Taming McGruff (Book 3, Once Upon A Romance Series) (17 page)

***

Griffin led a pale, shaking Priscilla into his office. “Peg, can you bring some hot tea?”

“Sure thing, Boss.” His assistant shot Priscilla a look, and then she scurried to the nearby cabinet in her office.

“I can’t believe she’d attack you like that,” Priscilla murmured again, leaning on him as she walked to the couch and then dropped down on it.

Mrs. King purposely followed them, he realized, setting him up in front of Priscilla. Of all the lines of attacks she could have taken, this wasn’t the one he thought she’d choose. His mind worked on two levels: First his overall concern for Priscilla and her reaction. The other ran through several scenarios of Agnes King’s next move.

In the scheme of things, this was not her style. She liked the spotlight. She liked to play the victim. But she’d opted for this, essentially a one-on-one confrontation. Now, Griff deduced she’d done it to gauge her control over her daughter. Did her word hold any merit?

Her fishing expedition accomplished nothing more than hurting his wife.

“Griff, why does she have to be like that?” She looked up at him, her eyes swimming with pain and confusion.

His heart ached for her. Guilt stabbed at him. He’d done this; he’d drawn the first blood and this was the counterattack. “I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing for more than just her mother.

He’d told Priscilla he’d protect her. He failed.

“I wish I could make this all go away. Turn back the clock.” Turn it back on so many things. “I can’t.” Genuine sorrow shot through him.

Sitting beside her, he took her cold hands in his. “I’ve never seen her so…so hateful before.” She shrugged. “Is it the liquor? I could smell it on her breath.”

“She’s—” He stopped himself from saying something vindictive. “She lost control,” he amended. “Everything is spinning away from her grasp. Sometimes that makes people do things you wouldn’t normally expect.” He knew desperation when he saw it. Agnes King would go to any lengths now.

“Holy moly, this is hot,” Peg said, carrying a tray in and placing it on his desk. “You okay, Prissy? You need anything?”

He debated whether or not he should tell her. The more people he got to surround Priscilla, the better. “Mrs. King confronted us.”

“The Barracuda? She can ruin anyone’s day.” She plopped down on a chair in a huff and folded her arms across her chest. “What did she have to say, anyway? As if what she says matters.”

Inside, he smiled at his assistant. “From what I could gather, she doesn’t like me very much.”

“Or me,” Priscilla chimed in. “Not when I make decisions she doesn’t like.” She sighed, her shivering subsiding. “I remember her telling me whenever she scolded me for doing something she didn’t like, time and time again she’d say I wasn’t living up to the King name. That always worked on me.” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed hard.

Peg cursed. “For criminy’s sake…”

Griff gazed at Priscilla’s profile, her downcast face. His heart squeezed. That’s where it stemmed from, her quest to make a name for herself, to put her own mark on the store. She longed to earn the right and prove she deserved the beloved King name, claiming her place in the family. “She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know you have the heart of a King.”

She jerked her head up to look at him. Her eyes, wide and teary, melted him. “What?” she asked in wonder.

“You may be her biological child,” he reached out and swiped a fast falling tear from her cheek, “but you are not your mother’s daughter. Everything that is good and pure in you is all you with a dose of Charles King, your father, to guide you.”

More tears fell, but her smile told him they were happy tears now. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You don’t know what you’ve just done for me.”

The words swept through him, taking his breath away. He wished she’d look at him like that for the rest of his life. Deep inside, he knew she never would again.

***

Later that day, after Priscilla assured him she was better and had left to finish his living room, Griffin called a brief meeting with Charlie. Looking up as she entered his office, he stood, saying, “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“I heard. We have a problem.”

Dawning slipped in. “Peg.” It wasn’t a question. “And it’s my problem.”

She held up her hands. “You’re part of King’s. You’re family, so this is our problem.”

That only made his guilt increase. “I brought this on King’s.” In his mind, he added
and so much more than you know
. “I’m going to release a statement to the press.” He handed her his official statement.

