by L.J. Shen
Trent tipped his head down to meet my father’s eyes, whispering darkly, “I would fight you to death over anything, Jordan, including the service provider for the coffee machine, if need be.”
Bad blood. This place was like poison to the soul. Luckily, it looked like Rexroth hated me, and the HotHoles always had each other’s backs. That was the legend in All Saints High, and I very much doubted they’d break their tradition for little ol’ moi.
“Fine,” Jordan bit out. “We’ll take it to the boardroom.”
Trent’s gaze cut to mine and stopped when his grays met my blues. The fading noise of Vicious barking at people to move along, and my father finally letting go of my arm to move toward Jaime and Dean—probably trying to gain both allies and sympathy—died down.
“I don’t like you,” Rexroth whispered under his breath, his voice harsh.
“I never asked you to.” I shrugged.
“You won’t be working here.” His arm brushed my shoulder, but I didn’t think it was by accident. I let loose a sugary smile, scanning his face and torso for no other reason other than to taunt him. “Good, you’ll be doing me a favor. My father is the one forcing me to work here. He’s pissed I turned down five Ivy League colleges. Remind me, Mr. Rexroth—which top tier university did you attend for your degree?”
The low blow was supposed to retrieve some of my lost dignity, but bile burned my throat, shotgunned from my stomach. Trent Rexroth was known in Todos Santos as an exhilarating success story, rising from the gutters of San Diego. He went to a shitty state college that accepted even the illiterate, working as a janitor on campus after hours. Those were given facts he’d recited himself in an interview for Forbes.
Had I really just tried to make him feel less worthy because he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth? It made me sicker than wearing my mother’s designer garbs.
Trent smiled, leaning into my body, into my soul. His smirk was more frightening than any scowl, frown, or grimace I’d ever seen. It threatened to tear me apart and sew me back together however he pleased.
“Edie.” His lips were dangerously close to my ear. A delicious shiver moved down my spine. Something warm rolled inside of me, begging to unknot and flower into an orgasm. What was happening, and why the hell was it happening? “If you know what’s best for you, you will turn around and leave right now.”
I elevated my head to meet his gaze and showed him my version of a grin. I was born and raised in a world of intimidating rich men, and I’d be damned if I go down like my mother—addicted to xanax, Gucci, and a man who paraded her on his arm for a short, glorious decade before keeping her solely for public appearances.
“I think I’m going to go find my desk now. I’d wish you a good day, Mr. Rexroth, but I think that ship has sailed. You’re a miserable man. Oh, and one for the road.” I fished for a Nature Valley bar in my mother’s purse and plastered it to his hard, muscled chest. My heart slammed into my neck, fluttering like a caged bird.
I hurried after my father as he glided down the vast, golden-hued hallway, not daring to look back. Knowing I’d started a war and arrived unequipped. But I also knew something else that gave me a surfer’s rush—if I could slam the final nail in my employment coffin and make Rexroth vote against me, I’d be off the hook.
I had just the plan for it. All I had to do was act like a brat. Game on.
I ATE LUNCH BY MYSELF.
Growing up as an only child because my parents couldn’t afford to give me siblings (a decision I respected) meant that dinners weren’t a noisy event. Still, that did not make them silent.
I met true loneliness the day Luna stopped speaking. It happened days after her second birthday, and deflated my already shaky confidence regarding parenthood. Up until then, being a single parent was hard—but not impossible. I had the money and resources to hire the best nannies on the planet, my parents to rely on when I needed to get out of town, and my friends and their wives, who were always accommodating and treated Luna as their own. Bonus points—I was so used to being dealt every crappy card life had to offer, I was barely surprised when Val bailed out on our asses.
I’d been robbed my whole life.
Robbed of my football scholarship when a douche named Toby Rowland greased the floor under my locker, causing me to fall and break my ankle.
Robbed out of my freedom when Val broke the news about her pregnancy, though that was on me just as much as it was on her.
And, finally, robbed out of a happy child when Val fucked off and left Luna with me.
