An Heiress for His Empire

“You need to ask?”

“Yes.” Her father had been too unconcerned about Perry’s scandal for it to be what tipped him into must-get-my-wayward-daughter-married mode.

“Jeremy has been worried about what will happen when you come into your majority for the Madison Trust for a while.”

“Now he knows.”

“I don’t believe he saw that one coming.”

“No. It wouldn’t have occurred to him that I would purposefully put Archer International Holdings at risk.”

“No.”

“But apparently the idea that I might marry someone who might do that had already occurred to Jeremy.”

“Yes.” Something about the quality of Vik’s stillness said he might have had more to do with that than her own father’s paranoia.

“So, he was already considering how to get me to marry the man of his choice?” Maddie surmised. “He’s using Perrygate as a vehicle for his own agenda.”

She wasn’t surprised by her father’s mercenary motives, but she didn’t have to like them.

“You would have to ask him.” Vik indicated to the waitress to bring their bill. “I think the reality is more that he is afraid you’ll end up with Mr. Timwater. Your father will do anything to prevent that.”

“To protect the reputation and future of the company.” Considering Perry’s poor luck with his own business ventures, she could understand her father not wanting him to get even shallow hooks into any part of AIH.

“Sometimes, I think you are as willfully blind as your father.” Vik shook his head. “He wants to stop you from marrying a man who would go public with the kind of claims Perry made in his interview.”

“And Jeremy believes you’re a huge improvement.”

“You don’t?” Vik asked, his tone more than a little sardonic.

She wasn’t about to answer that. “Perry has never been in the running.”

“Several articles in the media over the past six years would suggest otherwise.”