Remaining silent, she read, looked up from the print, and then back down again. “You’re going to quote King’s sales figures—they’ve increased by thirty percent from last year at this time—thank the employees for their devotion, thank the loyal customers, and you’re going to thank the entire King family for giving you the privilege of heading King’s Department Store. Oh, yeah, you’re going to donate all your salary this year to charity, one of the King family’s choosing.”

“It’s the least I can do.” He meant it.

“What better way to preempt a character assassination from the Barracuda? I like it.”

“She wants to take down King’s.”

Charlie frowned. “And start with you?”

He nodded, unable to reveal the entire truth. “She couldn’t get her way with selling the store out from under you or try to destroy it by her insinuations about Marcus and Francie weeks ago. Now, her target is the top dog, who just happens to be her new son-in-law. Although, I’m sure she wouldn’t admit that to anyone’s face.”

She sank down in a chair, rubbing her back, and then her rounded belly. “Why? That’s something I’ll never figure out, Griff. She was so happy when my father was alive. After,” she shivered, “it’s like every sign of it vanished.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I can’t even begin to tell you all the threats she made.”

Now he sat, facing her.

Opening her eyes, she could barely focus on him. “I was just a kid, but the havoc she wreaked. I couldn’t stop her. I tried. I even snuck out of the house and went to see Daddy’s lawyer at his office. He was the only one who stood up to her.”

Something cold and hard dropped in his middle. “What happened?” he choked out.

“He was devastated, too. But he vowed he’d get to the bottom of it, stop her.” She shook her head. “I really didn’t understand at the time, but he held a press conference. King’s was an iconic store then, so the reporters came in droves. He said as my father’s best friend, he would do everything in his power to fulfill my father’s legacy of keeping King’s open and make certain the store would provide for his daughters so they too could take their rightful place at the helm of King’s when the time came.”

Griff couldn’t recall the exact words; however, she’d given him the pieces to some of the holes in his own memory of that speech. “That was the moment of his downfall.”

“How did you guess?” she asked. “Stepmother fumed. I remember she threw a bottle and broke a window. Glass shattered everywhere. Thank goodness for Dolly. She gathered Francie, Prissy and me and kept us in her room until the worst of it blew over. But, he didn’t fare so well. She went after him with a vengeance I will never forget. She tore him apart. I never saw him again. Later, Dolly told me he’d died in squalor.”

That was the shortened, condensed version of his father’s slow, sad demise.

Charlie cleared her throat. Getting up, she said, “You do whatever it takes, Griff. As the owner of King’s, I stand behind you one hundred percent. In fact, that’s the statement I will release to the press along with yours. I’ll give it to Peg.” At the door now, she looked back at him, asking, “What’s your favorite charity?”

He shrugged. “I give mainly to veteran’s organizations. Soldiers and their families. Why?”

“Those are the ones I’ll donate your salary to. Give Peg the names and we’ll print it, too.”

“Thank you.” How could he ever expect her to forgive him after she learned of his deception in all this? Did the end really justify the means anymore?

***

“It’s my house. Why can’t I see?” Griff asked Priscilla as she shielded him from the front of the house. “It’s been days. And you have this blocked off.”

With her arms outstretched, she tried to stand in his way. “Nope, not yet. Tomorrow you get to see, right before they take pictures.”

He placed his hands around her tiny waist and lifted her.

She shrieked, laughing. “Griff.” She clutched his shoulders now. “You can’t just move me aside.”

“And here I thought I was helping you fly, Pixie,” he teased. Finding her mouth, he gave her a quick, hard peck, and then set her down.

Jabbing him lightly in the ribs, she said, “I’m not puny, see? I can fight with the best of them, McGruff.”

This time he laughed. “Remind me to get someone to teach you self-defense.”

Looking into her sparkling eyes, he felt like
he
was the one floating on air. Since she began remodeling his house, she beamed with joy. It was infectious.

