Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (16 page)

“What conversations?”

“Your father’s failures.
 
What it means to be broke.
 
How we should look to all of you as examples of how tragic life can
be.
 
That sort of thing.”
 
Leana looked at her father.
 
“So, what’s the big news?
 
Pepper was brimming not to tell me, so
I’m curious.
 
What’s going on?”

“I thought we’d wait until after lunch,” George said.

“I can’t stay,” Leana said.
 
“When I was leaving, I received a call
from Anastassios.
 
He has a security
crew lined up for me and I need to be there in an hour to interview them.”
 
It was a lie, but there was no way she
was staying here to have lunch.
 
If
it was just her father, fine.
 
But
Pepper was working her last nerve.

“All right,” George said.
 
“Why don’t we go into the library and
have a seat?
 
I’ll tell you what’s
going on.
 
We’re going to make a formal
announcement soon, but I wanted you to hear it from me first before the media
got hold of it.”

That piqued her interest.
 

With Pepper leading the way, Leana followed them down a
hallway that opened into the library.
 
It was a large room paneled in dark wood and filled with books from
floor to ceiling.
 
Her mother was a
voracious reader and took pride in building their collection.
 
Just being here again brought back mixed
memories—some good, some that could go to hell.
 
Her mother’s first-edition classics,
most bought at auction, took up much of the space, though the popular thrillers
her father enjoyed were allowed a corner of their own.

In the center of the room, two red sofas faced each other
with a table between them.
 
Leana
sat in the center of one of the sofas facing her father and Pepper, who sat
opposite her.
 
She was focused on
her father, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see the expectation on
Pepper’s face like a spotlight turned to her own.

“You’re not going to like this, so I’m just going to say it
and be done with it,” George said.
 
“I bought The Hotel Fifth.
 
After the past several months of working with Pepper, she’s convinced me
that she is a good fit to oversee the project through to completion.”

He might as well have slapped her.
 
“You purchased Ryan’s hotel?
 
The one I was going to run?
 
The one we were
shot
in?
 
How could you do that after what he did
to us?”

“It’s not as if he benefitted from the sale, Leana.”

“Manhattan Enterprises did.”

“So they did, but he won’t.
 
The man’s dead.
 
And this is business.
 
There was an opportunity to get it
inexpensively due to the damaged exterior, so I acted upon it.
 
We’ve since repaired the building and
now we have a beautiful hotel with one of the best locations in the city.
 
It’s on Fifth, after all.
 
It was a smart move.”

She shook her head at him.
 
How could she have missed any of this in
the press?
 
Did it happen while she
was out of the country?
 
“I’ll say
it again.
 
We were shot there.”

“Does that really matter?”

“To me, it does.”

“This is what Celina understood that you never have.
 
In business, you have to overlook the
personal and go for the deal, regardless of what might be attached to it.
 
In this case, a few bad memories.”

“Is that what you call them?
 
A few bad memories?
 
I nearly died.
 
So did you.”

“But we didn’t.”

He’d never change.
 
It was always business, never family.
 
Never what was right.
 
“When are you opening?”

“In four weeks,” Pepper said.

Leana ignored her and kept her eyes on her father.
 
“That’s interesting,” she said.
 
“
I’m
opening in four weeks.”
 
She read his face.
 
“But that’s intentional on your part,
isn’t it?
 
In fact, you’re probably
opening on the same day as I am.
 
Is
that right?”

“That’s right,” George said.

“So, you’re coming after me?”

“Come on, Leana.
 
This isn’t a conspiracy.
 
I’m
not ‘coming after you.’
 
It’s not
personal.
 
We’re competitors
now.
 
When Harold left you his money,
you decided to go out on your own.
 
You never asked to do something with me, which is odd because that’s
what you claim you’ve always wanted.
 
We should have opened The Park together.
 
It should have been us.
 
Instead, you went with some random group
of investors.”

“They weren’t a random group.
 
Harold suggested them.
 
Do you even know why he gave me that
money?
 
He gave it to me so I could
get away from you.
 
He saw how you
treated me over the years and he hated it.
 
He knew you favored Celina over me.
 
He wanted me to succeed on my own and he gave me the means to do so.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit?
 
I’ll
send a copy of the note he left me.
 
It’s all there.
 
You didn’t
even know Harold.
 
He was your best
friend—”

“—and he was a liar.
 
That’s what he was, Leana.
 
A liar.
 
And a freak.
 
He lied about who he was.
 
He lied to everyone important in his
life, and he sided with Ryan in an effort to bring me down.
 
He did it all because he was too afraid
to face the truth about who he was.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“I can,” Pepper said, and when she spoke, her voice was no
longer as light as it had been earlier.
 
It was direct.
 
It had an
edge to it.
 
Gone was the Southern
schoolgirl giddiness.
 
