by Penny Wylder
He’s right. It’s the way it’s always been down here in the south. You are where you are. Your life is where you live and you don’t travel unless you have to. It’s why I knew that I could escape without moving across the country. “Fair point.”
Bruce slides me a beer and offers me a cheer. “But you’re back now. For good, I hope?”
“That’s the plan,” I say. “I missed your ugly face too much to stay away forever. How are things going?” Bruce has been so busy it’s been a while since we’ve really talked. That’s something that I’m hoping to change now that I’m back.
“Things are amazing,” he says. “Brought Nicola on to be my new flavor creator, and business has never been better. Would have done it as soon as she graduated from culinary school if I realized what a genius for flavor she was. She’s going to be twenty-two in a couple days. Shit.” He takes a sip of his beer. “When did that happen? And you better be at that party. You know she and her mother won’t forgive you if you’re not.”
“I’ll be there,” I say. As for his statement, I know when it happened. While I was watching from afar and losing too much time. She grew into a woman even more beautiful than the one that told me how much she wanted me.
Bruce owns an ice cream company that’s considered the best in the region. And I’ve noticed in the past year they’ve been putting out new flavors like crazy, and they get a lot of press because the flavors are completely unique and addictive. I’ve tried all of them.
I’m not at all surprised that Nicola is the brains behind it. She’s always had a gift for food, and based on the passion with which she spoke about culinary school, I always knew that she would be successful. “That’s good to hear,” I tell Bruce.
“I thought the reason you might have called me so soon after getting into town for drinks was to ask me for a job,” he laughs.
It wasn’t the only reason. I was hoping that maybe we could broach the subject more naturally than this, though. Just something to help me get started in Leighton City again. But before I can explain myself, Bruce laughs and claps me on the shoulder again. “And you don’t even have to ask. I’ve got something for you. In fact, you’re pretty much the perfect person for the job.”
I almost choke on my beer. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. You’ve always been able to sell anything to anyone, and my head of marketing just went to my main competitor.” He rolls his eyes. “Nicola is coming up with these flavors faster than I can keep up with, and I need to expand our distribution in order to keep up. I’m thinking of doing regional lines and limited edition runs. And I think you might be the guy for the job. Plus, Nicola will be able to help you get settled in, so you won’t be thrown in with complete strangers. It’s perfect.”
It is perfect, but not for the reason that Bruce thinks it is. He’s unwittingly handed me absolutely everything that I want. And yeah, that job seems totally up my alley. Marketing is my field, and with a product like ice cream, there’s almost an infinite number of things that you can do. Plus, they’re all fun. “Jesus, Bruce,” I say. “Thank you.”
He waves a hand. “Don’t even mention it. Show up at the place tomorrow and we’ll get things squared away. Now tell me what the hell you’ve been doing and why I shouldn’t call the guys to kick your ass for disappearing on us for no reason?”
I put on a smile and laugh. “I had my reasons, Bruce.”
“Sure you did.” He rolls his eyes. “Start at the beginning, please.”
Taking a deep breath, I put the instinct that only wants to think of Nicola aside. That can come later. Instead I focus on telling Bruce what I can, without telling him too much.
The Wife Arrangement
Chapter One
Jasper
60 miles per hour.
70.
80.
85.
I floor the gas pedal, a wild grin on my face as I careen toward the corner of the track.
“Jasper…” warns a voice in my ear.
“I’ve got this,” I murmur, in response to my usual test track monitor, safely above in a booth, watching me and this brand new gem of a car speed around the test track.
“We haven’t tested the tires on curves yet. Slow down to a more reasonable—”
I reach up and tap the headset attached to the crash helmet. The voice fades away. My smile widens.
The turn approaches. I swing the wheel hard. I feel the tires skid under the car, and for a pulse-stopping, heart-in-my-throat instant, I worry if the voice in my helmet was right. If I’ve taken the curve too fast, put too much stress on this new model, a car that hasn’t even been unveiled to the public yet, let alone tested by the scientists and engineers who oversee the production of all new car regulations in the country.
