Page 29 of Balthazar's Fire
“Good question.” His father, Jonas’ gaze narrowed. “I thought you had things under control here?” Jonas’ attention flitted around the plush office. “I trusted you to handle things.”
“I am handling things,” Oliver insisted.
All the fucking things. While his father lauded his power all over town with his latest mistress.
“Apparently not, Oliver.” Jonas’ fingertips tapped rhythmically against the arm of his chair, their pace increasing as he went on. “Apparently, you not only failed to close the Drakon Finance deal, but you’re now getting involved in kidnapping.”
Oliver tensed. How does he know about Cherie?
“I haven’t failed,” he told his father between gritted teeth as he skillfully avoided the matter of his ex-assistant. “It’s a process, Dad, and we’re in the middle of it.”
“I hope so,” Jonas muttered. “For your sake, Oliver. We need that deal.”
“For my sake?”
Oliver repeated the words, aware of his anger coiling in the pit of his stomach. How dare his father come down there and lecture him about failure. Hadn’t Jonas been the one who’d inherited their so-called empire from Oliver’s grandfather? All Jonas had done was babysit the growing business, and now that the tide looked set to turn, he was blaming his son? Fuck that! Oliver wasn’t putting up with it. Jonas might be able to throw his weight around with women, but he wouldn’t get away with it with Oliver.
“That’s right.” Jonas employed the same patronizing tone he always used on Oliver’s mother. “The tap you drink so freely from can be turned off any time, my son.”
“Oh, enough!” Spitting the words at his father, Oliver leaned forward. “You’ve been holding that threat over me since I was a teenager.”
“It doesn’t make it any less true,” Jonas assured him.
“It makes it old.”
Buoyed by an unexpected wave of confidence, Oliver grinned as he settled back in his seat. This was his office, not Jonas’. Oliver ran the show, and it was just as much his name over the door as his father’s. Jonas had no leverage in the building.
“Old and tired.” Just like you, Dad.
He didn’t vocalize the final sentence, but it was there on the tip of his tongue, compelling his grin to widen. The truth was, working at the family business had helped Oliver to acquire enough contacts and skills to take his expertise elsewhere for even bigger bucks. Jonas knew it every inch as much as he did. Oliver was the one there, the one doing the work every day. He guessed that he knew the Monroe business better than his father.
“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that if you want to intimidate me, Dad.” Hooking one ankle over his other knee, Oliver’s gaze bored into his father.
“You doubt that I can?” Jonas’ words were bait designed to goad his son into biting, but at thirty-five years of age, Oliver had heard it all before.
“I see no logical reason for you to try.” Oliver snorted. “If I don’t run things here, who will?”
Oliver had him there, and Jonas knew it. Jonas was well into his sixties, and had already made it clear that he yearned for a lighter workload, not a greater one. If Oliver didn’t manage Monroe’s portfolio, then Jonas would only have to hire—and pay—someone else to, and given his father’s reluctance to invest time in the business, he knew how unlikely that would be.
“You have quite the opinion of yourself, don’t you?” Jonas’ stare hardened.
“I have.” Oliver beamed with pride. “Guess who I got that from?”
A sly smirk crept over his father’s expression, cracking the façade of his unyielding demeanor.
“Touché.” Jonas nodded. “That’s fair, but it doesn’t resolve the issues. We’re no closer to acquiring the financial arm of the Vaughn’s company than we were weeks ago, and you’re up to your fucking ears in shit.”
“Wrong on both counts, Father.” Oliver shook his head with disgust. Was his father really this out of touch? “Setbacks. That’s all they are. We’re closer to Drakon than ever. In fact, I had another one of the sniveling Vaughns sit in that exact chair only a few hours ago, wanting to discuss the deal.”
“Really?” Jonas’ brow rose. “Who?”
“Sebastian,” Oliver told him smugly.
He didn’t mention however, that Sebastian had been sitting there at the exact time that another two of the Vaughn fuckers had been rescuing his ex-assistant, Cherie. He didn’t mention his suspicion that Sebastian’s presence had likely been nothing but a ruse designed to distract Oliver, and he had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. Oliver was counting on the fact that his dad’s sources—whoever they were—weren’t that up-to-date on contemporary events.
“He was interested in our offer?”
Jonas’ perky tone confirmed that Oliver’s hunch was correct. His father didn’t yet know that Cherie had slipped through Oliver’s fingers, or that Cherie was the same woman he’d kidnapped. Although he’d seen her on the rare occasions he visited the office, Jonas hadn’t even known her name. Relief washed over him. It was one less argument he’d have to have today, and after everything that had transpired, he was glad.