Now, her
voice was laced with confidence.
 
It
was clear to Leana that what she heard earlier was an act.
 

She glared at her.
 
“Here’s some advice, Penelope.
 
Stay out of this.
 
My father
only wants you because he thinks he can replace my sister with you.
 
But he can’t.
 
If he thinks he can, he’s deluded.
 
You don’t even come close to having what
Celina had, but that’s what he’s going to expect of you.
 
When you let him down, watch your back.
Because it will likely be you who’s thrown to the wolves.”

“You don’t know a thing about me or what I’m capable of,
Leana.”

“One glance tells me everything I need to know.”

“Really?
 
Well,
here’s something you should know.
 
You don’t intimidate me.
 
I’m
stronger than you.
 
I’m smarter than
you.
 
I’m better than you.
 
I have connections you only could dream
of having.
 
For you, that’s the bad
news because
I’m
the one who’s coming after you.
 
Your hotel is going to fail.
 
Your father asked you here today so he
could tell you to your face that we’re opening The Hotel Fifth.
 
He wanted to give you a heads-up because
he’s making an effort to be kind.
 
He wants to be fair.
 
I
respect that because he’s a good man.
 
The reason I’m here is that I wanted to see the look on your face when
he told you.
 
I think you’re in over
your head.
 
I think you’re going to
need all the help you can get.
 
The
invitations to your opening celebration have already been sent.
 
Your father’s received his.
 
But on the same night you’re set to have
your opening, we’re going to crush you with a social event of our own that will
elevate The Hotel Fifth in ways that will bury The Park.”

Leana looked at her father.
 
“You should be ashamed of yourself.
 
Seriously.
 
Why would you do this?
 
What’s the point?
 
And why are you allowing her to speak to
me like this?”

“I don’t control her, Leana.”

“Please,” she said.
 
“You manufactured this.”

“She’s a businesswoman addressing the owner of a competing
hotel.
 
She can say whatever she
wants, and so can you.
 
You
certainly don’t have to sit there and take it.
 
Give it back to her.
 
It’s these fundamentals of business that
you’ve never understood.”

But Pepper understood them.
 
She was prepared for this in ways that
Leana wasn’t.
 
She pressed forward
before Leana could say a word.
 

“Don’t you listen?” Pepper asked.
 
“Don’t you get it?
 
None of this is personal.
 
It’s business and if I were you, I’d pay
attention to yours.
 
It’s obviously
come under attack by someone who doesn’t think very highly of you.
 
They called you a murdering cunt, for
Christ’s sake, which just continues your campaign to ruin the Redman name.
 
Don’t you think it’s in your best
interest to find out who did it and why before you open your hotel?
 
Don’t you think you owe your family that
before you embarrass us any further than you already have?”

Leana stood and swung her Birkin over her shoulder.
 
Years ago, she would have taken that bag
and slammed it against the side of Pepper’s head.
 
But not now.
 
Now, she looked down at Pepper and
cocked her head to the side.
 
“You’re not a Redman,” she said.

“The hell I’m not.”

“You’re just some chicken-fried wannabe from the back woods
of Arkansas who got a good cut-’n-color before getting on a bus to New York and
maxed out your credit cards buying that suit when you got here.
 
You’re using our name because whores like
you will do anything to succeed.
 
Anything.
 
You know, like
hiring someone to vandalize my hotel and say that I’m a murdering
cunt—whatever
that
means.
 
If this conversation has proved anything, it’s that you have motive,
Pepper.
 
And I’m taking that motive
to the police.
 
Expect to hear from
them.”

“I’d be happy to talk to the police.”

“We’ll see how happy you are after they’ve grilled you.
 
And they will. Because, while you may
not think so, I also have connections.
 
I’ve lived in this city my entire life while you sat on a cot in
Arkansas picking bugs from your teeth with your chipped fingernails and
struggled to make a go of it in that shack you were raised in.”
 

“
Shack
?”

Leana walked over to the doorway, then stopped.
 
She felt beaten up and set up, but she
wasn’t about to stand down.
 
She’d done
that her entire life.
 
Pepper and
her father could play as dirty as they wanted, but Leana was going to play
smart.
 

She removed her iPhone from her Birkin, scrolled down the
list to find his number, and dialed it.
 
It had been a year since they last touched base—he called her
after what happened at the Four Seasons to see if she was all right and if
there was anything he could do.
 
He
couldn’t help her then, but he could now in ways that could change the
landscape in her favor.
 
A celebrity
event always was
the
event and through one person, Leana had a direct
line to dozens of the biggest and most popular celebrities and movie stars.

A woman answered the line.
 
Leana remained in the doorway because
she wanted to make certain that Pepper and her father heard every word.

“I’d like to speak to Michael Archer,” she said.
 
“Tell him it’s his sister, Leana Redman,
and that it’s urgent.”