If the car skids, flips, this could be it…
But then I feel the rubber screech, catch purchase again, and I rev the engine, accelerating with the turn instead of against it, so the car flows around the sharp turn of the track smooth as a knife through butter.
Safely onto the straightaway once more, I let out a loud whoop and gun it. I watch the speedometer leap up to 100, 120, 140… Higher. Faster.
I love this. I love getting to drive cars like this, and really put them through their paces. Drive them the way they’re built to be driven—with abandon, and without road laws getting in the way. Germany has it right, I think briefly. If only the United States had its own autobahn. One road, one spot where people could let loose.
But, of course, that’s a pipe dream for another time. For now, I’ll have to settle for this closed test track, and the chance to pacify my inner speed demon from time to time—and earn a paycheck for it, no less.
I reach the makeshift finish line, really just a little dugout where we modify and prep the cars for the track, and squint through the visor of my crash helmet at my assistant, Greg.
Greg’s enormous arms are crossed, his brow lowered in the thunderous expression he gets when he doesn’t approve of something I’ve been doing. Of course, I’m his boss, so Greg can’t really protest too much when I do things like this. But that doesn’t mean he can’t allow his disapproval to show on his face.
I skid to a halt outside the engineer shelter, and climb from the car while several test engineers flood the area, bending to take measurements of the axels, the tires, and one popping the hood to study how the engine held up, as another inspects the fuel gauges.
“How about that turning radius, huh?” I shout over the clank and clatter of tools and measuring devices. I sidestep a pair of engineers to reach Greg, and he removes his own earpiece.
“You shut off your radio,” complains Greg, the voice in my ear, who has now become the constant voice in the back of my head. My conscience, one might even say. He’s constantly watching me, overseeing things, warning me to slow down, take it easy, be more careful. I know my father puts him up to half of these disapproving glares and lectures, but even so, it can wear on a man. Especially when I know what I’m doing.
You might say I have a lot of practice ignoring the conscience in the back of my head. “Your talking was distracting me,” I say. “It was a finicky turn.”
“Because you were driving at least twenty miles per hour faster than we’d run the car even in simulations,” Greg mutters.
“And look how well it turned out!” I clap my assistant on the back. “Now we can all skip a few of the intermediate stress tests and put this model straight into pre-production status.”
Greg rolls his eyes. “It was still an unnecessary risk—”
“But you say that about every risk,” I point out, jamming a single finger into Greg’s bicep. It barely makes a dent.
I take after my father’s side of the family—all lean, slim, sculpted muscle. We’re built for running. Descended from the first marathon runners of ancient Greece, Dad always claims. Me, I mention that a fair amount too, albeit for different reasons. I blame those ancestors for my need for speed. “My speed dem
on was inherited,” I always say. “Nothing I can do about it.”
But Greg, he’s a distant cousin, part of my dad’s grandmother’s vast clan. The line Greg comes from isn’t built like marathoners so much as like walls.
Greg narrows his eyes at me.
I smirk and stride toward the main building. “Come on, worry wart. Lunch is on me to make up for your stress-induced high cholesterol levels.”
“I would love to take you up on that, Jasper, but you have a lunch appointment.” Greg flips open his tablet and squints down at the screen, scrolling through it with a finger.
“With who?” I frown. I don’t remember any new clients planning to stop in and check out the factory today, and it’s far too early in the production schedule for any fellow manufacturers to be poking around. Maybe early buyers? Wholesalers we invited to view the pre-public models…?
“Your father,” Greg replies, and my stomach sinks. In an instant, the happy mood I manage to whip myself into on the test track evaporates, like a bubble popping in midair.
Not that my old man and I don’t get along. Quite to the contrary. I work for him, I spend every day helping build the family business—testing our latest models of cars, suggesting improvements or modifications to the designs, marketing and selling them on the front end… I have a hand in every part of our company, and Dad’s been grooming me to take over for him since I was about sixteen years old. I love this job, love my life, and I love my dad too. There’s nothing I’d change about my life right now.
