.

It was the only time Maddie could remember her father stepping foot in her grade school. Mr. Grayson had come down, too, threatening to withdraw his company’s support from the prestigious private school.

Romi and Maddie had never been assigned different classrooms again.

They had shared everything, including their grief at the loss of the only mother either girl had ever known when Helene Archer’s speedboat had crashed into rocks invisible under the moonless sky.

Maddie hadn’t gotten her propensity for risky behavior from nowhere.

She understood now that her mother’s increasingly erratic behavior had been Helene’s way of crying out for help. Help neither Maddie, nor her father, realized Helene needed.

It was a failure Maddie was still coming to terms with.

* * *

Vik’s text came in at ten minutes to three.

He was on a conference call he could not reschedule, but two bodyguards would be at her door in a few minutes. They had AIH indigo-level security IDs and she was not to open the door unless she saw the familiar badges through her peephole.

Specially trained for protecting people rather than corporate property and secrets, the indigo team was her father’s personal security detail. It used to be hers, too. Wanting to live as normal a life as possible, Maddie had refused to be assigned bodyguards when she moved out of the family mansion.

Her father had argued, but ultimately given in.

She didn’t think Vik would be as easily swayed. If he thought Maddie needed a bodyguard for her security, she’d have one.

The same way the company’s on-site security system had been upgraded because Vik deemed it necessary. Her father had been all for it, though.

Nothing was too good for Archer International Holdings.

The limo was waiting in front of the elevator bank in the parking garage. Thankfully, no enterprising reporter had managed to keep vigil. Which probably had less to do with the parking garage guards than the two additional indigo-badge bodyguards standing at attention on either side of the elevator doors.

One of them stepped forward to open the door to the limo and she stepped inside, only then realizing that Vik had taken the conference call on his mobile.

Every dark hair perfectly in place, his designer suit immaculate, he nodded at her while carrying on a conversation in Japanese.

His words did not falter, his Japanese smooth and unhesitating, and yet she felt the weight of his full regard. Like his attention was fully on her.

Like she mattered.

Succumbing to the desire to sit beside him, Maddie settled onto the smooth leather seat across from AIH’s media fixer. Relieved that none of the bodyguards had instructions to join them in the back of the limo, she was still grateful the other occupant gave her an excuse to give in to the irresistible urge.

The need to be near Vik was verging on ungovernable, just like it had been six years ago.

Maddie wanted to chalk it up to the exceptional circumstances. She just wasn’t sure she could.

Which was not enough of a caution to move to the other seat. There was simply no comparison between Vik and Conrad, who until that morning she had found slightly annoying but now considered flat-out obnoxious.

The PR guru took a break from typing madly on his tablet to silently acknowledge her. If his smile looked more like a grimace, she wasn’t interested enough in interacting with him to call him on it.

Besides, Perry’s fake exposé had triggered an ugly media frenzy beyond anything Maddie had ever experienced for her far more innocent escapades.

There was even speculation now that some of her riskier endeavors had been the result of orders from her master. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Maddie did not know how a virgin could be labeled a sex addict with obvious intimacy issues, but she’d stopped reading her Google alerts after that headline.

The limo had exited the parking garage and pulled away from her building when Vik ended his phone call.

“Are you okay?” he asked Maddie.

Honesty would reveal a level of vulnerability she wasn’t comfortable sharing with Vik, much less Conrad. She had no idea how her life had spun out of control so fast.

And Perrygate was only part of it. Her father’s ultimatum and the realization their relationship would never be what she wanted had been followed too closely by the equally alarming, if for different reasons, acknowledgment that she was actually considering marrying her girlhood crush.

“I’m fine.”

“Good,” Conrad said, as if he’d asked the question. “Containing this media bloodbath is going to take serious effort and you need to be on your top game.”

He didn’t have to tell her. Maddie had spent the time since Vik had dropped her off earlier worrying about what would happen if she couldn’t reclaim her reputation.

The all too real prospect of losing her dreams of opening a small charter school tightened Maddie’s throat, so she just nodded.

Once the media started looking more closely at Maddie’s life, her alter ego was bound to come to light and the probability of losing her volunteer position was pretty much guaranteed.

While she enjoyed the anonymity of her Maddie Grace persona, she’d only taken rudimentary steps to keep her two lives separate. She wasn’t James Bond, after all, just a socialite who craved time contributing as a normal person.

The only reason no one had cottoned on to Maddie Grace and Madison Archer being the same person before was that the news simply wasn’t all that interesting. Or it hadn’t been.

Her notoriety as Madcap Madison had been of the innocent variety, good for filler pieces in the social columns, but not salacious enough to really impact circulation numbers. Therefore she had not been interesting enough to be targeted by any serious digging.