But this? This was the last straw. The silence. It ate me from the inside and my normal, quiet self turned into a raging asshole of massive proportions who just needed a good excuse to unleash my wrath.
I was quiet and resentful and a fucking mess—because of my daughter.
After lunch, I walked into my office on the fifteenth, ready to tackle my mile-long to-do list, freezing on the spot when I spotted Edie Van Der Zee waiting on the other side of my desk.
Sitting in my chair.
Legs on top of my closed laptop.
Heels pointing at me teasingly.
Arms crossed over her chest.
Venus in a dress. Smart ass. In need of fucking saving.
Not today, sweetheart. I’ve already got one girl to save and she is keeping me hella busy.
I threw my briefcase on my desk, loosening my tie. “You have three seconds to take your feet off of my laptop.” Before I spread them wide and eat you out for the whole fucking floor to hear, I refrained from adding.
“I don’t believe you.” Her eyes clung to my face like they were trying to peel away a persistent layer of a façade to get to a truth. “Last time you counted down the seconds, nothing happened. I may be a thief, but you, Mr. Rexroth, are a liar.”
Last time I’d let her off the hook because I’d needed to get home. I’d caught a quick lunch with my mother while my dad had watched Luna. Right now I had all the time in the world. Furthermore—I was her new boss until tomorrow morning, and she was begging to be disciplined.
I stepped over to the desk, grabbed her slim ankle, slid the heel off, and snapped the red Louboutin shoe, tearing the sexy heel from the beige footwear. Her eyes darted to me in horror. I pocketed the heel like it was sexy underwear, and nonchalantly slipped Cinderella’s shoe back in place.
“Balance,” my voice was grave, and so was I—she needed this lesson—“is everything in life. I try not to be a dick unless absolutely necessary, but I got a feeling you’re here to test boundaries, aren’t you, kid?”
Her cool evaporated like thin smoke, replaced with hot despair. She shot up from my seat and rounded the desk, hyperaware of her broken heel. Her hands were balled into fists.
“What. The. Hell!” Edie’s eyes were dancing in their sockets. Her rage was pouring out in buckets and I wanted to gargle on her sweet fucking wrath, drinking from her well of sorrow. “What’s your problem with me?”
“I don’t have a problem with you. You’re not even on my fucking radar. I walked into my office and found you here, all over my desk like a rash.” I dumped my loosened tie onto my desk, rolling my uncuffed sleeves up to my elbows.
“Well, I came here to tell you that I don’t want this job.”
“Good. Because you don’t deserve it,” I shot.
“In that case, I’d appreciate you telling me you’ll vote against me. I mean, I know you will, but hearing it from you would make me feel a lot better.”
“I’m not here to make you feel better. What’s so bad about working at Fiscal Heights Holdings, anyway?” I had no reason to humor her, but she was still standing there, for a reason beyond my grasp, so I thought I’d throw her a bone. She scrunched her nose, something I’d seen her do before.
“I can’t work here. I have things to do. Plans…different plans for my future. So, can you just tell the others to vote against me, too?”
“Do I look like I’d take orders from you?” I blinked slowly, onl
y slightly amused by her brazen approach.
“Please.” Her voice was steady, her eyes afire on mine.
“Don’t,” I grunted, holding one hand in the air to stop her. I leaned a hip against my desk. “Never beg, Edie. Now, go make me a coffee.”
She threw her head back and laughed. Rather hysterically, I noted. Teenage girls were typically full of emotions and bullshit, and I had to come to terms with that because Luna was going to hit puberty in less than ten years. Great.
“I’m not making you shit.”
“I didn’t ask for shit. I asked for coffee.”
“I’m not your PA.”
“True. You’re lower than that. You’re the office bitch,” I retorted calmly, watching as Edie’s eyes followed the veins on my forearms like her life depended on it. I’d chuckle if it didn’t make me feel like a perv.
“I’m the what?” she mouthed.
I nodded. “General Assistant. That’s your title. Your father just sent the contract to HR and CC’ed all of us ahead of the board meeting tomorrow. GA is just diplomatic wording for an office bitch. I can ask you for anything within reason. So I’m asking you for coffee. No sugar. Black.”
