Vik shifted down, his car purring as it climbed the hills of San Francisco’s streets. “You refuse to sue Perry despite his defamation of your character.”
“Our friendship is over.” Ultimately that would cost Perry more than any settlement she might get in court.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“You sound very certain.” Vik didn’t.
“I am.”
Vik turned onto Highway 101. “Good.”
“And even if for no other reason than that he’ll never get another loan from me, that’s a serious consequence for Perry.” One she really didn’t think the other man had foreseen. He would have counted on her loyalty, but had made the egregious error of not giving her any. “He’ll also never again be able to use being my escort as a way into events his own connections won’t provide entrée.”
“It sounds like it was a pretty one-sided friendship.”
“That’s what Romi always said, but it wasn’t true.”
“Yes?” Vik sounded genuinely curious, if doubtful.
“Letting people in isn’t easy for me.”
The business tycoon who had spurred more fantasies than any teenage heartthrob in her adolescent breast made a disbelieving sound. “You have a huge social network.”
“And a total of two people I called friends, now only one.”
“I think two still.” Vik flicked her a glance with meaning. “Just not the same two.”
Unexpected and not wholly welcome warmth unfurled inside Maddie at the claim. Nevertheless, she admitted, “I’m glad to hear that.”
She just hoped it was true. Chances were good. Viktor Beck might be a bastard in the business world, but he was no liar.
“He made me laugh,” she admitted, falling back on old habits of sharing her uncensored thoughts with Vik.
“You have an infectious laugh,” Vik offered. “I missed it.”
It was weird to think of Vik missing anything about her. “You decided our friendship was over.”
“Not over, just truncated.”
“If you say so.” But six years on, she could maybe share his point of view.
“I thought it for the best.”
It was entirely possible it had been, no matter how much his rejection and subsequent pulling away had hurt. She hadn’t thought so at the time, the combined loss of her mom, then her grandfather, what little attention she’d had from her father and then Vik’s friendship had left Maddie with real intimacy issues. But if she and Vik had maintained their close friendship, she never would have gotten over him.
Nor would she have made her own way in life, building dreams completely independent of AIH.
“Looking back on it, it’s kind of surprising I let Perry get so close.” But then she’d needed a replacement for Vik at least.
“You loaned him money.”
Which had taken their friendship into a different realm, she now realized—a realm where Perry saw Maddie as a resource rather than a friend. “In the interest of accuracy, we’ll have to call them gifts, not loans.”
“And that makes it better?”
She shrugged, though Vik’s attention was on the road as they joined the heavy traffic over the Golden Gate Bridge. “Perry’s business ventures never seemed to work out.”
“Selling this story to the tabloids is pretty stupid as a long-term plan if you were already bankrolling him.”
“I wasn’t. I turned him down the last time he asked for money.” It had been a hard decision, but she’d had her own dreams to bankroll. “I’d come to the conclusion there were better places I could sink my money than down the rabbit hole of another one of Perry’s unlikely business ventures.”
“So, he betrayed you.”
“Yes.” She sighed sadly. “I had no idea my friendship was only worth a few dollars.”
“Fifty thousand.”
“That’s how much he got paid?” She wasn’t surprised Vik knew.
The man made it a habit to know everything of even peripheral importance to him. Maddie figured it would be a matter of days, if not hours, before he learned of her anonymous volunteering and even her therapist.
Uncertainty about his reaction to her secrets was the only thing stopping her from telling him herself.
“For the initial tabloid article. He planned to leverage the scandal into more paid interviews and even a book deal.” Vik’s voice was laced with disgust.
“That’s ridiculous. I’m not exactly a celebrity.” She hated this.
“No, but you are the Madcap Heiress.”
“Madcap Madison. It’s what they called my mother.” She could still remember the first time one of the tabloids had used the moniker for Maddie.
It had made Maddie feel like maybe Helene was still with her in some small way. Only later had her own maturity and help from her therapist helped Maddie to see how distorted that thinking was.