Well. Except for one tiny thing…
Dad’s current mood. Because even without seeing his face, I can already guess what he’s going to be on about today. The same thing he’s been on about for the last several years. The same thing he railed at me over when I broke up with Karen, a friend-with-benefits who lasted a grand total of a month. The same thing he freaked out about again when I stopped seeing Meghan. Then Brooke. Then… who was that girl with the horses?
I can’t even remember her name, truth be told.
What can I say? I’ve never been the dating type. Or the relationship type. Or the anything more than casual sex type. And who cares? Certainly not the girls I hook up with—I make it clear up front that things will only ever be casual between us, and none of them have complained. Well, except Stacey, who smashed the taillights of my car when I broke things off. But, well, you can see why I had to break off our casual arrangement, given her temper and possessive streak.
No, that one anomaly aside, nobody cares that I’m not the settling down type… Nobody except my father.
And with our family reunion looming on the horizon, an enormous affair he hosts every five years, he has grandbabies on the mind worse than ever. This reunion will be the biggest of all, because at this reunion, Dad’s announcing his retirement. His retirement and the appointment of the new company CEO. The future heir apparent to Quint Motors. Me.
But with all the reflecting Dad has been doing on the company’s history, it just makes him more sentimental than ever about what’s still missing in his life. Namely, grandchildren.
“I’m suddenly feeling really dizzy,” I tell Greg. “Think I’m coming down with something. Head cold, maybe? Flu? Isn’t it still flu season?”
Greg narrows his eyes at me. “Your father is already waiting out front in the Andromeda.”
Ah, the Andromeda. The first car our company, Quint Motors, ever released, way back in the 1970s when my dad was barely old enough to drive himself. He loves that thing. Not only because his father gifted it to him on his (way too young, if you ask me) wedding day. But also because it reminds him of family. If there’s one thing that’s more important to my father than our business, building cars, and putting the best product we can out into the market—it’s the family behind all that.
“Family is the most important thing in the world,” he’s always saying. “Even when you want to strangle them.” He usually adds that last line while he’s glaring at me over a cup of coffee, having just learned from Greg (who, for being my personal assistant, can definitely be a real narc when it comes to sharing my extracurricular activities with the old man) about one of my exploits or another.
What can I say? It’s my job to keep this family interesting.
I just wish it wasn’t my job to listen to hours-long lectures on how interesting I make it. “No chance of talking my way out of this, huh?” I sigh and square my shoulders. “All right. Time to face the music.”
“Bring a coat,” Greg shouts at my retreating spine. “It’s the Waldorf again.”
Dad’s favorite lunch spot. I’m halfway through the office when one of our other admins, an older man named Marco, waves a hand to flag my attention. “Jasper, thank goodness, I’ve been looking all over for you.” He holds out a file almost as thick as my arm. “We got the list of interns for the summer season. We need to start sorting them into departments…”
“Tell Greg to put something on my calendar,” I say, already snatching a suit coat from the back of my chair and shrugging it on as I walk toward the distant front entrance, and the driveway where I can already see Dad’s car idling. Tugging the jacket on over my work shirt at least gives the appearance that I dressed for the occasion.
So I think. Then I drop into the front seat, and find Dad eyeing my neck, nose scrunched up in disapproval.
“No tie?” he says. “And when was the last time you shaved?”
“This morning,” I reply. “Not my fault I inherited your ridiculously fast hair-growth genes.” Permanent five o’clock shadow, just one of the many markers of a Quint man. That, a tall but muscular frame, and our thick dark hair—mine and Dad’s look almost exactly the same, messy and wavy in front, with a shock falling across our eyes. Even though he’s pushing sixty now, his is still as dark and thick as ever. Pretty sure Quint men will still pass for young men in their mid-twenties from behind right up until we’re on our backs in coffins.
