Vince could only blame himself.
He wasn't sure who else to blame, honestly.
Perhaps Stephanie. She knew how important his business was to him. How separate he liked to keep it from his personal life. They were just playing roles, at the arenas, she knew that. And then you went home and were your real self. You didn't cross the two.
So how was it that she crossed the most important of all? Her actual role on the show and her personal life?
It made him sick to think about.
Perhaps, however, he shouldn't think of her as the one that had done wrong. Clearly his poor, innocent daughter had been bamboozled by one of his own wrestlers. And wasn't that the bigger betrayal? Not that his daughter would defile his place of work, but that his business would defile his-
Ugh. It made him sick to think about.
Vince had never thought that Paul was a bad guy. Not at all. He could be a tad abrasive at times and came off as a bit disrespectful, but it was part of the entire persona, Vince was sure. And he didn't poach guys that would lick his boots; he went and got men who were really to push things to the edge, keep character at all times, and work hard at what they did, from the gym to the ring.
And in other situations, that was the exact type of guy that Vince would want for his daughter. Like, per se, the man ran his own business. Was in law school. Any other sort of athlete under the sun. Hell, even if he flipped burgers, so long as he was committed to improvement, Vince would have been fine with it.
But a wrestler? One of his top wrestlers?
It just made his blood boil.
Where did Paul get off, huh? Thinking that it was alright? That it was okay? That his daughter was someone he was allowed to…
There was a whole roster of divas that he could make his way through. He even had a head start! Why did his daughter need to be his next conquest? Hmmm? Was there no honor? None at all? Vince didn't think that it needed to be stated, but most people knew, no matter what their professions, it just wasn't kosher, or even close to being so, to sleep with their boss' daughter. In no way at all.
And then to try and continue a relationship with her?
Clearly, Paul was the culpable one in all of it.
He knew that Steph was off limits. It didn't need to be stated. And even if she wasn't, if for some reason Vince wouldn't get all pissy about it, the man had no business dividing the locker room as he had from that point forth. It was one thing to sleep with more than one diva (or superstar, in the divas case), but to have a serious relationship with two of them clearly spelled trouble. And for one to be the boss' daughter only heightened the drama.
It was a mess. Just a massive, needlessly created mess. And all because Paul couldn't keep it in his damn pants.
There was no quick fix to it all. Vince knew that. Even just flat out telling Paul and Steph to knock it off (ha) wasn't going to ease the tensions. If anything, Paul had just made things even harder on himself. From accusations of attempting to sleep his way to the top (of a ladder, he frequently would point out, he more or less had already ascended, given that it was his character's name added in the current era, fucking Steph or not), causing dissension between the divas, and pissing his boss the fuck off, the man had won himself no battle.
Especially when, after Vince told him flat out that he could either stop dating his daughter or he could get the hell out, the man heard rumors once more that his daughter still very much so was seeing the man.
He about hit the roof.
No, he about threw Paul off a damn roof.
Vince was livid. Completely and utterly.
It didn't help matters that Paul, for some reason, felt self-righteous about the whole thing. As if it was just a perfectly acceptable thing to date your boss' daughter. As if there were no moral questions that you had to ask yourself when you were such an ass that you would stab in the back a man who gave you a chance, took you in, saved you from the complete and utter wreck that (Vince felt, at least) was WCW, who even gave you the biggest amount of screen time, let you pretend to best him at a damn Pay-Per-View. As if it didn't make you a complete and utter douche to turn around and sleep with the daughter of a man that did all of that for you.
As if.
He almost got slugged, Paul did, when he flat out told Vince in his office one day, after the man had called him in there to, once more, tell him that he knew he was still sneaking around with Stephanie and that if he didn't cool his jets, he'd be fired, that he didn't give a damn. That's what Paul told him. He didn't care. Because as it stood, Vince needed him more than Paul needed him. There were tons of other places for him to go to.
Tons.
And if he thought even for a second that he was going to scare him out of being with Stephanie, he was a damned fool.
