They Toasted the Happy Couple, So I Bought the Groom novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: Six Signatures
In the Briarwood wine cellar Iris tells Clive she owns all six notes and his guarantee on every one, sets her terms and ends the kiss before it starts, and Clive warns her that Monday her name goes to his client.
I didn't wait for him on the lawn.
I took the cellar key off the hook in the catering pantry and went down the stone steps under the old kitchen.
My mother had kept the key on a green ribbon. It still had the ribbon.
The cellar was cold and smelled of cork and wet stone.
I was pulling two bottles from the rack when the door at the top of the stairs opened and shut.
His shoes came down slowly.
"Iris."
"The champagne's up here," I said. "If you're thirsty."
Clive stopped on the bottom step.
He was holding his phone out.
"Kestrel Holdings," he said. "That's you."
"It says so. I signed it."
"Kestrel bought Note One from the bank in August."
"Kestrel bought all six."
He didn't move.
The bulb over the rack buzzed.
"All six," he said.
"Note One from the bank in Towson, in August. Two and Three in the fall. Four in February. Five and Six in May, the week you sent out the invitations."
I set the bottles on the tasting table.
"Forty-two million dollars of my father's debt," I said. "And your name on the guarantee page of every one."
He laughed once, short and ugly, and put a hand over his mouth.
"You're out of your mind."
"I'm a creditor."
"You did this because I left."
"I started buying the week after you left," I said. "Do the math on why, counselor."
He came off the step.
He was a big man in a small cellar, and he knew it, and he came close anyway.
Close enough that I could smell the champagne on him and the cologne I'd bought him two Christmases ago.
He'd kept it. Of course he had. It was good cologne.
"Your father can't cure this," he said quietly. "You know he can't."
"I know he spent the June payment on the tent."
"So what happens in ten days?"
"In ten days I take the first block of his shares, and the seat that comes with it."
"And me?"
I looked up at him.
"You personally guaranteed seven million dollars on that note. I can call it Monday morning."
"I don't have seven million dollars."
"You have a condo in Canton, a Volvo, a partner-track salary, and a retirement account you were very proud of."
His jaw went tight.
"I'd take all of it," I said. "Then I'd come back for the next note."
"Or?"
"Or you keep quiet. You don't tell him who Kestrel is. You do what I ask when I ask it."
"That's blackmail."
"That's a guarantee. You read it before you signed it. I watched you."
That landed. I saw it land.
He put one hand flat on the rack beside my head.
The bottles clinked.
"You used to like it when I stood this close," he said.
"I used to like a lot of things."
"Tell me you don't."
His voice had gone low, the voice he used in bed, the one I hadn't heard in eleven months.
My pulse was in my ears.
He bent his head.
His mouth was an inch from mine, and his breath was warm and smelled of my father's champagne.
I let it stay there for one long second, so he'd know I could.
Then I picked up a bottle and pressed the cold glass flat against his chest, right over his heart.
He went still.
"Your wife's waiting," I said.
"Iris."
"Take this up to her. She likes it full."
He didn't take it.
He stood there breathing, with seven hundred dollars of my father's champagne pressed against his shirt, and his eyes went over my face.
"Clive?"
Marigold's voice, bright, from the top of the stairs.
"Babe? Are you down there? Daddy wants pictures before the light goes."
He stepped back.
I lowered the bottle.
"Coming," he called.
He took the bottle out of my hand at last.
At the foot of the stairs he stopped and buttoned his jacket, one button, the way he did before a closing.
"I have to forward it to my client," he said. "Monday morning. That's my job."
"Then forward it."
He looked at me over his shoulder.
"Your name is on page one."
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