“Always blaming me.” Dad shakes his head, but I notice he peels out of the driveway just as fast as always, and cuts corners the whole way to the Waldorf, speeding through every yellow light along the route.
My speed demon genes didn’t pop out of thin air either, much as he never cares to admit where I got it.
We skid into the Waldorf parking lot, and Dad barely glances at the valet as he tosses his keys over his shoulder for the man to catch. I stride after him through the broad double doors, past the hotel lobby, and back into the dining room, where we’ve got our usual booth.
He’s in a mood today. I can tell by the way he starts in before we’ve even had a chance to sit down, let alone give the menus a once-over. “The reunion is in one month, Jasper.”
“Yes, I know. It would be impossible not to—it’s all you’ve been talking about for the last six months.” I shoot the waiter who’s appeared at our table an apologetic glance, then wave him off to come back later.
“The reunion is in one month,” Dad plows on as though I haven’t even spoken, “and I’m planning to announce the company’s future. My own retirement. My successor. But that’s not what I’m really looking forward to. Do you know what I’m looking forward to most?”
Here we go. “What, Dad?” is all I say.
“The family. We’ll get to see your cousin Sofia—you know she’s pregnant again. That’ll make five for her and her husband. And your cousin Alexander and his three little boys. Chloe and the twins; Luke and his newborn; and did I tell you Jason is married? I hear he and his wife are trying for a baby now, God bless them. I hope they don’t have the same trouble your mother and I did.”
“Dad…” Thankfully, the waiter returns to spare me for the time being. I order a glass of water, but don’t decide on any food for the time being. My stomach is already tensing up just listening to this.
Dad takes time to order his usual—steak, medium rare, a side salad and mashed potatoes, heavy on the gravy. He thinks it’s healthier than French fries. Who am I to deny the old man one of h
is few vices in life?
Mom would be throwing a fit if she knew. She’s always on about his cholesterol levels and the bad hearts that run in his side of the enormous family he’s just been listing off.
The pause for food ordering only spares me for so long. Then Dad lays down his menu and crosses his hands on the table once more. “Your Aunt Zoe is a grandmother how many times over now? Fifteen? Aunt Alyssa has Chloe’s little twins to keep her busy. Uncle Xavier spoils Sofia’s tribe rotten.”
“Dad—”
“Everyone’s family lines are carrying on except mine. Mine has stalled out like a bad clutch on a car destined for the junk yard.”
I grimace. “Look, I’m not like my cousins, okay?”
“You mean you aren’t a family man. More of a philandering man.”
“Philandering implies it’s not totally consensual on both sides.” I roll my eyes. “And I never said I’m against starting a family—“
“Well clock’s ticking, son, and you aren’t getting any younger. Neither are your mother and I, for that matter.”
“But I’m not going to throw myself into some crappy marriage with a wife I’m not that into just to satisfy you. Or anyone else, for that matter. It’s my life, Dad.”
“Your spoiled, easy life. Yes.” Dad heaves a sigh. “Your mother is right. She tells me I spoiled you too much. Gave you too much. We were both so happy to have you, Jasper, after all that time and all that money and all that heartache spent trying. You have no idea what it was like. To watch my brother and sisters having children, yet be unable to conceive a child of my own. And your mother, her heartbreak every time we failed, I cannot even describe…”
And yet you continually try, I think. After all, he’s told me this story—the saga of he and Mom trying to conceive me—about a hundred times. “Dad, I appreciate that you and Mom stuck with it. Honestly. But that’s the thing—you had Mom. You were married. You knew you wanted a family with her. I’m…”
“Enjoying sleeping around too much to ever get serious about one woman or choose a wife? Yes, I’ve noticed.” Dad glares at me over the top of his glass of water. “This is a family business, son. My grandfather founded Quint Motors, and then he passed the company on to my father before me. I’d planned to pass it on to you, son, after I go, so that one day, in the future, you can pass it on to your son or daughter next. But it’s looking more and more like there won’t be anyone for you to hand this company down to when the time comes.”