“You share her penchant for making it into the press,” Vik agreed. “Perry’s book wouldn’t have made him a million dollars, but someone would have paid him a hefty advance for it.”
“That’s just stupid.”
“That’s our reality-television, celebrity-drama-obsessed society.” Vik shifted into the higher gear as they finally made it over the bridge.
San Francisco’s gridlock could get really ugly, though it was better than the freeways that became parking lots during high commute times in and around L.A.
“I suppose. You talk about the book deal like it’s in the past.”
“It is.” Definite satisfaction colored Vik’s two-word answer.
She shouldn’t be surprised Vik had worked so quickly, but she couldn’t deny being impressed and only a little apprehensive. “What were Perry’s terms?”
“Timwater didn’t set the terms, trust me.”
She had no trouble believing that, not when Vik was involved. Perry had no hope with the power of AIH brought to bear against him at the instructions of its VP. “What did Conrad get him to agree to?”
“Do you think, after his screwup this morning, I would trust this negotiation with Conrad?”
“You met with Perry? Wasn’t that overkill?” Putting Vik and Perry in the same room was like pitting an alley cat against the heavyweight champ.
The cat might be wily and street smart, but he was still going to get pulverized.
And she wasn’t entirely convinced of Perry’s street smarts.
“From now on, anything to do with you goes through me personally.” Vik exited the freeway, downshifting the powerful Jaguar.
“That’s not how my father operates.”
They were headed toward the Marin Headlands. Maddie recognized the route, though she hadn’t been there since her school days, on the obligatory field trip to the Golden Gate Bridge and to view the city vista.
“I am not your father.”
“But you’re a lot alike.”
“In how we do business? Yes. But you share more personality traits with your father than I do.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“I know we’re both stubborn, but...”
“It does not stop there, believe me.”
“So you say.” She was nothing like her father.
“I do.”
Typical. Vik felt no need to explain himself, or convince her, which only made her want to hear his justifications all the more. She wasn’t going to ask, though.
Not right now.
Right now, she was far more interested in what they were doing in the parking area near Battery Spencer. “Is the magazine photographer here to get some color shots, or something?”
“No.”
Vik pulled neatly into a parking spot and turned off the car, but made no move to get out.
He unbuckled his seat belt and turned to face her. “It is a good thing the friendship is over from your side. Timwater signed a nondisclosure agreement that covers every aspect of his association with you. The penalties for breaking
it are severe.”
“But he’s going to talk about our friendship.” It had spanned the same six years as the dearth of Vik in her life.
“No, he is not.”
She had no desire to see the man again, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about their friendship disappearing as if it had never been, either. “It isn’t going to help with what he’s already done.”
Vik’s eyes bored into hers. “He’s signed a retraction, admitting everything he told the tabloid was a lie.”
“Won’t that leave him open to a lawsuit from them?” And why was she worried about someone who had so very blatantly not been worried about her?
“They don’t get a copy of the confession...unless he screws up again.” The threat in Vik’s words would have been spelled out to her ex-friend in no uncertain terms.
“And that will protect him?”
“Do you care?”
“I probably shouldn’t.”
“You would not be you if you didn’t,” Vik said with something like indulgence and no evidence of judgment.
“I’m not a pushover.”
“No one witnessing you facing your father down in the conference room this morning would ever question that.”
“Okay.”
Vik smiled. “You are a strong woman whose strength is tempered by compassion. My grandmother Ana is such a woman.”
“And you love her.”
“Yes.”
Did that mean he might love Maddie one day? She did her best to quash that line of fantasy thought. Like she’d told her father earlier, Maddie wasn’t the fairy-tale believer her mom had been. She had no expectations of marrying for undying love and irresistible passion.
So, she couldn’t understand where the tiny ember of hope burning deep in her heart despite Maddie’s strictest self-talk came from.
Unaware of the war going on inside of Maddie from that simple admission, Vik added, “Timwater will make a public apology for his prank after our engagement is announced.”
Even though they weren’t engaged, according to Vik.