A Twist of Fate (48 page)

It all came out then. Everything. She told Michael everything that had happened. About Brett. About how he’d abused her as a child and raped her as an adult. And about Tom and how
she’d broken his heart. And about the abortion too. She held nothing back. And about everything else Brett had ruined for her since, and how he’d protected himself by marrying Bethany,
and how Storm had fucked her father’s most trusted lawyer. How she’d had to lie and lie, and uphold the hideous Maddox family myth, for her father. She told Michael all this, as he held
her tight in his unwavering arms.

But when her breathing slowed and she finally stepped away from him, she saw cold fury burning in his eyes.

‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ he told her. ‘None of this. None of what’s happened is your fault.’

He turned his back on her. He marched away.

‘Where are you going?’ she called after him. She couldn’t believe he was just going to leave her like this.

‘To find him,’ he shouted, his words echoing furiously across the graveyard. ‘To find him and make him pay.’

‘No.’ Thea ran after him. She grabbed at his coat sleeve. ‘Please, Michael, you can’t.’

He shook her off. He didn’t break his stride.

‘But I’ve got no proof,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’

‘I don’t need proof.’ He spun round to face her. The scar on his face had turned livid. His fingers had curled into fists. ‘I believe you. I’ve always believed in
you.’

She knew it then. She knew he was telling her the truth. Panic rose up inside her. ‘But if you do anything to him, you’ll end up in prison,’ she said.

‘It’ll be worth it.’

‘It won’t be for me.’ She meant it. No matter what had happened, she wouldn’t let Michael get caught up in this too. ‘Because don’t you see?’ she said.
‘Hurting you – that would be giving Brett what he wants.’ She suddenly saw the full truth of this now. ‘Because hurting you would be hurting me.’

‘Then leave,’ he finally said. ‘Quit today. Walk out of there and never go back.’

‘Oh God, Michael, you don’t think I’ve thought of that?’ So many long nights, for so many months now, she had thought of that – the easy way out; she’d
thought of that and nothing else.

‘Just do it. Cut him. Cut all of them out of your life.’

And Thea could see it, the kind of future he meant, where she could draw a line under her past and move on, away from the company. And Michael was right. This was within her power. All she
needed to do to make it so was say ‘Yes’.

But instead she answered, ‘No.’

Michael threw up his arms, but she slowly shook her head. ‘Because if I walked away,’ she said, ‘then everything would be . . . ’

‘Would be . . . ?’ he prompted.

‘Would be Brett’s. And that can’t happen,’ she said. ‘Not after what he’s done to me. What he’s still trying to do to me.’ She felt the
determination rising up inside her. ‘The only way I can beat him,’ she said, ‘the only way I can punish him for everything he’s done, is to take it. All of it. To stay and
fight for that company, and one day take it back. To snatch everything he’s ever wanted from out of his hands.’

Michael’s whole body seemed to sag then. A look of resignation and distress replaced the anger on his face. He knew he couldn’t change her mind. And he knew he shouldn’t try.
He knew he’d support her no matter what she did. And Thea knew it too now.

She remembered then what she’d said about her father:
If he really loved me, then why didn’t he tell me the truth? If you love someone, you tell them the truth, no matter how much
it hurts.

Was that what she felt right now? she wondered, as she stepped towards Michael and let him gather her into his arms. Was this something like love? Was that what this strength was that she now
felt pouring into her, filling her and raising her up?

‘If he ever lays a finger on you again, you tell me,’ Michael said. ‘You promise me now, Thea. You swear that you will.’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I swear it, Michael, I will.’

‘No one’s ever going to hurt you again.’

Standing there with him, as the cold wind blew around them, whipping up spirals of autumnal leaves in its wake, Thea knew for certain that she would not be cowed by this letter. She would not
let Brett win.

She turned and stared one final time at Griffin Maddox’s grave. She thought of her mother and the wonderful times they’d once had. And she thought of Griffin, too, and how he’d
always had one eye on the future, as Thea did now. And as she turned and slipped her hand into Michael’s and the two of them walked away, towards the storm gathering on the horizon, she
wondered if maybe Michael had been right. Maybe she really was much more Griffin Maddox’s daughter than she thought.

