Their father cleared his throat and looked at each of his children in turn. “Now that you’re both here, there’s a matter I would like to discuss with you.”
Samuel and Marlowe straightened up in tandem, all too familiar with the carnage that often followed that line of dialogue.
“It has come to my attention that a new hire was made recently. One that I was neither apprised of or approved.” His father took another sip of his scotch. “Arlington Banks.”
Samuel’s teeth clenched. “It was my understanding that you were to be consulted on VP-level positions and above. Arlie—Arlington Banks is a senior food stylist.”
“This is precisely the kind of thing I mean.” His father leaned forward, skewering Samuel with his gaze. “You obey the letter of the law, but don’t think twice about hiring her when you know the kind of family she comes from.”
Samuel drew a long, steadying breath to combat the pure limbic rage crackling along his nerves. “And what does that mean?”
“After the regrettable incident with her mother, how can you possibly think of bringing her into this organization without consulting me first?”
Regrettable incident.
A rather sanitized way of describing the events leading to Arlie’s mother being accused of stealing and her father showing up drunk and enraged once she’d been fired.
“Children shouldn’t be judged by the sins of their parents,” Samuel said. The irony of this statement was not lost on him. He had learned at his father’s knee how to exploit small businesses, promising them aid while slowly draining their profits.
And then there was Millhaven Foods, which he tried never to think about.
“Corrupted roots produce corrupted fruit.” His father adjusted the salad fork in his place setting so it was the precisely mandated half inch from its neighbor. “As I informed Miss Banks this morning.”
Samuel saw red. The back of his high-backed chair made abrupt contact with the marble floor and sent a resounding crack rolling through the dining room as he stood. “You did what?”
Swirling the glass of tawny liquid, his father didn’t even bother to look him in the eye. “I ran into Miss Banks quite unexpectedly and felt it incumbent on me to share my thoughts. As I am well within my rights to do in my own home.”
“How dare you?” This question had circled in Samuel’s thoughts from the time he had been ten years old.
Then, it had been summoned when his father had insisted that his mother, happy and beautiful in a knee-length, emerald-green dress, change before a benefit, informing her that she didn’t make the “correct impression.”
But this was the first time he’d actually spoken the words out loud to the man.
“Perhaps you should take an evening constitutional to recover your composure. You seem quite out of sorts, Samuel.”
Across the table, Marlowe sent him a wide-eyed don’t do this look.
It was already done.
Or he was. He had been for a long time.
“Arlie Banks is a talented, passionate professional, and will be an asset to Kane Foods International. You’re just too blinded by a ridiculous grudge to see it.”
An ugly smile folded his father’s papery cheeks. “I suspect I’m not the one who’s blinded when it comes to this particular topic.”
Samuel’s fists tightened, his mind seething with all the things he wanted to say.
“You may serve,” his father said, motioning to the table with all the ceremony of an orchestral conductor.
Only then did he notice the white-coated team bearing silver-domed dishes, nervously hovering in the doorway from the kitchen. On cue, the staff descended, simultaneously placing the dishes in front of each of them before removing the lids with a flourish.
“Do sit down, Samuel.” Unfolding the pristine white napkin, his father laid it across his lap with practiced ease.
“I’m not hungry,” he announced. This too was a lie. Samuel was ravenous. But not for food.
He needed to see Arlie.
Now.