Shane happening to be in the room and laying that rather tight grip over his father's arm was probably the only thing that kept Vince from breaking (or at least attempting to) Paul's nose.
He told him to get out. Get the hell out. Right that second. Get the fuck out and never come back. He never wanted to see his ass in one of his arenas again. ECW could have him for all that Vince cared. He could never make it out of one of the lesser known circuits again. Hell, Vince would see to it that he didn't!
And he meant it.
For, you know, that day.
Because the next, he'd have been super pissed if Paul didn't show up for the creatives meeting. Beyond pissed.
It wasn't so much that Vince ever conceded his displeasure with what Paul and Steph were doing. Not at all. It was just… His threats couldn't very well be carried out, considering Triple H was kind of one of the main story lines at the moment, mostly the wrestler's relationship with Steph, so firing the man over something like that would completely destroy kayfabe (though, honestly, that had been dead to nearly everyone other than Vince since the mid 90s, if not before) if it got out which he was pretty sure, should he fire the man, Paul was content with letting everyone know.
He was backed into a corner. Beaten. By his own daughter. Just like on the show.
It was actually a bit disparaging when Vince thought of it that way.
Outside of the business, he didn't want to see Steph anymore. And he never wanted to be around Paul. He hated every single time they had to interact. And damn it did they, because Vince was not letting go of the storyline, regardless of what happened backstage. He'd put up with worse, after all.
It just took a lot of tongue biting.
His wife told him that their best course of action was to just wait it out. The relationship would fizzle, Linda said, like most things. And on the off chance that Steph wasn't just interested in Paul (though she seemed to be quite infatuated) and, rather, was getting off on the fact that it was getting under her father's skin, the best thing that he could do to alleviate the situation was to separate himself from it. Don't give the satisfaction of seeing him all riled up by it.
That was just his only option.
So he tried to take it. Tried very hard. Gritted his teeth when he'd catch a glimpse of Paul and Steph together, after a show, or learning from others that she'd spent her days away from work less at her own apartment and more at Paul's. Listened to Shane when he told him it wasn't his business that Steph, for some reason, didn't have a hotel room booked in whatever town they were in, but oh, Paul most certainly did.
There was nothing he could do. So why worry about it?
Because it was his daughter. And his business. And they were playing games with him, he just knew they were, and causing him added stress that he just didn't need and damn it! Why, oh, why, had he allowed Stephanie to participate in the damn show? Why? Huh?
Simply, because it was his fault. All of it. He kept trying to lay the blame on Steph or on Paul or on anyone and everyone other than him, but it was him that forced them together. That told Steph, quite blatantly when the bit first started, that she and Paul should have some chemistry out there. Be believable. She'd done well with Test, but he was planning on her scenes with Paul to carry over for quite some time. She needed to commit to her role. And he was a bit of an ass, Vince had went on, Paul could be, so she should try and become his friend. Find things they had in common.
And, ugh, Vince had practically gifted his daughter to the man, hadn't he?
Now, he would never feel good about one of his stars (or anyone for the matter) getting inured, but in the coming months, when Paul was out there and tore his quad, Vince couldn't say that there wasn't some hope from the fatherly side of him that it might change things.
Not the boss side. At all. Because that ruined a lot of plot points and, though it would turn out alright, at the time, he was quite worried about the show.
Oh, and Paul too. Definitely Paul.
But, of course, his concern over his show won out.
Still though, in the back of his mind, Vince honestly thought that would be the end of the little love affair between his daughter and Paul. Obviously a big draw to their relationship had been that they were able to hang out nearly constantly, given how much they worked together. With that gone, however, a huge chunk would be missing from what Vince was sure his daughter was misconstruing as a fairytale in the making. The exact chunk, in fact, that needed to be there for that fairytale to exist.
It was only a matter of time, Vince was certain, until Steph was finished with Paul and, hopefully, wouldn't just jump onto the next superstar in the waiting. And, even if she did, apparently all Vince would need to do was put him out of commission for a bit.
Ha.
Until, you know, their relationship didn't crumble the way that Vince had been hoping. Rather, if anything, it strengthened it.
