Page 72 of My Big, Fat, Hot Billionaire Enemy

“Let him up,” I say grimly. Might as well get this over with.

Mark Blackwell storms into my office moments later, his face thunderous. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. Never does.

“So,” he spits out, stopping in front of my desk. “I no longer have access to your office,boy?I’m a fucking board member of your company, too.”

“And so you are,” I agree. “But other board members don’t have unfettered access to my office, either. Going forward, you’ll have to get direct approval from me foreach visit.”

He glares at me for a moment, seething. Finally: “My investigators have confirmed what I already suspected. You spent the weekend in the Hamptons. With the Hammond girl.”

Investigators.

Of course.

He’s having me watched. Paranoia and control, his twin guiding stars.

I smile, but there’s no warmth in it. “My personal life is not your concern, Father.”

“It is when your personal life involves fucking the key principal in a nine-figure deal!” he roars, slamming his hand on my desk. The sound echoes my own frustration from earlier, but his is laced with fury, not conflict. “Have you lost your goddamn mind? Itoldyou you’d end up fucking her and fucking the deal. Letting sentiment, lettingher, cloud your judgment? I fucking warned you, but you didn’t listen!”

“My judgment remains perfectly clear,” I reply, keeping my voice dangerously low. Showing anger is showing weakness. Never show weakness to him. “Project Nightingale proceeds based on strategic merit, not personal connection.”

“Bullshit!” he sneers. “You torpedoed a perfectly good liquidation strategy.Mystrategy, implemented through Weiss, because of her! Because you got soft! You think I don’t see it? You’re choosing her pathetic legacy over the Blackwell way!”

“I’m choosing the approach that maximizes long term value formycompany,” I counter, standing up slowly, meeting his furious gaze. “Your personal vendetta against Richard Hammond is irrelevant. Your attempts to sabotage the deal through Weiss were transparent and frankly, amateurish.”

His eyes narrow into slits. “You think you’re soclever, don’t you? Playing white knight. But you’re just repeating history. Letting a woman make you weak. Your mother—”

“Do not,” I interrupt, my voice dropping to absolute zero, a tone even he recognizes as a final warning, “bring her into this.”

He recoils slightly, surprised by the ferocity. But he recovers quickly, shifting tactics. “Fine. Don’t talk about your mother. Let’s talk about your little blonde project. You think this ends well? You think you can have herandthe company? Don’t be naive, Christopher. Business and pleasure… they don’t mix. One always poisons the other. You’ll either destroy her company trying to keep her, or she’ll cost you everything when you inevitably have to cut her loose. Choose.”

He stands there, radiating smug certainty, convinced he’s backed me into a corner. Convinced he can still control me through threats and manipulation.

But something inside me snaps. Not into rage this time. Into… clarity. Cold, hard clarity.

He’s wrong.

Not about the risks. The risks are real. Tatiana laid them out clinically.

But he’s wrong about the motivation. He thinks this is weakness. Sentiment.

Maybe it started that way. But listening to him now, seeing his ugly, manipulative tactics laid bare… it’s not about weakness anymore.

It’s about refusing tobehim.

Refusing to let his bitterness, his control, dictate my life, my business, my choices.

“I’m notchoosing, Father,” I say quietly. “I’mbuilding.Something. My way. Project Nightingalewill proceed, as approved by the board. And my personal life,” I hold his gaze, unwavering, “remains none of your goddamn business. Now get out of my office.”

For a moment, I think he might actually explode. His face mottles with rage. But he sees something in my eyes. Something implacable. Something that won’t bend to his will this time.

With a final, contemptuous glare, he turns on his heels and storms out.

The silence he leaves behind feels strangely heavy. Charged, even.

I sink back into my chair, the adrenaline slowly draining, leaving me feeling hollow.

He laid it all bare. The threats. The surveillance. The assumption that I’d choose ruthless business over any personal connection.