Page 200 of Morally Black Betrothal

Liza Kelly’s name ran like a ticker tape across the screen. CFO of Blackguard Holding, but more importantly, my best friend’s mother and the closest thing I had to a maternal figure, which was saying something because my actual mother was a piece of work.

You wouldn’t be sentimental either if the woman who birthed you took off three months later to “find herself” in an ashram for eighteen months before starting a yoga retreat center outside of Portland.

I carefully extracted myself from the bed, grabbed my boxers off the ground, and exited to the living room of the suite, closing the door behind me. Liza wouldn’t be calling at six in the morning unless someone was dead or about to be.

“This better be good,” I answered. “You’d better be telling me someone died or that you’ve sent a hooker for a threesome. Because there’s a Paris ten in my bed, so those are the only tworeasons I’d want to hear your voice before coffee and a Viagra for good luck.”

“Ronan. We need to talk about yesterday.”

Yesterday. Fuck.

Otherwise known as the reason I’d flown out to Vegas for a high-stakes poker game where I was the only man out of eight not named Pete or Paulie. One where, as I took shots and these gangsters’ money, I made deft arrangements for them to get it back with some well-placed “fixing.”

I only knew some of the details. Brendan—the elder of my two snake-faced brothers—had made a spectacular mess with his sweetheart in Vermont, then had promptly called me to clean it up. This meant following the only member of Ezra Huntington’s entourage to Vegas to stop him from getting my brother (and my family) into a world of trouble.

Fucking with the Black family was a terminal condition.

A fact I generally doused with enough alcohol to get over the moral complications of my job.

Brendan didn’t need to know all the details. As the de facto head of the family business during our father’s medical absence, he couldn’t, for his own safety (and the safety of the company). That was between me, some very scary men who liked large unmarked bills, and whatever patch of desert was left to swallow the remains of Huntington’s guy after they finished their “conversation.”

A conversation that was supposed to end last night with the cacti. Not with a friendly chat with Liza at the crack of fucking dawn.

“I’m listening.” I rubbed my face in the mirror near the door. I looked like shit. Hot shit, but still shit. Girls liked abs, so I put some time into them, but otherwise, the dark red hair, the jet-black eyes, and the fire-level cheekbones were all gifts from the almighty.

I smirked at my reflection. Maybe the siren in my bed would enjoy a wake-up call too.

“Brendan signed away half his shares to Huntington during the hostage situation,” Liza said. “The board repossessed the rest due to a morality clause, but not before Ezra’s father took the seat on the board. Your father forced Brendan to resign yesterday.”

I collapsed on the arm of the sofa. “I’m sorry, but what in the actual fuck? Because it sounded like you just said Brendan just left Blackguard.”

“I did. He signed the papers. It’s done.”

“And you didn’t say anything? Liam? Shea? No one thought to stop him?”

I didn’t bother to mention Owen. That fucker had been gunning for Brendan’s position for years, so he was probably throwing a goddamn party celebrating this ouster right now (or he would, if Owen were capable of any kind of joy). But Liam, Liza’s son, my best friend, and a lawyer for the firm, should have spoken up. Or at least fucking told me, the traitor. And Shea, my sister, was still young enough that she wanted her big brothers to love her. So why didn’t she say a word?

“What was I supposed to say? He signed the papers and left. It took all of ten minutes. He was ready to go, Ronan.”

“Holy shit.” I started laughing, a cackle that came from somewhere deep in my gut and a part of my brain that wasn’t entirely sane. “Brendan actually did it. Dad kicked out the golden child, and Bren gave the old man the finger on his way out. Holy fucking shit.”

It might have been the first thing he’d ever done that made me like his grumpy ass.

Liza’s impatient sigh was evident even through the phone’s bad speakers. “There’s more.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. “More? What else did he do, moon the board? Set fire to his office? Oh, God, he didn’t piss on the furniture, did he?”

“He did not. He did, however, formally nominate you for interim CEO before he left.”

The laughter died in my throat. “He didwhat?”

“He put your name forward to take over when your father officially steps down. And since the company needs an interim CEO now…he nominated you for the job.”

I sank fully onto the couch patterned with ugly beige stripes and gold vines that suddenly seemed like they might strangle me. I was probably still drunk, definitely still a little bit high, but now wondered if there was something hallucinogenic in the pills I’d taken last night. The last time I took Peyote, a rainbow-colored dwarf with a head like a bunny followed me around Boston for four days. Imagining myself a promotion wasn’t out of the range of possible side effects.

“That’s…impossible,” I managed a moment later. “I get drunk at charity galas and hit on board members’ wives for fun. Last year, I laced four stakeholders’ drinks with acid just to see what they would do. I’mnotCEO material. I’ve never wanted the job.”

It was the worst lie I’d told in a while. Obviously, we all wanted the job. Every child of Niall Black had been taunted with that egregious carrot since we were old enough to walk. We’d been pitted against each other via backyard fights, report cards.