Married on Paper: The Argentine's Price / The Inherited Bride / Marriage Made on Paper

“Suddenly all of my shareholders are selling to three different corporations, all of whom have one name in common—Marino. I’m not stupid, Lazaro.”

“Perhaps I underestimated you.” He looked at her, as if waiting for her to be angry or indignant or something. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

She pushed down a surge of anger. “I don’t care whether you underestimated me. I don’t care what you think about me. I care about Pickett and it is in my best interest to try and understand why someone is trying to get to a point where they own equal shares with me and my family.”

He paused for a moment, his smile widening, a cruel smile, void of humor, but just as devastating as it had always been. “Do you not appreciate the irony?”

“What irony is that?”

“That I can own my share of Pickett Industries. That a storied icon of a company can be passed into the hands of new money with such ease. The American dream, isn’t it?”

She looked at his eyes, the glitter in them filled with emotion so dark and deep that she felt it reach into her and pull the air from her lungs. And that was when she realized that it was very likely she’d wandered into a trap. In that moment she wanted, more than anything, to turn and walk away. To leave Lazaro as nothing more than a vivid, unsatisfied memory.

But she couldn’t. This was her responsibility. Her mess to clean up. There was no one else.

It’s up to you now, Vanessa. Without you, everything crumbles.

Her father’s words echoed in her head, filled her, pushed her forward.

“So … this is for your own amusement, then? Something to satisfy your twisted sense of irony?” she asked.

He chuckled, a dark sound laced with bitter undertones. “I don’t have time to do things simply to amuse myself, Vanessa. I didn’t get where I am by operating that way. My business was not handed to me on a silver platter.”

And there was no doubt he found himself superior to her because of that. Fine, he could disdain her for having it easy if he wanted. Pickett wasn’t really a silver platter to her. More like silver handcuffs with keys she couldn’t access. But she’d willingly accepted the burden. Had done it for her family. For her father, and most of all for Thomas. Because her brother would have carried on Pickett’s legacy gladly. He would have made it a success. He would have done it with dignity and kindness, as he had done everything else.

“Then why?” she asked.

“Pickett is dying, Vanessa, I know you know that. Your profits have dropped off in the past three years, so much so that you’re now firmly in the red.”

Her standard response, the one she’d been placating the shareholders with, rolled off her tongue with ease. “These things happen. It goes in cycles. Production has slowed with the economy as it is, and a lot of our clients are now getting their auto parts manufactured out of the country.”

“The problem isn’t simply the economy. You are stuck in the past. Times have changed and Pickett Industries has not.”

“If Pickett really is dying some kind of slow, painful corporate death, why are you interested in investing your money in it?”

“The opportunity presented itself. I am a man who makes the most of all available opportunities.”

Vanessa’s stomach tightened as his eyes locked on hers, the meaning of his words seeming layered in the dim light, almost erotic.

She needed to get out more. She really did. As it was, the four walls of her office were so familiar, her situation was beginning to seem desperate. But that was how it was when one was at the helm of a dying corporation. Lucky, lucky her.

And Lazaro Marino saw it as an opportunity. Heaven help her.

“And what do you intend to do with this opportunity?”

“I could put pressure on the board to vote you out of your position.”

Vanessa felt as though a bucket of icy water had been thrown in her face. Shock froze her in place, keeping her expression unaltered despite the rolling wave of fear that was surging through her. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you are in over your head, Vanessa. The company has been in decline ever since you were appointed. It is in the best interest of the shareholders to have someone in charge who knows what they’re doing.”

“I’ve been working on my game plan.”

“For three years? I’m surprised your father hasn’t stepped back in and taken control again.”

She stiffened. “He can’t. When I was appointed CEO he signed an agreement, something the board wanted done to prevent … problems.” When her father was in a good mood, he was happy with what she was doing and when he wasn’t … well, she wouldn’t put it past him to try to oust her himself. No one on the board had wanted the employees, or the shareholders, living with that kind of instability.

Of course, if she didn’t turn things around soon that would be the least of anyone’s problems.

Vanessa had a degree in business, but a prodigy she was not. She knew it. But she stuck with Pickett out of duty, loyalty to her family, the driving need to make her father happy. How could she do anything else?

Thomas had lived and breathed Pickett, even in high school. Thomas, her handsome brother with the easy smile who had always had time for her, who had shown her warmth and affection, who had remembered her birthday. Who had been the only one able to make their father smile.

And with him gone, she was all her father had left to make sure the company, the family, continued. She couldn’t let Thomas’s dream die. She couldn’t force her father to lose the only thing in the world that truly mattered to him. She couldn’t stand to fail at the only thing that made her matter in his eyes.

She couldn’t be the one to see it all end, couldn’t be the cause of that. She’d let go of vague, half-imagined dreams in order to keep Pickett alive already. She couldn’t lose it now. She couldn’t see someone else in the position her father had always wanted reserved for someone in their family.

Her great-grandfather had built the business up using family money, and it had been passed down to Vanessa’s grandfather, and then to her father. It would have gone on to Thomas next.

The memory of that day was always there, sharp and vivid down to the way the rug in her father’s office had made her bare feet itch, to the way her stomach had ached, so intensely she’d been convinced she would die too. Just like her brother.

It’s up to you now, Vanessa. Without you, everything crumbles. Everything I’ve worked for, everything Thomas dreamed of.

She’d been thirteen. All of her brother’s responsibilities had been passed on to her that night, the weight of her family’s legacy. She’d be damned if she failed.

“It’s difficult to compete now that the market has changed. So many things are being done overseas now because there’s cheaper labor and lower taxes. It’s a hard position for us to be in, but we’re committed to keeping the factory here, to keeping the jobs here.”

“Idealistic. Not necessarily practical.”

He was right, and the worst thing was, she knew it. Had known it from the moment she’d taken her position in the big corporate office. She was fighting a losing battle, and she had been for three long years.

But she didn’t want to move the factory, didn’t want to eliminate all those jobs. Most of the employees had been with the company for more than twenty years and she couldn’t fathom taking that from them. They were her friends in some ways. Her responsibility.

Of course, if the company ceased to exist, the point was moot.

“Maybe not, but I don’t have any better ideas right now.” It galled to have to say that to him. To be put in the position of having to admit to deficiencies she was far too familiar with.

“As your principal shareholder, I’m not very pleased to hear that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you want from me, Lazaro?”

“From you? Nothing. But I very much enjoy the fact that the fate of Pickett is now resting with me.”

“Maybe a better question for you is whether this is business or personal.”

“It is business. But it is also an interesting quirk of fate, isn’t it? Your father once held my future, my mother’s future, in his hands. He paid her miserable wages to do work that was so beneath any of you. To keep house and be treated very much as the help. And now I could buy your father ten times over. I have bought the portions of the business that were available.”

“So you just intend to lord over us with all that newfound power?”