Next in Line for Love

by Harper Bliss

  “Sure. I’ll let you know what I’ve found out.”

  “I don’t just mean that, Ali. If your father gives you bad news and you need to process, you can always call me for that as well,” I say.

  “Everyone’s really going soft around here these days,” she jokes. “So I might as well hold you to that and do the same.”

  “Don’t tell them about Paris.”

  “I won’t. It’s not even certain we’re going yet, or is it?”

  “No, it’s not.” I do feel a twinge of guilt—this is her father’s health I’m bargaining with here. “Look.” Once again, I feel the need to give in, to accommodate her in some way. It’s not a sensation I experience with anyone else. Ali is the perfect blend of the boss’s daughter and the girl with no mother who also lost her twin sister. I can’t help but extend kindness after kindness to her, even if that translates sometimes into submitting to her silly whims. “If we don’t make it this weekend, I’m sure another time will be convenient.” I’m basically saying that I want to go to Paris with her, which does take me aback a bit. But she has gotten under my skin—and that dinner last night was highly pleasant. And it’s good that we’re becoming friends. I’d rather work closely with someone I consider a friend than someone who will always keep me at arm’s length, like Jeffrey. Sebastian is something else altogether—and I’ve never considered him my boss, although, in some ways, he is.

  “Good,” Ali says. “You’re fifty-three and you haven’t been to Paris. How is that even possible?”

  “I’ve been busy.” I’ve had to work to acquire money, I think. This will always be the most fundamental difference between us. Ali has worked for Lennox Breweries for more than ten years now, but I doubt her salary pays for much of her lifestyle. Thank goodness for trust funds. And when you’re a Lennox child, ‘work’ seems to be quite a stretchable term.

  “I know, Jill. I was only teasing.”

  “I have to get back to work now, Ali.”

  She nods. “I’ll call you tonight, without a doubt,” she says and heads out the door.

  The second she’s gone, Linda walks in, like she’s been waiting at the door. I hope she hasn’t been listening, although I do trust Linda. Still, some pieces of information, like the state of the CEO’s health, have a tendency to spread like wildfire.

  “Any progress with Ali?” she asks.

  “She’s doing well.” I wouldn’t normally be so vague with Linda, but what can I possibly tell her? She made me go to one of her parties and tried to kiss me? I do, however, realize that Linda’s as close to a confidante as I have. Still, I’m not telling her anything. It’s more a reflection on the state of my personal life and the lack of friendships in it. I learned to live with that once I made the decision that Lennox Breweries would be part of my legacy, despite not being born a Lennox.

  “Does she talk about Leah?” Linda’s been with Lennox even longer than me.

  “Sometimes. I get the impression that…” That what? That the worst of her pain is over? I can’t make a claim like that about another person. “Let’s just say that being away has been good for her.”

  “Poor thing,” Linda says. “To lose her mother at such a young age and then her sister.”

  The same can be said for Sebastian, of course, yet we’ve worked with him for too long to still feel sorry for him. Ali’s presence is still fresh, bringing with it the memories of when it happened. Jeffrey only missed one day of work—the day of the funeral. The evening before, his face as stoic as ever, he told me he’d be available by phone if something urgent came up, as though I wouldn’t be attending the funeral.

  “Human beings are resilient,” I say. Maybe this stopped applying to Jeffrey, however. He was already in his seventies when Leah died, although you wouldn’t have thought him older than in his early sixties. After her death, although he did his very best to work so hard—maybe so that he wouldn’t feel the worst of the pain—ever so slowly, his health started to suffer. It could simply be old age, but considering his family history, it might be more than that.

  “Does she have a girlfriend?”

  I don’t know why this question makes my cheeks warm up. “Not that I know of.”

  “She probably has a few. She’s a catch. She’ll probably snag some Hollywood starlet. It’s all the rage for them to be going out with women these days—especially if they can be snapped by some paparazzo.” Linda stands there smiling.

  We never discuss my sexual preference or my dating life, yet I take offense. But I’m still not the kind of person to voice my annoyance about this.

  “Was there something you wanted, Linda?” My voice does sound a bit sharp. Maybe because my heart shrank a bit at the thought of Ali with a gorgeous actress on her arm, walking some red carpet, smiling into the camera.

  “I need you to look at this research.”

  I shift into work mode, which, I also realize, was much easier to do before Ali returned.

  21

  Ali

  Sebastian and I have been at the house for half an hour before Dad arrives. We’ve been nursing drinks and, the more of that we’ve done, the wilder our speculations of what our father is about to tell us have become. Because he must have some sort of announcement to make—we wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.

  When he joins us in the sitting room, Janine, the housekeeper, doesn’t even offer him a choice of beverage. She just pours him a glass of mineral water with a wedge of lime.

  “I’m not going to make you wait for it,” Dad says. “I always thought it was bullshit, or that I was immune to it, but apparently, stress isn’t very good for the health of your cardiovascular system.” He sits in the same chair he’s been sitting in since Mom was alive. It gets newly upholstered every year. The latest fabric is burgundy red and it makes Dad’s skin look even grayer. “Long story short, I’m going to need bypass surgery sometime soon, after Ali has been announced as my successor.”

  “What?” Sebastian jumps up. “Oh shit.” He starts pacing.

  “It’s fine, Son.” Dad makes a tempering gesture with his hand.

  “When did the doctor tell you that you need surgery?” I ask.

  “Yesterday.” He locks his eyes on me, his gaze much softer than any time I remember.