Sickening. The whole thing was just sickening.
Stephanie, for some reason, saw Paul less as a guy that wasn't around any longer, but rather as a poor injured man that needed her to nurse him back to health. And Vince couldn't even be mad at her because, one, that was what a significant other should do and, for two, it wasn't interfering with her work. At all. She would get what she needed done on the show before heading out to practically go live with Paul at his apartment, where he was healing up.
Living with him. She was living with him. Vince didn't care what they said or what they called it. It was what it was. She had an apartment, fine, and was paying for it, but wasn't going there. Most of her things were at that man's apartment, she was staying there every chance she got, and it seemed as if she never happened to be at her own apartment when Vince would call upon her (because yes, fine, he'd broke first; she was still with Paul, but he was talking to her again; it wasn't as if he could possibly cut his baby off forever); if that didn't spell living together, Vince didn't know what did.
About that time, both Shane and Linda both suggested to Vince that maybe, just maybe, Steph and Paul did want to be together. And planned to be. It didn't mean it would be forever or that they were destined to be together, but they did appear to enjoy spending time together and, hey, slowly but surely all the drama behind it had blown over.
Maybe it was time for Vince to just let it all go. Give up. Throw in the towel.
Paul wasn't going anywhere any time soon and neither were Steph's feelings for him.
Linda had already begun for the past few months to force them all together, inviting Paul over for rather tense dinners in which he wouldn't speak to his boss at all, as well as any other family gathers though, unless Steph made him go, the man typically found an excuse to avoid those times. With his injury, however, there was little for Paul to find to do other than agree to come and Steph was definitely making a big push for it.
It was like the old saying went; you don't bite the hand that feeds you. Or, in his situation, the one that keeps you company, does all of your shopping, cooked your meals, and, of course, slept with you.
Which was to say, he was practically forced to do whatever Steph asked.
Not that he ever put up much of a fight anyhow. As much as he tried to play the whole thing off as her being obsessed with him and him using it to his advantage, Paul was actually quite smitten with the woman as well. After all, he wouldn't have put his entire career on the line if he wasn't.
There was something to it too, for Vince, during that time period that really changed things. More than just him running out of options and being forced into accepting what was going on. On those occasions when Paul would show up at the McMahon mansion, it was the way that his daughter and the man behaved around one another that really changed things.
Vince had always avoided them. Avoided seeing them together. And when he did have to be around the two of them when they were together, he would frequently be so peeved about just being in the proximity of them that anything the two did came off as a vexation. Less of a show of love between the two and more an act of utter insurrection to his control over WWF and Stephanie in general. It was only once he truly let go, honestly just told them both fine, be together, see if he gave a damn, that he started to see just how sweetly they truly did treat one another.
Steph was utterly enamored with him. Every time the man spoke her eyes would immediately drift over to him, even if he wasn't speaking to her or on anything that would interest her she would give him these...looks that…
Vince loved his wife. He truly did. But damn, he'd never felt that way about her. Whatever hold it was that Paul had over his daughter, it was something the man had never seen before. It wasn't even so much that she did all of his bidding (although she seemed to) or that she was in any way subservient towards him, because Vince had more than once heard the calls between his daughter and wife about how she'd had to snap at poor Paul for requesting too much of her or that his attitude was beginning to take it's toll on her which, of course, again, got him a rather harsh verbal undressing.
Steph could be, honestly, rather mean when she wanted to be. There was once when they were doing one of those stupid family dinner things that Linda loved so much and Vince was mostly listening to Marissa, his daughter-in-law, go on and on about something or other as they sat in the kitchen, when suddenly, from the living room, Steph and Paul started up with their bickering.
They didn't fight very often, in front of her family, though that probably had much to do with how Stephanie was trying to show what a great couple they were. Vince could only remember once when they had before and it was just something silly that got resolved quickly.
Not that day, however.
Paul hadn't been in a very good mood. It was rather obvious to everyone that Steph had forced him to come. His rehab hadn't been going great that week and he felt like shit, so the last thing he wanted to do was spend time with her family who, for the record, didn't like him. And weren't going to like him more if he went. So why then was Stephanie forcing him to go?