It was late afternoon and Thea was riding in the lift up to her office in Maddox Tower. She checked her reflection in the mirror. Thank God for make-up, she thought. Her
tear-stained face was nothing but a memory. She looked on top of her game and felt it too.

She thought of all the floors the lift was rising up through, and of all the people there whose lives Maddox Inc. controlled. She was going to be watching Brett’s every move from now on.
With whatever means it took. In his business life and his private life too. She was going to get the proof she needed to finish him off. The phoney war between them was over. The real war had now
begun.

She thought too about Michael. She could still feel a ‘ghost’ impression of his hand, of his fingers intertwined with hers.

She’d told him everything and he hadn’t judged her. Or been disgusted by her.
He doesn’t hate me because of what happened
, as she’d always thought he might.

Tonight she was going straight from the office to the small apartment he’d rented over in Queens. He’d been offered a job last week, bossing for a private corporate-security firm. He
was going to cook for her, he’d said. Just one of his mother’s old recipes. A favourite from both their childhoods, he’d teased her, refusing to tell her just what it was.

Thea hadn’t even known that he could cook. In fact, she knew so little about all the small details and quirks that made up the grown-up person he’d become. But it didn’t seem
to matter, because in another way she felt she knew him completely. Who Michael was at his core. Who he’d always been, and always would be.

No one’s ever going to hurt you again.
That’s what he’d told her. And she believed him.

Brett couldn’t hurt her. Ever again.

Thea stepped out of the elevator and glanced at the bank of TVs on the reception wall. One of them was switched to CNN. As she took a sip of the takeaway coffee she’d picked up at her
favourite deli on the way over, she read the news banner line and slowed to a stop.

She turned, rereading what she’d just seen. Which is when her assistant, Sarah, came hurrying over.

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ Sarah said, not hiding the panic in her voice.

Thea realized that since she’d gone to the graveyard, she must have left her phone switched off.

‘Brett’s called a board meeting. They’ve all been waiting in there for over half an hour.’ It was obvious from her flushed cheeks that poor Sarah had been bearing the
brunt of the fallout from Thea’s absence.

‘Tell them I’m coming,’ Thea said, her eyes being drawn back to the TV screen, still disbelieving what she saw.

It was impossible. The news banner line said that Maddox Inc. had just taken over Scolari. But how could that be possible? Thea had tried everything. Only last week, in fact, she’d
informed the board – much to their disappointment – that she’d failed to secure a deal and believed that one could never be made. Her mind was whirring. She dumped her coffee on
the receptionist’s desk and marched towards the boardroom.

‘Why didn’t I know about this?’ she barked as she saw Peter and Dennis, two of the other directors and her father’s most trusted allies, standing in the corridor outside
the boardroom door.

‘Brett said he had your full authorization,’ Peter said, but she noticed something sheepish in his tone.

‘Brett?’ Thea didn’t understand. ‘What’s Brett got to do with any of this?’

‘Brett closed the deal,’ Dennis said, clearly puzzled by Thea’s reaction. ‘He said you’d asked him to take over negotiations after you’d failed. That you
didn’t think he’d get anywhere, but he was certainly welcome to try.

Failed . . .

Thea suddenly saw the danger she was in. Brett had done this to show the board what he was capable of. He’d done this to show them that, where Thea failed, he’d succeed.

‘He said you’d be pleased, that he’d turned one of your dreams into reality.’

The liar
, Thea thought. And Peter and Dennis too.
More liars.
Thea could see it in their eyes. They’d all known what Brett was up to with Scolari, and had deliberately kept
it from her. They’d sided with him. How many other directors had done the same?

She could see the answer written on their faces the moment she stepped into the boardroom. None of the men seated around the table would look at her.

‘Ah, there you are at last,’ Brett said.

He was standing at the head of the boardroom table in a smart new suit. His smile was wide, his eyes as cold as a shark’s, as he pulled at his pristine white cuffs beneath his sleeves.

Thea walked towards him, towards where she normally sat to chair these meetings, but Brett didn’t move. Because of the way he’d positioned himself she found it impossible to get to
her seat.

‘You’ve heard the wonderful news then?’ he said.