She’d no doubt reporters were getting out their sharpest spades now. Perrygate was all that and a bag of chips for the gossipmongers.

The most painful part of Maddie’s predicament was that it wasn’t just her dreams on the line here; Romi was equally invested in the charter school.

Vik sent a text and then pocketed his phone. “Our lack of an immediate response opened the door to other spurious claims from supposed former lovers.”

Vik gave Conrad a look that left no doubt exactly who the VP of Operations for AIH blamed for that mistake.

Maddie felt no smugness at the media fixer being so obviously in the doghouse with Vik. Her life was too out of control to harbor even a hint of that, but she couldn’t help the small thrill of pleasure at him taking her side.

From the moment he’d stepped in and ordered Conrad’s cooperation that morning, Maddie had known she wasn’t alone in facing the painful consequences of her onetime friend’s betrayal.

Conrad tugged at the collar of his shirt. “We’re working on retractions, but the best strategy for solidifying the prank angle is to give the media hounds another story.”

“What do you mean? Like a two-headed baby from outer space, or something?” Maddie asked as her phone chimed to indicate a text from one of her select group.

Thinking it was Romi, she pulled out her phone and checked the message. It wasn’t from her SBC; it was from Vik and said, You are not fine. We will talk. Later.

She texted back. If you say so.

Vik pulled his phone out and replied to her text while speaking. “Or something. A glossy celebrity gossip magazine has already offered a two-page spread announcing our formal engagement in exchange for exclusive photos of a lavish, well-attended wedding reception.”

“We’re engaged now?” Had she missed something between the text convo and their in-person discussion?

Vik didn’t answer, but waited in silence for her to come to her own conclusion.

“It’s the best way to stop any more dirty snow falling in this avalanche,” Conrad said unctuously.

“Dirty snow? Really?” she asked sarcastically.

“Do you have a better word for it?”

“Perrygate.”

“Appropriate, but don’t use it on your social networks,” Conrad instructed her. “It implies a negative rift between you and Mr. Timwater. We’re dismissing all this as a joke gone wrong.”

“Then you can play it off as the bad joke that ruined a friendship. I won’t play nice with Perry.” She couldn’t.

Conrad frowned thoughtfully. “It would be better for you to be seen as the forgiving friend. Waiting a few months to cut the man from your life will increase your popularity.”

“I don’t care.”

“Timwater isn’t coming within a hundred feet of Madison, not even to apologize.” Vik’s voice brooked no argument.

And Conrad proved he was more intelligent than other evidence to the contrary because he didn’t make one. “Fine. Fine.” He started taking notes. “‘The Prank That Ended a Friendship.’ I can use that. We can spin the angle even. ‘The Bad Joke That Almost Ended an Engagement.’”

Maddie looked at Vik. “Is he for real?”

Part of her knew this was the way things had to be, that Conrad was just doing his job, but having her life reduced to clichés and headlines was not fun.

“It’s going to be okay, Madison.” Vik pulled her cold hand into his own. “Trust me.”

He had never hesitated to invade her personal space, or to touch her, though she’d never noticed him being so free with others. It was one of the reasons she’d convinced her eighteen-year-old self that Vik might return her feelings.

She’d realized later that the small touches were probably the result of the way his Russian grandparents had raised him. Maddie had figured she hadn’t seen him behave that way with others because he had so few personal relationships.

None but his grandparents and her father that she’d ever actually come into contact with.

That was one thing she and Vik had in common.

A very small inner circle.

She didn’t comment on this now, just gave thanks for the fact he was willing to offer her the kind of comfort she needed and had never been able to ask for.

Vik squeezed her fingers. “Conrad is one of the best in the business. Before this morning I would have said the best.”

Conrad flinched, proving he’d been listening even as he typed.

“And our engagement is the only way to restore my reputation?” she asked almost rhetorically.

She didn’t see another way out, either.

Her father had more leverage for his plan than he could possibly comprehend. The realization of Maddie and Romi’s dreams relied on a reputation Maddie could not afford to lose.

Vik frowned. “I’m sorry, Madison, but nothing is going to make the story go away completely.”

“Why not?” Media fixers worked miracles.

Isn’t that what everyone said? If they couldn’t fix this, her and Romi’s dreams were going to crash and burn. There was no way Maddie was going to let that happen.

Conrad looked up from his tablet. “Some people will always believe that where there is or was smoke, there had to be some ember of fire.”

“But there isn’t one.”

The twist of Conrad’s lips said he was probably one of those people.

Vik’s hand moved to Maddie’s thigh, bringing her attention careening back to him and him alone. “I believe you.”