Because she said so.
That was her answer to a lot of things, actually.
So there he was, in a foul mood, with people who didn't like him, and a girlfriend who was overly annoying that day. Or at least he felt like she was being overly annoying. It wasn't like there was any one thing that she did though, that he could attribute the annoyance he felt towards her to, but just her overall actions.
He probably snapped at Steph or something, Vince figured, from the kitchen, where he and Marissa both sat with wide eyes, not sure what to do. Paul was a rather low key kind of guy so, whatever it was that he said to Steph that set her off, wasn't repeated. As she went on and on about all she'd done for him and that he could take his bad attitude and get out if he was going to act like that, Paul only stayed silent. Didn't argue back with her. Just sat there and took it.
Vince wasn't in there, but Shane, who found the whole thing rather hilarious later, told him all about it. The way that Paul turned rather red and sat there on the couch, silently, until Steph finished griping at him and then muttered out an apology and didn't speak another word. Whatever it was that he'd snapped at her about was long forgotten (or at the very least not going to be brought up again).
It made Vince feel a little better, at least, knowing that Paul wasn't completely dominating Steph in every thing they did. She, at the very least, wasn't so infatuated with the man that she completely forgot who she was. She just...sometimes let it go for a bit. That was all.
And, as much as he hated to admit it, Paul wasn't that bad for Steph either. Vince didn't worry about her as much, at the very least, when she was out in some random town that Smachdown was being held in with him around (after returning from his injury, that is), not with big, hulking, muscular and downright intimidating Paul around. No freaking way. And she seemed rather committed to him, so the fear of her being...promiscuous, what with the frequent travels of a member of WWF was kind of quelled a bit.
Paul was just good for Stephanie in general too. She was rather dramatic in many ways while his still waters run deep persona could calm her down a lot. He was more mature than her and serious in ways that she wasn't. For a woman that one day could inherit a billion dollar company, Stephanie was rather...silly. Childish.
Which was good for a higher up in the wrestling business. To have that sort of mind. You either had to be deranged like Vince was or goofy like Stephanie.
But it felt better for Vince, knowing that there was someone around with a more level head. That could take care of her. Protect her. Make sure that no one was taking advantage of her.
Because, other than the fact that he had completely and utterly stabbed him in the back, Vince had to admit, Paul was a rather nice guy to have one's daughter around.
"You've turned," Linda accused jokingly when he explained this to her one night after they'd had had both their kids over with their partners.
"No," Vince complained. "I haven't. I've just… If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And so far, there's no reason not to be on Paul's team. Especially if it's the winning one."
"Plus you're planning on cashing in pretty soon, on Triple H's return."
That got a glare. "Are you saying that I'm selling my daughter now for some cash? I could make a thousand wrestlers just like him!"
"No," his wife said slowly. "I'm saying that you've lost and now that you've had to cut your losses, you've found that you rather like them."
Well, he couldn't argue with that. If Stephanie was happy and Paul was happy, why shouldn't Vince benefit? More or less secure a top superstar and keep his daughter with a guy that he practically had in his back pocket?
Honestly, how had he not seen the benefits before?
It almost made him laugh, when he heard how Paul had played the McMahons, invaded their empire and was slowly starting his takeover. If anything, Vince was had been the one to come out on top.
Or at the very least, that's what he told himself. How he swayed things. He was able to do that in most situations, no matter how horrible they were. Even during that period when WCW seemed as if it would eclipse his empire completely, Vince had never once broken a sweat over it.
Because he's a McMahon! And they always win.
Even if, honestly, he...kinda...sorta...was the one to blame for his daughter ending up with Paul.
Blame, however, was for the poor. And not five years after Steph and Paul started dating, when things started looking up for them, Vince turned it, rather, into him taking the credit. He'd been the one that signed off on their on-screen relationship that led to their flourishing real life one.
Obviously he deserved some credit for that.
Obviously.