If nothing else, I was a fucking asshole for loving the look on her face. Like she’d been broken—but just for now. Just for this moment. Just for me. Realization washed over her, making her straighten her spine and slant her chin up.
She was going to do it. Take my orders, make my coffee, burn my time, and be a welcomed distraction.
A maelstrom of emotions swam in Edie’s eyes. If they could speak, they would scream. But they couldn’t. So all I saw was an extremely irritated girl who’d recently grown a new pair of tits and had just discovered life was not a picnic.
“Chop, chop.” I clapped my hands twice.
I wasn’t the nicest person in the world. I liked to think I was good enough to at least warn her to take her shoes off before she walked away. But before I had a chance, Edie turned around and stormed toward the door, falling flat on her ass.
The only solace in her unfortunate scenario, as I leaned against my desk, watching her pull herself up on unsteady feet, was that I didn’t laugh.
Then again, I didn’t spare her the humiliation because I liked her. I hadn’t moved to help her up for a different reason.
I was hard as a stone, and moving would have given that away.
“You failed your first lesson at balance. Big surprise.”
“You’re failing at life, Rexroth!” She galloped out of my office, her face red with humiliation.
I rearranged my package as soon as she left and shot a text message to Sonya.
Edie Van Der Zee had started to feel like an itch. Luckily, I was going to scratch her out of my life first thing tomorrow morning.
And then the morning arrived. It was the kind that reminded me why I fucking hated talking to people. One where everything was chaotic, everybody was loud, and everyone was on my ass, firing questions, begging for attention, and asking for shit.
“Mr. Rexroth, you have the Duran-Dexter file on your desk. Can you sign it for me?”
“Trent, you have a conference call at three.”
“Can you go to a charity event in Palo Alto next week? Someone needs to, and Jaime is too busy with Mel and the new baby.”
“Trent—why is Luna here?”
“Rexroth—are we still on for drinks on Saturday?”
“Rexroth.”
“Hey, T-Rex!”
“Trent, darling…”
I came to a stop in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the throng of colleagues, and squatted down to Luna’s eye-level, my voice rusty from lack of talking. She was clutching Camila’s hand, a faraway look in her eyes. Dragging her into the office with me every Tuesday was a terrible idea, but Sonya seemed hell-bent on it and I wasn’t the fucking expert.
“How about tacos for lunch?” I brushed my thumb on her cheek and handed Camila some cash. “Take Luna to pick up some bagels and meet me in my office.”
“Why? Where are you going now?” Camila’s thick, Spanish accent made a cameo, which meant she wasn’t pleased with me.
I’m going to get an eighteen-year-old kid fired because I’m too selfish to trust myself not to fuck her raw in her father’s office if she gets anywhere near me.
“Board meeting. Should be quick. Just voting on something and then I’ll be out.” I patted Luna’s head and pressed a kiss to her forehead before rising up and gently squeezing Camila’s shoulder.
Turning on my heel toward my office, I saw Jordan Van Der Zee appearing from the sliding residential glass elevator doors, his daughter shadowing his steps. He was holding her like she was a convicted criminal again, and I tried not to lose my shit over it—again. Today, Edie was wearing a navy sailor dress a size larger than her tiny frame. At knee-length, it was conservative, but still highlighted her killer calves. A little gymnast that could bend to a man’s every need.
Whoa. Backtrack this shit, fast, Sir Perv-a-Lot.
She seemed to be a completely different person around her father. Away from him, she was confident, feisty, and a fucking headache. But now? Her eyes were on the floor, and her two nose rings were the only faint glimmer of her black, rebellious heart.
Badass, my ass.
Jordan nodded me a hello, and I returned the gesture. We met at the custom designed gold doors leading to the boardroom. I saw my three friends behind the fishbowl walls, hunched over the long, bronze table, discussing something among themselves.
