An heiress for his empire

“Nothing in the agreement that bastard you married got me to sign said I couldn’t talk to you, only about you.” Perry sounded really annoyed by that.

“What did you expect?”

He put on the wounded expression that had always gotten to her in the past. “I didn’t expect you to dump six years of friendship over one little mistake.”

“It wasn’t the first time you lied to the media about us.” And that sad look wasn’t tugging at her heartstrings anymore.

Perry jerked, like he hadn’t expected her to have worked that out. “It was all harmless. I needed the money. We aren’t all born with the silver spoon of Archer International Holdings to feed off of.”

“Telling people I was a sexual addict who couldn’t be satisfied with a single partner wasn’t harmless. You destroyed my reputation.”

“For exactly twenty-four hours. Viktor Beck saw to that.”

“Conrad is good at what he does.”

“Your dad’s media fixer? Yeah, I kind of expected him to get involved, but he’s a cuddly kitten compared to that vicious shark you married.”

“Vik protected me when you fed me to the wolves. I’m not sure I’d label him the vicious one.”

“You know I didn’t mean it.” Perry sounded like he really expected her to believe that.

What a jerk. And this man had been one of her dearest friends for six years. “I knew you were lying, that’s not the same thing as knowing you didn’t mean it.”

“I needed the money. You knew I did.”

“And I refused to give it to you.” Which was what it all came down to, wasn’t it?

“I asked for a loan. From a friend.”

“When have you ever paid back even a single dollar of all the money you borrowed from me, Perry?” she demanded, the confrontation with her ex-friend unexpectedly bringing her current situation into clear and certain focus.

Perry was that guy. The user. The manipulator. The prevaricator.

Vik was her white knight. Full stop.

He might never say the three little words she most wanted to hear, but she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life lamenting that fact. Not when he gave her so much to rejoice about instead.

“You can’t guarantee business investments.”

“So now they were business investments.” She narrowed her eyes at Perry. “Where are my contracts showing the percentage ownership I had in those business ventures?”

“We don’t need contracts between us.”

She thought of the agreement Vik had forced Perry to sign. “Apparently, we do.”

“Come on, Maddie. Call off your attack dog.”

“Vik?”

“Who else?” Perry did his best to look beseeching.

“We aren’t friends anymore and we never will be again,” she spelled out very carefully.

“This is because of Romi, isn’t it? She finally turned you against me.”

“You turned me against you, Perry. You lied about me and did your best to destroy my reputation.”

He’d gone back to looking wounded. “No.”

“Yes. And if you’d succeeded, my dreams of starting a charter school would have been dust.” At least with her name on any of the paperwork.

Perry shrugged. “San Francisco doesn’t need another school.”

His ability to dismiss the dreams of her heart so easily took her breath away. “I don’t agree.”

“Well, it didn’t happen.”

“No thanks to you.”

“Hey, I went public with an apology and a confession that it was all a joke.”

Did he expect her to thank him? “But it wasn’t a joke. It was a big ugly lie. Nothing even a tiny bit amusing about that.”

“Come on, Maddie. You have to forgive me.”

“Yes, for my own sake. I have to let it go.”

Triumph flashed in Perry’s washed-out blue eyes. “We can be friends again and forget about that agreement Viktor forced me to sign.”

“No.”

“But—”

“No one forced you to sign anything. You signed that agreement of your own volition because you didn’t want to risk being sued by both AIH and the tabloid you sold that story to.”

Maddie’s head snapped up at Vik’s voice. What was he doing here? How had he found her?

He stood like an avenging angel over Perry. “You are not my wife’s friend. She’s convinced you were at one time, but that time passed long before this latest incident.”

“Who do you think you are to—”

“I am the man who will ruin you if you come near my wife again.” His jaw hewn from granite, Vik’s eyes burned with dark fury.