He cleared his throat. “Jackson was a good bloke. I’m sorry I won’t get to play a round of golf with him at St. Andrews this year.”
“I know he would have enjoyed it.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself for losing Layton International,” he said, launching straight into the heart of the matter. “When Jackson came to me, I told him it was a bad idea to stake so much on those Thai resorts.”
Rebecca’s mouth twisted. If only the bank had felt the same before loaning him the money. “Yes, well he loved to take on new projects and he was certain he had a winner.”
Roger cleared his throat again. “So what can I help you with, love?”
Though everyone told her Ramirez Enterprises was invulnerable, she asked Roger if he knew of any weaknesses.
“I understand there may be some trouble in Dubai,” Roger replied. “Rumor has it they could lose the property they’ve sunk so much into. I have another client interested in property there, so they’ve heard rumblings.”
Rebecca tapped her chin with a fingernail. “There’s an accusation of impropriety in the permits process, right? Do you know anything about that?”
Roger sighed. “There’s no evidence to support the charge thus far, but I know the man himself took the corporate jet over this morning. It must be something to get Ramirez to fly in.”
He told her a few other things, about permits and engineers, architects, the Emir and a relative of some sort. Nothing specific, but things that could add up to trouble for a hotel chain trying to build a new resort. She’d fielded similar problems in the past so understood both the import of the issues and the hassle of bureaucratic red tape.
“You’ll let me know if you hear anything?” he finished.
“I’ll keep my ears open.” After what Alejandro had done to her, she refused to feel guilty about it. If there was a remote chance she could wrest Layton International from him, she had to take it. Her father would have demanded no less.
An image of Alejandro talking about his daughter in the past tense sprang to mind.
No. No room for weakness. This was business, not personal.
“I’d appreciate that,” Roger replied. “We’re digging, looking for an Achilles heel, but so far there’s nothing to report.”
“Roger,” Rebecca said when they were wrapping up the conversation. “I wanted to ask you something else before you go.”
“Shoot.”
“Why’d you pull out of the Ramirez deal five years ago?”
He hesitated a moment before speaking. “We decided it wasn’t a good investment after all.”
“But you financed our South American acquisitions.”
“The stake was less than Ramirez required.”
Rebecca’s temples throbbed. “But you didn’t pull out of Ramirez because of us, right?”
He sighed. “Your father thought it was a bad bet, love, and he didn’t want to do business with us if we took the risk. Ramirez had a reputation as a risk taker, you see. He was unorthodox, and several of our investors were already wary. Your father’s opinion simply helped put the nail in the coffin.”
Rebecca’s heart squeezed. Yes, her father had been at the top of his game then. He’d had a lot of influence in the industry and would have been listened to with the reverence of an Oracle. She drew a breath into her painfully tight chest. “All right, thanks.”
“Ring me if you hear anything about Dubai.”
“I will.”
They said their goodbyes and Rebecca put her cell phone on the desk before leaning back in her chair. Icy dread dripped down her spine. What if Alejandro was right? What if it was her fault he’d lost his backing from the Cahill Group?
Oh God.
In a moment of weakness, she’d called her mother when she’d been sitting in the Madrid airport five years ago, her eyes puffy and red, her throat sore. She’d had no one else to talk to back then. She’d been stunned, hurt, humiliated. And she could still see the severe-looking wedding coordinator with her folder and her samples, asking for the groom and saying, “Gracias, I will wait for him to return. His fiancée is anxious to begin the plans, yes?”
Ridiculously, Rebecca had hoped for a mother-daughter connection, some sage advice. How she’d forgotten for those few moments that her mother was as shallow as a puddle, she’d never know. Amelie Layton made sympathetic noises, but she spent more time talking to her dog than she did offering advice.
Later, Rebecca realized she’d just needed to say it aloud to someone. Once she’d confessed, she had the good sense to regret it. She’d made her mother promise not to say anything to her father, a ‘just us girls’ pact. After the incident with Parker Gaines—hired by her father to prove that she was a weak, vulnerable female who couldn’t be trusted to run the company once he was gone—she didn’t want to give him any further evidence of her ‘feminine weakness.’ She’d had to be strong, had to prove she could run Layton International some day.
Since it hadn’t been like her father to keep quiet about her personal life—especially something as negative as a breakup with Alejandro—she’d breathed a sigh of relief when he’d never said anything. She’d assumed her mother had kept the secret after all. In fact, she’d always thought her father’s dislike of Alejandro happened much later and was due to simple rivalry. Ramirez Enterprises’ influence had grown in leaps and bounds while the Layton star had been sinking. It’d been hard for her father to accept as the years went by and their positions were reversed.
But what if his dislike was based on more than that?
Rebecca grabbed her phone and stabbed the number for her mother’s mobile. She wanted the truth, no matter how difficult. “Did you tell Dad about Alejandro Ramirez?” she demanded when Amelie Layton answered.
“Is that any way to talk to your mother, ma belle?” Amelie’s voice trailed off as she shushed her dogs. “I may have. I can’t remember. Is there a problem, darling?”
11
Several days
