Page 197 of Beautiful Lies

“Is any of it true?” I ask tentatively.

He grits his teeth. “Part of it.”

“Oh, fuck. Which part?”

“The sleeping-with-her part. But not while she was married. The fucking divorce had already been finalized. They’re saying we were having an affair for months.”

“Shit.”

“The fucking press don’t care about the truth. They care about the angle.”

I exhale slowly. “When did this news hit?” It must have just happened because I didn’t hear anything about it. Then again, I was with Isla. When I’m with her, the world could be burning down, and I wouldn’t know.

“Early this morning. I started damage control, but it’s already on the news.”

A shiver runs up my spine. “So, Dad knows?”

“Oh yeah, he knows. And this… it was the final fucking straw. He wouldn’t listen to me. He didn’t even care what I had to say because the press had pictures of me with Grace Astor. At her home.”

That is not good. “What does Dad want?”

Dorian lifts a brow. “The worst thing ever.”

“What?”

“Marriage.” He says the word like he’s reading a death sentence. “He thinks it will fix my image and make me look good. Respectable.Like you.”

“He can’t demand marriage.”

“He is, and he’s serious. Two big investors pulled their deals because of it, so the board are going crazy. I can’t even blame themthis time. Dad said either I do it, or he’ll hire an outside source to take the COO job.”

I drag a chair out and drop into it. “What are you going to do?”

“He fucking wants me to marry one of the Harrington or Mayfield daughters,” he says flatly. “He practically handed me a catalog.”

Dad must have been pissed as fuck. Bill Harrington and John Mayfield are two of his closest friends. They’re nice guys, and I understand why Dad would want a union with their family. But their daughters are the worst kind of manipulative bitches known to man. As bad as this situation is, I can’t imagine Dorian agreeing to that.

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him to go to hell.” His eyes flicker.

Yup. That’s what I thought. “And what did he say to that?”

“He said he’ll give me three weeks to get back to him with either an acceptance of the woman he’s picked for me or the name of a woman I intend to marry.Andproduce an heir with.”

My eyes nearly pop out of my head. “No way.”

“Oh yes.”

“What a fucking disaster.”

“But that’s not even the worst part.” He shoots me a maddening, psychotic smile.

My mouth falls open. “There’s more?”

“Look at this.” He swivels his computer screen toward me.

Lines of code run across it. I recognize the pattern immediately. “That’s a footprint. What’s this about?”