“The promotion. To daytime manager. I feel like I would be doing what I do already but with more authority and perhaps a salary increase. If—”
Vaughn held up his hand to cut him off. “I need to be somewhere right now. We’ll sit down later to discuss the particulars of your promotion.”
“So I am getting promoted?”
“Yes. We’ll talk later,” he called, hurrying toward the elevators. “I need to go out. You’re in charge while I’m gone.”
“Yes, sir!” Graham called back.
Five minutes later he pulled up outside Ian Devlin’s office building in his dark blue Aston Martin Vanquish. The car barely slid into place behind Devlin’s black Cadillac CTS-V when Vaughn swung out of it and marched on a mission into the building. He burst onto Devlin’s floor, startling the pretty receptionist behind her desk.
Her eyes widened when she saw Vaughn and she jumped to her feet when he spotted the door with the plaque that had Devlin’s name on it. He started to stride past her toward it and she cried, “Excuse me! You don’t have an appointment!”
“I don’t need an appointment.” He grabbed the handle on the door and thrust it open.
Ian Devlin shot to his feet from behind his desk at the interruption. “What is the goddamn meaning of this?”
Vaughn slammed the door in the receptionist’s face and stared the older man down.
Devlin, much like his own father, looked good for his age. Distinguished, well-dressed, and fit. But that was where the similarities between the two men ended. There was a chilling hardness in Ian Devlin’s eyes, an oily slickness to his smile and manner.
From the moment he met Devlin, Vaughn had not trusted him.
And for good reason it would seem.
This was a man who was trying to hurt Bailey; trying to take everything she’d worked so hard for away from her. He thought he was some kind of kingpin, that he was immune because he had all this power in a small town.
Well Vaughn understood power and if he had to he would squash this fucker. On that thought he slowly made his way over to Devlin’s desk.
He stopped when the piece of furniture dug into his legs. “I’m onto you.”
Ian smirked. “Really? You barge in here like a lunatic to deliver that cliché of a line.”
“If anyone is a cliché, Devlin, it’s you. It amazes me what you think you can get away with.”
“And what is it you think I’m trying to get away with?”
“You have one of your little lackies fucking Vanessa Hartwell.”
Nothing. No surprise. No disgust. No triumph. Nothing. Instead he shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about Jack using my hotel as a stage for his escort services. Because that’s what it is, right? You’re paying him to fuck Vanessa . . . to get to Bailey and her inn.”
“My, my, you have quite the imagination.”
Fury blasted through Vaughn and he slammed his fist down on the desk rather than into Devlin’s face. “I let that other piece of shit son get away with breaking into Bailey’s place, but I haven’t forgotten, and I haven’t forgiven. I swear to God”—he pushed his face into the old man’s—“you come after Bailey again and I will end you. I will end the lot of you.” His voice lowered with vitriol. “And don’t think I can’t do it. You are a big fish in a small pond. I’m a fucking shark in the ocean.”
For a moment Vaughn thought he saw uncertainty flicker in Devlin’s eyes, but if it was there, it was gone in an instant. Still sure he’d made his point, and sure that the message had sunk in, he turned on his heel to leave.
He’d just opened the door when Devlin’s smug voice stopped him.
“Not very smart.”
Not wanting to give him the satisfaction but not liking the threat in his tone, Vaughn looked back at him.
Ian was grinning. “Not very smart, Mr. Tremaine, is it, to unmask your vulnerabilities to someone you so clearly see as a threat. All this time I had to wonder, what is Vaughn Tremaine’s weakness? And what do you know? It’s a redhead with a smart mouth.”
The desire to punch him was so great, Vaughn felt his hand curling into a fist. Instead he threw him one last look of revulsion and stormed out of the building.