A Very Exclusive Engagement(52)
“I didn’t go to private school,” Angelica said, her jaw clenched tighter with every word he said.
“I did a little research and found old school records showing her tuition was paid for by Graham Boyle. Isn’t that odd? He’s always told people he didn’t have any children of his own. It must’ve been hard growing up knowing your father didn’t want anything to do with you. That you were just a mistake that could be fixed with enough money. If it were me, I’d want revenge, too.”
“Shut up, Hayden.”
“He didn’t even recognize you when you came to work at ANS, did he? Sure, you looked different, but a father should be able to recognize his own daughter, right? Then you had to sit back and watch him fawn over Lucy, a child that wasn’t even his.”
“I don’t have to listen to your wild stories. You’re obviously grasping at straws.” She shook her head, turning to walk away from their discussion.
“The sad thing is that you went to all this trouble, ruined so many lives, and in the end, you failed.”
Angelica stopped dead in her tracks. She swung back to him, her eyes wide and furious. “Oh, really? What makes you think this isn’t exactly the way I planned it? Those fools they arrested, Brandon and Troy, will take the fall for the wiretaps. All the evidence shows that Marnie Salloway orchestrated it. Graham Boyle is going to rot in prison and his precious network will be destroyed before too long. It sounds pretty perfect to me. My only regret is that in the end, I couldn’t find a way to get Lucy’s hands dirty enough to send her to jail with dear old dad.”
“But he didn’t go to jail because he loved you and wanted to protect you. It was pure guilt.”
“I don’t need his love,” she snapped. “I’ve gotten this far in life without it. What I did need was to see that bastard brought to his knees. And I got that.”
Hayden smiled wide and turned toward the cameraman. “You get that, Tom?”
The videographer pulled away from his lens and nodded. “Every single word.”
Angelica’s jaw dropped open, her skin flushing crimson in anger. “You bastard!” she shrieked. “You deliberately set me up. If you think I’m going to let you ruin my career with no physical proof of my involvement with the hacking, you’ve got another think coming. Even with that tape, no one will believe you.”
Hayden just shook his head. “I didn’t have to ruin your career. Like you said, in time, people always ruin themselves. I just happened to get that moment on film. I’m pretty sure ANS will terminate you when I show them that tape. And the FBI and congressional committee will find it very interesting. Soon, people will start rolling on you to cut a better deal for themselves. There’s no loyalty among criminals. You’ll be wearing matching orange jumpsuits with your daddy in no time.”
Graham Boyle was Angelica’s father? Liam frowned in confusion but was jerked away from his thoughts when Angelica reared back and slapped Hayden. He barely reacted to the assault, simply shaking his head and looking at her with pity in his eyes. “It’s a shame you wasted your whole life on this. I feel sorry for you.”
By now, a large crowd of the wedding guests had gathered around the argument. More witnesses. The more people that gathered, the higher Angelica’s blood pressure seemed to climb. “I don’t want your pity,” she spat.
Liam watched her fingertips curl and uncurl as she tried to keep control, but she was unraveling quickly. At last, she reached out, and before anyone could stop her, she grabbed a large fistful of wedding cake. Less than a second later, she flung it at Hayden, silencing him with a wet slap.
“What are you looking at?” she screamed at the crowd. She grabbed more cake in each hand and started launching it at the crowd. Buttercream icing flew through the air, pelting the wedding guests. They screamed and scattered. Liam checked to ensure Francesca, Aunt Beatrice and his mother were out of the line of fire, but Henry wasn’t so lucky. He took a large piece of cake to the front of his suit. But he only laughed, scraping it off his shirt and taking it in stride. After forty years with Beatrice, flying cake was probably nothing.
Before Liam could turn to get help, two burly security officers rushed past him. Angelica’s eyes went wild when she saw them. She started kicking and screaming when they tried to restrain her.
“Don’t you touch me!” she howled. “Let me go!”
Liam could only watch in amazement as she wrenched herself from the men’s grasp, only to stumble backward into the cake table. It turned over, taking Angelica and the cake with it. Angelica landed smack-dab in the middle of the towering confection, coating her from hair to rear in buttercream. She roared in anger, flailing as she tried to get up and couldn’t. When she did stand again, it was only with the help of the guards gripping her upper arms.