Married to a Billionaire Firefighter

Chapter 10

The Mercer mansion on Pierrepont Street had stood for more than a century. The stone facade was unchanged.

The iron gates still carried the Mercer crest. Every window facing the street was lit exactly as it had been the last time Julian came home after dark.

The ceilings were high. The leather chairs still sat in front of the fireplace. The grandfather clock stood beside the window. Nothing appeared to have moved since Julian was a teenager.

He knew every room by the sound it made at night, every corridor by the particular complaint of its floorboards. He knew which chairs his father preferred and which he avoided and he knew, from the moment he turned into the driveway and saw the lights still on in the study, that his father had been waiting.

He sat in the car for a moment with his hand still raised to his cheek.

Then he went inside.

~~~

Harold Mercer sat behind his desk when Julian walked in. At sixty, his shoulders were still broad beneath his shirt. Deep lines ran from either side of his mouth. His fingers rested beside an open folder, tapping once against the wood before going still.

He looked at Julian in the doorway.

"Loser." Harold looked back down at the folder in front of him.

"Dad—"

"Don't." Harold held up one hand.

"Don't explain it to me." His fingers remained raised between them.

"Don't tell me about feelings." He lowered his hand and leaned back in his chair.

"Don't tell me about Olivia Carter." His mouth tightened around her name.

"Just sit there and think about what you've done." He turned his attention to the window.

Julian lowered himself into the chair. His fingers came up to his cheek again before dropping back to the armrest.

The clock on the mantel ticked steadily. Julian had listened to that sound for most of his life.

Harold stood from the desk and went to the window. The garden below was dark. He stood with his hands behind his back and looked at it.

"Charlotte Bennett." Harold turned from the window. "Forty percent." His hand settled on the back of the chair.

"I know."

"Do you? Do you actually know what forty percent means?" He turned. "Her grandfather built that company from three rooms in Midtown. You know why Margaret is still Ms Bennett, is why Charlotte answers Bennett?”

Julian didn't have to wait for an answer.

"Because Margaret's father made sure of it. Before he died he made sure his daughter kept the name and his granddaughter kept the name and that Richard, good, patient, careful Richard understood exactly what he had married into and what he would never own."

Julian looked down at the desk.

"Richard understood," Harold said. "That's the difference between your uncle Richard and my son sitting in that chair. Richard came into that family with nothing and he kept his head down and he was patient and he played the long game and do you know what he has today?"

"Three percent," Julian said.

Harold stared at him. "Three percent and the President's office and twenty-eight years of access to everything that moves through that company."

He came back to the desk. "I have one percent. One. Because I was patient too and I played carefully and I built something from nothing. One percent of Bennett Holdings is worth more than most of what you'll find on this street." He sat down. "And you had the chance to bring forty percent into this family and you threw it away for Olivia Carter."

"Olivia—"

"I don't want to hear her name again tonight." Harold's hand flattened against the desk.

"She is Eleanor Carter's daughter. Eleanor who has been orbiting the Bennett family for thirty years waiting for something. That woman has never done anything without a reason and her daughter is no different. You walked straight into it."

Julian looked at his hands. "Charlotte knew. She found out about the preventatives. She was going to end it anyway."

"She found out because you were careless. Why would you chose to rescue Olivia instead of Charlotte? Your fiancee of seven years!”

"It doesn't matter now—"

"It matters because she has forty percent and you have nothing and she married a firefighter in which means she is either desperate or smarter than you gave her credit for." Harold looked at him. "Which do you think it is?"

Julian didn't answer.

Harold opened the folder on his desk. He turned it to face Julian. "Richard called me this morning. Did you know there's an anonymous shareholder sitting on eleven percent of Bennett Holdings?"

Julian looked up. "What?"

"Eleven percent. Been acquiring quietly for the last three years. Richard doesn't know who it is. The board doesn't know who it is. Nobody knows who it is." Harold tapped the folder. "Charlotte has forty. Margaret has six. This anonymous party has eleven. If those three are ever in the same room with aligned interests—"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

Julian looked at the folder. "Fifty-seven percent."

"Fifty-seven percent," Harold said. "Against my one and Richard's three and whatever goodwill you've burned through in the last seven days." He closed the folder. "Do you understand now? Do you see what you've done?"

Julian looked at the numbers on the page. His thumb moved once against the arm of the chair.

Outside the window a car passed on Pierrepont Street, its lights sweeping briefly across the ceiling.

"The firefighter," Julian said finally. "Ethan Calder."

"What about him?"

"I looked at him tonight. Outside the firehouse." He paused. "Something was wrong."

Harold frowned. "Wrong how."

"I don't know." Julian shook his head slowly. "Just wrong. The way he stood. The way he looked at me." He looked at his father. "He wasn't afraid of me."

Harold said nothing.

"Men like that," Julian said. "They're always a little afraid. Of the name. Of the money. Of what I represent." He looked at the folder. "He wasn't."

The clock ticked.

Harold leaned back in his chair and looked at his son for a long moment with the expression of a man revising something he thought he'd already calculated.

"Find out who he is," he said.

"Richard already looked—"

"Richard found what the man wanted him to find." Harold's voice was flat. "I said find out who he is. Use your own people. Not Richard's." He picked up his pen. "And Julian."

Julian stood.

"If you can still fix this," Harold said, without looking up. "Fix it. Beg, cry, ask her to take you back."

Julian walked out.

The front door closed behind him and the study went quiet again.

Harold looked at the percentage again. His pen turned slowly between his fingers. After a moment he opened the folder and returned to the first page.