‘I don’t know how you could have—’ The words were out of Thea’s mouth before she could stop them, her surprise and incomprehension clear for everyone to see.

‘Convinced old man Scolari?’ Brett said with a grin.

Thea felt her pulse quicken as she saw that all the other board members were seated around the table. One or two of them were even smiling.

‘The truth is, I didn’t have to,’ Brett said. ‘I decided to think laterally instead. To get the other shareholders on-side. To bring them round to my way of
thinking.’

‘But that’s not possible,’ Thea said. ‘Roberto Scolari and his wife and daughter-in-law – they had a majority shareholding. None of them would ever have sold to
you.’

Lance Starling cleared his throat.

‘Er, that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said, getting quickly to his feet. ‘If I may?’

‘Absolutely,’ Brett said, and he and several other directors all turned – in a clearly rehearsed show of unity, obviously designed to sideline Thea – to watch Lance
Starling as he switched on a projector and began to explain quickly how the deal worked.

Thea sank down into a chair as Lance continued to speak and several other of Brett’s closest allies began to chip in, congratulating him, mentioning other acquisitions he had in the
pipeline. Brett didn’t even look at her. As if she was no longer significant. As if she was no longer even there.

‘As you all know,’ Brett said then, as soon as Lance Starling had finished, ‘I’ve called a press conference, which will begin in less than’ – he checked his
Rolex, her
father
’s Rolex, Thea saw, with horror – ‘half an hour. Which,’ he added, would also seem an opportune moment to announce, Thea, your resignation as
Chairwoman of the board.’

Thea sprang to her feet.

‘Resignation? But I’m not resigning.’

‘It’s too late,’ Brett said. ‘We’ve been having an emergency board meeting, which I note you failed to be here for, during which we cast a vote of no confidence in
our Chairwoman.’

‘No confidence? But—’

‘Frankly, Thea, this has been on the cards for quite some time. And your personal failure with Scolari’ – Brett took a moment to smile at his colleagues – ‘well,
it’s only served to highlight your shortcomings, both as a leader and a businesswoman.’

Thea couldn’t believe this was happening. The speed at which he’d moved had taken her completely by surprise. ‘But . . . ’

‘That’s all, gentlemen,’ Brett said, ignoring Thea’s protests and gesturing for the others to leave the room. ‘I’ll see you at the press
conference.’

‘You’re just going to let him do this? Sit here and take this bullshit?’ Thea cried out, but everyone stood up and started to file quickly past her. But this was wrong.
She’d done all she could to close the Scolari deal, all that anyone could. Brett couldn’t be
allowed
to do this . . . Only it seemed that he could.

‘Good luck,’ Peter said under his breath as he left.

‘Wait,’ Thea implored, wanting them all to come back, but in a moment she faced Brett alone.

‘I will not let you get away with this,’ she cried. ‘I will fight you.’

‘Interesting,’ Brett said. ‘But I doubt you will.’

He opened his laptop and hit a few keys. The screen loomed into life. ‘There are plenty of reasons why you had to go,’ Brett said. ‘Professional, of course, but personal too.
The fact that you aren’t really Griffin and Alyssa Maddox’s daughter being one. And I’ve checked. He didn’t legally adopt you, whereas he did legally adopt me. Which means
that I have much more right to this company than you. Now unfortunately, because your mother is dead, I can’t take steps to prove with a DNA test that she didn’t by fluke manage to have
you with somebody else. Which means I can’t get you disinherited.’ His fury about this blazed in his eyes. ‘God only knows where they got you from, Thea,’ he said, as if she
was dirt on his shoe. ‘But there’s another personal reason too. What I would term . . . professional misconduct.’

Now a grainy but clear image of Thea and Reicke in the hot-tub in Vienna came up on the large screen at the far end of the table.

‘Turn it off,’ Thea said. She slammed the lid shut.

‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Brett chastised her, grinning widely – triumphantly – at her now. ‘Because this really is one of my favourite films. I like the bit
where you let him fuck you over the tub.’ There was a malevolent glint in his eye. ‘Now, then. You could accept your resignation and go quietly in a dignified way, or I could easily
email this file to, say, your good friend Michael?’