“Reconsider.” Jordan smoothed his Armani tie. A statement, not a request. Not a fucking chance. I didn’t trust this man with a plastic spoon, let alone my company. In the six months since we’d been in business together, he’d killed four out of the five big deals I’d brought to Fiscal Heights Holdings. He’d slacked off on all of my big accounts—purposely—and blatantly tried to designate the greenest, least-experienced brokers for my clients. A week into our work together, I’d had my first unfortunate encounter with him. I’d overheard him talking on the phone on my way out from the office.
“No, not Rexroth. Let’s send someone else to try to save the Drescher and Ferstein account,” he’d said. An account I’d brought in, thank-you-very-fucking-much. I waited, loitering behind his office door like a General Hospital character and hating it. “He’s too…you know what. Too hood. Too angry. Not very talkative. I don’t want him anywhere near this account. Ask Dean to talk to them. He’s the kind of pretty boy charmer their CEO, Helena, would appreciate.”
And that was it. That’s when I knew Jordan Van Der Zee wasn’t only a racist, but that he wanted to push me out of the company. He had another thing coming, and it was going to boomerang straight into his face.
Vicious, Dean, and Jaime were already halfway out the corporate door, showing up to work three or four times a week and spending most of their time with their families. But me, I only had Luna. Though to be completely honest, even she seemed to prefer spending time with the nanny.
“This is where you part ways with Daughter Dearest.” I tugged at my collar, because Edie motherfucking Van Der Zee made the temperature in the room rise by at least ten degrees.
“Gladly.” She plucked her phone from her purse and walked away.
Jordan entered the conference room, and I snapped my fingers, smiling. “I need to sign off on a contract for the D&D account. Be right back, Jordi-boy.”
“I never saw this account.” His brows dove down. He hated when I called him that.
“Exactly,” I said, a bounce in my steps as I went to my office to fetch the contract. After signing it—taking pleasure in the fact I made Jordan wait in the boardroom for me like a little bitch—I walked over to the main reception area of the floor, where it split into two corridors with the huge boardroom in the middle. Deciding to make him wait a little longer, I took a sharp right into the break room to brew myself a coffee with the fancy machine I’d never tried before. Was it petty? Yes. Did inconveniencing
Jordan by making him wait on me for an extra few minutes make me smile? Hell yes.
I was about to push the glass door open when I stopped on my heel, watching the girls inside the kitchen.
Luna. Camila. Edie. Standing together. Looking…excited? What the…?
Edie threw her arms around Camila and hugged her, burrowing into her shoulder. Luna was standing beside them, observing the scene, doe-eyed. For the first time in a long time, she was interested in something that wasn’t seahorses. Edie cupped Camila’s cheeks, before wiping her tears with the back of her hand. She wore her emotions like jewelry. Proud and unapologetic. It made me hate her a little less for trying to steal my mother’s handbag a few weeks ago.
Then Edie did the unthinkable, and yet what every girl her age would have done.
She crouched, ran her hand over Luna’s curly piggy tails, and smiled.
Almost in slow motion, she pointed at Luna’s fluffy blue seahorse, her mouth forming an O-shaped wow.
Luna’s face broke into a timid grin. She never smiled at me like that. I blinked away my shock, trying to wrap my head around her reaction. Edie must’ve asked Luna something, because Luna nodded.
Nodded. She never nodded. Nodding was one step away from vocalizing your needs, and Luna was all about keeping me in the dark.
My daughter looked alert and attentive and invested in that moment, which was something I couldn’t say about her ninety percent of the time. And I stood there, rooted to the floor, not wanting to step into the moment and pierce the fog of magic they were cocooned in.
“Yo, assface, is the weed eating at your memory? We’re all waiting for you in the boardroom.” Dean killed my trance by slapping my back from behind, chewing his gum deliberately noisily in my ear. “Come join us before Jordi hangs you by the balls and Vicious skins you and makes a new ottoman out of your flesh.”
Reluctant, I followed his steps, moving toward the boardroom, my eyes still on the break room.
I took a seat at the conference room, sandwiched between Dean and Jaime. Jordan was sitting across from me, looking one argument away from a heart attack.
