Page 2 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
But his talent had recently become more of a liability than a gift. His enemies accused him of underhanded dealings, comparing his success to that of his corrupt father.
The truth was, he just always paid attention. Couple that with his nerves of steel and, thus far, his gut had never steered him wrong. So, it came as no surprise that when faced with a seemingly iron-clad obstruction on his way to claiming his late father’s estate, he had found a simple and easy solution.
Priya Davidson-Khan had needed a husband to access her own inheritance, so he had met with the heiress on a few occasions and instantly admired her professional, no-nonsense approach to their sham marriage. Plus, it came with the added bonus of having a bona fide upper-class socialite on his arm to help smooth his transition into the upper echelons of society. He had been ready for one year of socially staged wedded bliss, the exact amount of time listed in his father’s will and not a minute more, before they planned to divorce. Neat and tidy, unlike most relationships he had witnessed in his lifetime.
He’d been just minutes away from victory. When he planned to achieve something, usually nothing got in his way.
But this was different, this wasn’t just a snag in a contract he could tease out. This was a person. Human beings had pesky things like autonomy and free will and the right to change their minds about something as important as marriage at the drop of a hat.
His mind spun with the consequences that today’s disastrous failure would have on his plans. So many things were at risk, so many chances for either one of his brothers to slide in and take everything he had worked so hard for the past two decades to achieve.
He’d changed everything about himself in order to fit into the mould Zeus had demanded of him. And now, even after almost twenty years of fighting tooth and nail against his humble beginnings to prove his worth...he still wasn’t getting it without a fight.
He still wasn’t good enough. He never had been.
When the car arrived at the gleaming tower on Lexington Avenue that housed their company headquarters, the rain had begun to slow somewhat. He stopped in the cavernous atrium and shook the last drops from his tuxedo jacket, then looked up, finding the towering portrait of his father looking down upon him. Cold determination filled his bones despite his exhaustion. He would not give up at the first hurdle, not when so much lay in the balance. Although now, thanks to Eros’s actions, the outcome was suddenly a lot less certain than he normally preferred.
He took his own private elevator up to the top-floor suite, where he had a team of executive assistants that ran his day-to-day business. As expected, there were a few people still roaming the halls in between offices. Four months ago, he’d been summoned here from the European holdings to take the reins while Zeus recovered from his sudden illness. With shareholders and board members already seething after some of Zeus’s very shady deals had come to light, the timing had felt rather serendipitous.
But even from his sickbed, Zeus’s influence had still been in effect. His top-floor staff were the worst kind of pedants, enforcing archaic modus operandi and resisting all the changes Xander had tried to implement on the grounds that Zeus wouldn’t like it. One assistant in particular had caused him more headaches than most.
Shaking off that familiar twang of annoyance, he tapped the first button on his phone that was simply labelled ‘Quinn’ and waited for the inevitable Irish accent to answer.
He felt the pressure of the last two weeks circling him again, tightening its iron grip on his stomach with every shrill tone of the unanswered call. When it went to voicemail, he stared down at the screen in disbelief. Quinn never missed a call, even on the weekend.
When a second call also went unanswered, his jaw tightened, his mind cycling through the conversations they’d had in recent weeks. She’d seemed tense and distracted since Zeus’s passing. He gritted his teeth and dialled again.
Only one person had been allowed to know all his plans for the wedding since Zeus’s death—not that he’d had a choice in that matter. Pandora Quinn had been his father’s executive assistant for a couple of months before the old man had fallen ill and he’d insisted on passing her on to Xander.
Zeus had never returned to his seat of power. His illness had been drawn out over the course of a few months but none of them had truly imagined that a man known for his almost superhuman ability to wield power in the corporate world would ever be extinguished by something so mundane as a cardiac arrest during a routine operation.
Xander had been thrust into the position of acting CEO, managing the biggest acquisition of their decades-long history, and with that power came the entire top-floor staff, including the much beloved Pandora. She was probably holding up traffic somewhere, doing something utterly ridiculous like performing mouth to mouth on an injured bird or hand-feeding a bumble bee. The image his mind created was one of pure chaos, truly no better descriptor for the woman herself. Speaking of which...
With a touch of a button, he called in the weekend receptionist, relieved when he immediately heard the sound of footsteps. At leastsomepeople were working today.
The woman entered slowly, with the nervousness of someone who had spent years under Zeus’s tyrannical rule. Xander remained seated, his face a mask of polite serenity.
‘I can’t get through to Pandora Quinn. Has she been in this weekend?’
‘Pandora...? She’s already handed in her resignation,’ the brunette answered, her voice sagging a little when Xander pinned her with a disbelieving glare. ‘I...I assumed you knew.’
Years of working with Zeus had taught Xander how to conceal his own reactions. He had just been publicly humiliated by his supposed bride and he had barely even raised an eyebrow. But with this news...he felt his entire body tense, his iron grip on the edge of his desk turning his knuckles white.
‘When did this happen?’ Xander asked, tapping the screen of his phone to life. ‘And why was I not informed?’
‘Friday evening. I only found out because I was passing by the HR office on my way back to my desk,’ she explained with a slight tremor to her voice. ‘I think she waited until most of the office had left on purpose. I wouldn’t expect anything less from that girl. There was always something a little off about her.’
‘That will be all,’ he snapped, pointedly cutting her off and striding past, out into the private space that housed the CEO’s personal staff.
The walls in here were the same polished marble, with two large desk areas tucked into alcoves on either side. The desk on his right was home to his secretary, an older woman who manned the phones during the week with ruthless efficiency. Her desk space was tidy and nondescript. The opposite area, usually covered with coffee cups, written reminders and colourful knitting projects, was now utterly barren except for one lonely desk chair and a single red telephone. Everything that had ever suggested the nature of its occupant was gone.
Xander frowned at the empty space and felt a cold fury rise within him. What kind of professional executive assistant just resigned without a word of warning?
It was sudden and out of character, especially for a woman who had kept a schedule that rivalled his own in its predictability. Quinn had been the only one in charge of the short wedding-guest list and the non-disclosure agreements. He needed an immediate embargo to be issued to the press before anything damaging could be published. For that, he needed Pandora back and he was damned well going to tell her that.
He picked up the phone on his desk, dialling the direct line to his security team and filling them in on the situation with his usual efficiency.
‘I need the location of Pandora Quinn. Now.’
