“She has?” Worry threaded through him. Maybe he needed to push Stijn and insist that he get Greer an assistant. She was pregnant, after all, and this wedding—the wedding he’d concocted—was a lot of work.
“Yeah, and today was a doozy.” Augusta snapped her gum. “Can I help you with something in particular, Mr. Sutton?”
“Doozy how? What happened?”
Augusta cleared her throat. “Something about the girls not liking the designs on the tablecloths. And then there were the centerpieces. And the people providing the tables and chair rentals tried to back out. She was up here in my office for a few hours faxing contracts and arguing with people.”
That sounded . . . rotten. “What can I do to help?”
“Why are you asking me?”
Yeah. Good point. “If you see her, tell her I need to talk to her.”
“I’ll take down the memo, Mr. Sutton.”
“Same message for Mr. Janssen,” Asher told her. He needed to talk to Stijn. It would do Asher no good to try and squeeze time in with Greer if she was working herself to exhaustion for her father’s ridiculous wedding. “It’s imperative that I talk with him. Today.”
Because his Greer was not going to wear herself out for this stupid shit. Even if he had to tell Stijn to cancel the wedding. Asher was fairly certain—or at least hopeful—that Greer had gotten over her seething hatred of him and had moved on to simply mistrust. He could work with mistrust. There was no longer a need for the wedding to go on. He hung up his phone and let his assistant know he was unavailable until further notice. Ishikawa could handle all meetings from this point onward.
He opened his desk drawer to find a pen, and to his surprise, a framed portrait of Donna stared back at him. Fuck. He must have shoved this in his desk a while back, unwilling to toss it away. He pulled the picture out and studied it for a moment. Donna was smiling, her red hair blowing in the breeze, her yellow bikini bright against the Mediterranean background. They’d taken this on vacation after he’d graduated from college. Even in this picture, though, she looked bored. Complacent. He remembered her wanting to go out every night rather than spend time in the room with him.
Funny how he’d been okay with that just a few short years ago.
Without another thought for the woman he’d once thought he’d loved, he dumped the photo in the trash.
Hours passed, and by the time Asher’s phone rang again, he was on edge. More so when he saw that it was Stijn and not Greer. “About time,” he snapped at the Dutch businessman when he answered.
“Can I help you with something, Mr. Sutton?” Stijn sounded equally annoyed. “Augusta tells me you had an urgent message for me.”
“Yeah. This bullshit wedding we’re putting on? Call it off. Tell Greer you changed your mind or something. She’s running herself ragged trying to please those three girlfriends of yours and I don’t like it. Cancel things and I’ll hold up my end of the bargain.”
“You want me to cancel the wedding?” Stijn’s accented voice was flat. “After demanding that I have one?”
“That’s right. Like I said, I’ll hold up my end of the bargain and give your business the shot of cash you need.”
“I’m not canceling.”
Asher’s eyes narrowed and he paced in his office, glaring at the Manhattan skyline visible through the windows behind his desk. “What do you mean, you’re not canceling?”
“I mean that our sales have been exceeding expectations ever since the wedding was announced. We have received several endorsement deals and I am in talks with another company to monetize the story. This has been the perfect media event that I needed for Dutchman magazine.”
Was he serious? “You don’t even want to get married. Calling it off will get you just as much attention as an actual wedding.”
“Did you need anything in particular, Mr. Sutton? I need to go to dinner with my fiancées.” Stijn sounded bored.
Asher gritted his teeth. “I’m telling you. Call this off. I changed my mind. I’m not giving you any funding if you don’t pull the plug on this shit.”
“Are you trying to blackmail me, Mr. Sutton? Because if you neglect to hold up your end of the bargain, I shall have no choice but to tell my daughter that you manipulated the entire scenario simply so she would be forced to spend time with you.”
Mutual blackmail? Anger shot through Asher. He was fucking cornered. The moment Greer found out Asher was pulling the strings, she’d go right back to ignoring him, all so she could have a scrap of attention from her father. “Fuck you, Stijn. Don’t you say a thing to her.”
“I’m glad you’ve come around to my point of view, Mr. Sutton. I look forward to seeing you at the rehearsal dinner.”
Asher hung up and then flung his phone across the room. That cocksucker. He wanted to play hardball? Asher could buy his pissant little company and slash and burn it. He could make Stijn choke on his sales if he liquidated his stock and sold his shares to a competitor. He could do a dozen things to make the man’s life miserable, because Asher had enough money to do so . . .
And then Greer would hate him. Again.
Fuck.
He stormed across the room and picked up his phone.
Like it or not, he’d have to ride this bullshit out. Even if he did, though, he was going to make sure that Greer was taken care of. She was his top priority.
She was his only priority.
***
Greer left her doctor’s office and got into a cab, stifling a yawn. She gave the driver the address and settled into the backseat, lost in thought.