A sense of disquiet nudged him. For the most part, she’d stayed busy the last few days, holed up in the other rooms, unpacking, moving, and shifting things around to her liking. She’d been immune to his press release on Friday. So far, her mother hadn’t fired back. Not publicly at least. It was only a matter of time.

Now, he filled with pride. Priscilla’s little hints and tips on design placed on King’s website brought in a flood of responses. She had the customers and him waiting with bated breath on the big reveal. It seemed that Priscilla had found her niche.

“And what do you think, I’m going to run into the big bad wolf someday?” She huffed, putting her hands on her hips.

Shaking his head, he said a little too seriously, “Maybe you already have.” Her smile faded and his heart tugged. Reaching out to take her small, soft hand and draw her into his study, he said, “If you won’t show me, then at least tell me what your plans are for the website.”

“You may not like it.” She winced, looking up at him.

Griff sighed.

She pulled away from him and hurried to her ottoman, shifting her papers to a neat pile on the floor, and then plopping down on the cushion. “Here,” she patted the seat of her chair, “sit and I’ll explain.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of this,” he murmured, but he did come around and take a seat, sitting so her knees were between his as he faced her.

“Well,” she gulped, “I want to include you.”

“Me?”

“Pictures. Stories. What better way to show our loyal customers that, after all we’ve been through, Charles King’s daughters have triumphed in the end? They’re invested in our family. They want the best for us. They want to see that dreams can come true.”

“This is getting personal.”
Too damn personal
.

“I know this is hard for you.”

“This isn’t a show-and-tell,” he said, “nor the latest reality show.”

She blanched at that. “I don’t want that either.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.” Visions of camera crews knocking down his drunk father flashed through his mind. No matter his pleas, they never relented.

“No videos.”

Leaning forward, Griff came within inches of her beautiful face. He reached out and brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “How necessary is this, Priscilla? Do you really want our lives on display?”

She searched his stare. “It’s not like we’re not already. The employees gossip about us. I hear some of the things they say.” She shrugged. “The papers. The speculation. I’m surprised my mother isn’t calling me, badgering me about our marriage even more than showing up out of the blue the other day.”

Should he tell her? “She’s called me. Left messages.” Each message became more frantic, more threatening. He saved every one of them.

Frowning, she asked, “How did she get your number? And what is she saying?”

He evaded telling her all the details. “I blocked her number on your phone.”

“You blocked her number,” she said slowly. “Without asking me?”

I want to protect you
.

A sliver of unease dropped into her middle. Priscilla gulped hard. “If I did that to you, blocked a number from your phone without telling you, would you be angry at me?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation, surprising her.

“What else have you done that I don’t know about?” she asked. When he wouldn’t meet her gaze, another warning bell went off.

A muscle along his clenched jaw jumped. “I have a lot of things I’ve done I’m not proud of.”

“Before or after we met?”

“Both.”

“Griff,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Why?” A part of her didn’t really want to know the what, so she didn’t press that issue.

He held her hands. “At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“If you could go back and change things, would you?”

“Most everything.”

That sucked the breath out of her. “Us?”

“No.” His answer came out fierce and fast, easing her fears.

She leaned her forehead against his. “You had me worried. I know neither one of us wanted this, but now that we are an us, I…I don’t want to give it back.”
Not this. Not the feelings I have for you
.

He moved away, gently kissing her on the forehead and drawing his hands away from hers. “There may come a time when you want to give it all back.”

Looking at his face, so serious and stony, she wondered why he always pulled away, put up the walls. “Griff, I’m here now.” She sighed heavily. “Next time, ask me first before you get all heavy-handed about blocking calls or numbers or both. For the record, I would have done it myself weeks ago if I knew how to. But, as you say, it’s lady’s choice, all right?”

He nodded. “Point taken.”

“And what do you say about your picture on the website? And a few, not too personal, stories about us?”

“I’m sure I’m going to regret this, but yes. Very limited, though. The whole point is to showcase you, not me.”