“It was more profitable than ever before, and you know it. And shutting it down wasn’t business, it was personal. Against me.”
“Wow, you really think that highly of yourself?”
“Should I not?” Sam dared. “Every man is permitted to think highly of himself without judgement. Why can’t I?”
“Touché. And yes, you’re correct. I did close it down in the end because of you.”
“Do you care to tell me why? What did I ever do to you that deserved slandering my name across the papers, accusing me of forging the ledger, and sending me to jail for theft?”
“First of all, I never accused you of forgery. That wasn’t me. The rest, however was true.”
“So because I stole evidence that proved you had committed a crime, you figure it’s okay to shut down a successful magazine, putting hundreds of people out of work?”
“I offered them all other jobs.”
Sam clapped slowly. “Good for you. You have a heart after all.”
“Yes, the same one that you broke.”
“So this was all about revenge?”
“No, it was about desperation.”
Desperation? Was Thomas becoming vulnerable before her very eyes as he confessed what Sam assumed to be a weakness he had never exposed before? For the briefest of moments, he endeared himself to Sam over this professed desperation… until he continued speaking.
“I wanted to bring you to a point of desperation so that you had no other option than to be with me.”
Nix that whole endearing trait.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“Did what work?”
“Did you break up with that Raul Smothers character?”
Raul Smothers character. Now the pieces were beginning to click into place. Somehow Thomas had found out about Sam dating Raul—which was easy enough to do when you could afford to hire a private investigator… or the entire Pittsburgh Police Department. He must have plotted to break them up. What better way for a media mogul to break up a couple than to go the extra mile with his smear campaign? All it took was a little redirection of Sam’s ammunition against Thomas, instead putting the smoking gun in Raul’s hand.
Raul got the credit, Sam got the curb, and Thomas got the girl. Pure evil genius.
“Even if it did work and I broke up with Raul, it wouldn’t have made me ever date a man like you.”
“A man like me? You mean wealthy, powerful, and in control.”
“No, I mean insecure, egotistical, and terrified of losing control.”
Thomas gawked. “If you didn’t come here to get in my pants, then why are you here?”
“Because I wanted you to know that I forgive you.”
Thomas scoffed. “For what? I never asked for your forgiveness, and I didn’t do anything to need it.”
Of course Thomas would think that. Luckily for Sam it wasn’t about him.
“It’s about me… needing to release you. You’ve had a hold on me for too long.”
“So you do love me too! You are professing your love for me, right, Samantha?” For someone as intelligent as Thomas Cook was, he sure could be dumb.
“No, if you would just listen! I’ve been angry at you for a long time for your part in my dad’s death with your mis-prescribed Nosartin, and forged drug trials, and paid-off doctors, and attempts to ruin me. I fought as hard as I could to bring justice, but I could never win against you. I thought I could make you taste just a bite of the pain you put me through, but you’re right—you are untouchable.”
“You’re starting to get it…” he interrupted, before Sam placed a finger on his lips to shut him up.
“But not because you are rich or powerful. You can’t be touched because you have put up walls so high around you that no one wants to even try to break through them. Since I refuse to fight dirty like you, I forfeit. I forgive you so that I can be free of you and finally let my father rest in peace, because he never wanted my life to be this hard. So I’m doing this partly for me, but also for my dad.”
Thomas couldn’t think of a befitting retort. In fact, he couldn’t think anything for a long moment, possibly the longest he had ever been quiet. When he spoke, it was sincere, possibly the only time he had ever been genuine.
“I’m sorry about your father, Sam. It sounds like he was a good man. I know what it’s like to lose someone good…”
“My father wasn’t just good; he was the best. Full of compassion, and humor, and he treated me and my mother with every bit of love in his arrhythmic heart. He’s an example all men should strive to be more like.”
Thomas returned to his silence, then nodded. “I never had a father like yours. Mine was unloving and greedy and distant, and now I’m starting to see maybe I’m more like him than I thought.”
“You don’t have to be.” Then Sam suggested something that would blow Thomas’s mind, more than any medical discovery ever could. “You could be one of the good ones. Heck, maybe even one of the best ones.”
Another beat of silence later, Thomas finally whispered, “I need to make amends. It was the one thing I wish my father would have done with me before he died. I always wanted to be different from my own scheming, money-grubbing family, but like father, like son. I turned out just like him. I need to stop this cycle… starting with you.”
No one intimately knew the dreadful way Thomas Cook’s own father had abandoned his family after relocating to Pittsburgh to escape the bad press—and multiple lawsuits—that he had left behind in Boston. Or the way he drove his wife to take her own life. As a child, all Thomas wanted was an apology, but instead he got a goodbye. Which turned into the obituary of a man he hardly knew or cared for.
“I want to settle,” Thomas declared. “Out of court. I’ll take Nosartin and DES off the market immediately and pay everyone who was hurt by the side effects. You’ll need to hire a trustworthy lawyer to draw up the settlement, though. Someone not on my payroll.”
