Aaron was exhausted from waking up twice in the middle of the night to help Keeley feed the twins but he still had to drag himself out of bed and go to work. All three of them were dead to the world so he kissed each of them on the forehead before heading downstairs for a very large cup of coffee.
"You look terrible," Cameron noted when he delivered the reports. "Rough night?"
"One of many," he said tiredly. He hadn"t gotten a decent night"s sleep in the two weeks the twins had been home from the hospital.
"So this is what I have to look forward to someday. Fun."
"Is there anything else you needed or are you just here to mock me?"
"Now that you mention it…I was wondering when you"re going to conduct your hostile takeover. You can get the last of those shares any time you want. I"m a bit surprised you haven"t done it yet."
Aaron sighed. He had been wondering that himself. Despite being on the no entry list, Lacy had shown up at his apartment building no less than a dozen times in the past month trying to demand her way in. It was stressing Keeley out.
He wanted to knock that horrible woman"s teeth in for making things harder on his wife when she was already so worn out from taking care of the babies 24/7. If she knew that Aaron had a hidden family in there she would probably try to storm the concierge desk by force to get the elevator key.
Alistair was still close to Brann Knighton. As soon as he knew, he would tell his partner in crime. Who would tell his deranged daughter.
"I still don"t know what to do about Lacy Knighton. I feel like I need to have a contingency plan in place for her before I strike."
"That makes sense. Jen says she"s a real psycho."
Psycho didn"t begin to describe her. It rankled more than a little that Aaron didn"t have a way to take her down legally after all this time. Overthrowing his father was within his reach and yet he was thwarted once again by that thorn in his side.
The phone on Aaron"s desk rang. He picked it up immediately. "h.e.l.lo?"
"Mr. Hale, the CEO wants to see you in his office," one of the secretaries said primly.
"Tell him I"ll be right there."
He hung up and rubbed his temples wearily. He was pretty sure he knew what this summons was about.
"Good luck," Cameron said sympathetically as he left the office. He guessed what the call had been about by the look on his friend"s face.
Aaron made his way to his father"s office as if he were heading to the executioner"s block. His best bet at this point was to say that he and Bethany had broken up.
Lacy would definitely pounce right away but that might work in his favor. He could use it to trap her.
"Sit down," Alistair commanded, nearly freezing his son solid with his presence. He sat, not wanting to make things worse than they would already get.
"Where is your fiancée? I know she came back from Africa already."
"Actually she didn"t. She decided she liked one of her fellow volunteers better than me and stayed there with him. I got dumped," he lied, trying to look miserable.
His father scrutinized him before snorting in derision. "No wonder you look so terrible these days. I told you that love was a waste of time. You"re twenty-five years old; I had already been married for a few years at your age. No more messing around. Lacy Knighton—"
Aaron knew this would happen but that didn"t make him any less furious. He had put it off as long as he could and the result was the same.
"I have told you a million times, I would rather gouge out my own eye than marry that horrible woman. There is nothing in this world that you can do to force me to marry her."
"You already failed choosing a candidate for your marriage! Look what the fiancée you chose did!" Alistair thundered. "You don"t know how to choose properly for yourself."
If only he knew. Aaron chose happiness over business and it was the best decision he ever made. He had chosen properly for himself just fine.
"The least you could do is give me a little time to grieve my lost relations.h.i.+p before throwing the next candidate at me," he said coldly.
If he truly had been heartbroken, his father"s reaction would have been cruel. That was the kind of man he was. Aaron was beginning to suspect that Mary Gray"s death hadn"t been a suicide after all with how fanatical he was about maintaining the purity of his bloodline.
He actually felt a bit sorry for his half-brother. He had suffered a lot because he happened to have a little Hale blood in him. Just like Aaron.
It didn"t change the fact that Gray had been involved in Keeley"s and probably Robert"s deaths but he could understand why the man had done it. He wanted revenge for his mother. As a vengeful person himself, Aaron related to that much.
"It is past the time you should have accepted your responsibility as a Hale," Alistair said in a deadly tone. "Your failed relations.h.i.+p has nothing to do with that."
And the Father of the Year award definitely doesn"t go to this creep. Gray was lucky he didn"t actually grow up with him. All of Aaron"s fury about two lifetimes of Alistair"s oppression bubbled just beneath the surface.
It was so tempting to tell the truth right now but he had to trip Lacy up first. Aaron would get the last laugh. His father would lose everything that mattered to him in one fell swoop.
Thinking about the picture of Kaleb and Violet in their matching outfits that Keeley texted him earlier helped him calm down. He had to keep his temper in check for their sakes. His family was counting on him.