  “Is it recommended that you wait?” I hold his gaze.

  Dad just shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t have surgery now. We need to announce you as the next CEO first. You understand that.”

  “Of course, Dad,” Sebastian says.

  “No fucking way.” I jump out of my chair as well. “Your health is more important than the Lennox share price.”

  “Maybe you don’t understand.” My dad’s gaze has long slipped away from me.

  “I do. I understand perfectly. In fact, I think I’m the only one who does.” I glare at Sebastian. I’m not sure this is a fight I can win on my own.

  “Ali, calm down,” Sebastian says. “Dad knows what he’s doing.”

  “I want to speak to your doctor. Now.” I pick up my father’s phone from the table next to him, even though I have no clue as to his cardiologist’s name. One thing I am sure of, however, is that when he sees it’s Jeffrey Lennox calling, he’ll pick up. “Call him, Dad.” I hand him the phone, which he drops back onto the table.

  “You can talk to him tomorrow, Ali.”

  “You’re only planning to announce at the end of the month. Surely it’s not safe to wait that long.”

  “I take hypertension medication and all my vitals are monitored twice a day,” Dad says. “I’m not going to keel over and die, Ali.”

  “You probably shouldn’t even be in the office. For fuck’s sake.” Anger rises in me. It sits in my stomach like bile. Am I really the only one who’s worried about another death in the family? I make eyes at Sebastian again to urge him to help me talk some sense into our father.

  “I work from home sometimes,” Dad says feebly. He doesn’t even seem to have the vim to fight me on this. It’s
as though he made the decision and he’d rather—literally—die than not stick to it. That sounds like the father I know.

  “You’re not waiting to have this surgery, Dad. That’s just crazy. If you die, what will it matter if the share price drops?” Someone has to say the d-word, and it looks like it won’t be Sebastian.

  “It matters for you. And for the company that I’ve built. It’s not going down with me.”

  “It won’t.” I want to say something else indelicate, but I should probably wait until Dad has digested my previous remark.

  “Ali, you’ve only just come back,” Sebastian chimes in. “It would be very bad optics if Dad were to go into hospital all of a sudden to have bypass surgery.”

  “No one has to know it’s heart surgery. Surely we can buy some discretion.”

  “Ali, you’re not listening. I’m not having surgery before my successor has been announced and stability for the company is ensured. It’s not just the optics. I’m not going under, with the risk of never waking up again, without this being resolved.” He’s out of breath already.

  “That’s easy then. Resolve it. Announce me tomorrow.”

  “I would if I could, but you’ve only just returned. How will that look?”

  “I get that it’s time you need, but time is what you don’t have, Dad.” He’s right to question my competence, of course. I’m not ready to lead the brewery. But I know someone who is. “Why don’t you make Jill interim CEO?”

  Sebastian scoffs.

  I turn to him. “Why not?”

  “She’s not family,” he says, as though that’s the most important trait needed to become the big boss.

  “She’s the absolute best person for the job. She knows everything. She’s been with the company for over twenty years. She’s mentoring me to become CEO. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not ready. But she is.”

  “I need to think about it,” Dad says.

  Janine walks into the sitting room. “Dinner’s served,” she says.

  “You kids may want to get something else other than the rabbit food that’s been prepared for me,” Dad says.

  I look at Sebastian to help me ascertain if we should take this as our cue to leave, but he follows Dad into the dining room, and so do I.

  22

  Jill

  It’s way past ten o’clock when Ali finally calls me.

  “Where are you?” is the first thing she asks.

  I had expected her voice to sound all triumphant and smug with the knowledge she gathered to lure me to Paris but she sounds small—like I’ve never heard her before

  “In my apartment,” I reply.

  “Can I come over?”

  “Of course. Ali, are you okay?”

  “I’d rather tell you in person,” she says, then goes silent.

  “Of course. Come on over. I’ll be waiting.”

  While I wait for Ali, I prepare for the worst. It doesn’t take someone with a medical degree to see that Jeffrey hasn’t been well. Maybe it’s worse than I allowed myself to imagine. All the possibilities show up as an endless slew of lit-up words in my mind: cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer again. He’s not a young man and the untimely death of his daughter, added to the high-pressured environment he chooses to immerse himself in every single day, must have taken a toll.

  Ali barges in, her eyes a little red, but not bloodshot enough for me ask if she’s been crying.

  “It’s heart disease. He needs bypass surgery,” she says. “Do you have his doctor’s phone number? I would really like to call him.”

  “Ali.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “Calm down. It’s late. We can’t be calling anyone now.”

  “He’s a doctor and this is a fucking emergency, Jill.”

  “Talk to me.” I coax her to the couch and sit her down.

  “He won’t have the surgery until he has announced the new face of the company, but I’m not ready. Not for the board to accept me, let alone the shareholders. Why did I stay away so long? I should have been here. I should have seen this happening. Why didn’t anyone fucking tell me?”

  It suddenly seems to be hitting Ali hard that she might lose another member of her family. I don’t think she even knew herself how much she cared about her father before now. “Ali. Darling.” I put my hand in the back of her neck. “This is not your fault. Your father is a very stubborn man. He was always going to wait until the last possible moment to confide in you.”

  “He shouldn’t have had to confide in me. I should have noticed. It was so obvious tonight that he’s seriously ill.”

  “Then we’ll do everything we can to make him better.”

  She finally looks at me. Her eyes are a little moist. “I told him to have the surgery as soon as possible and to appoint you as interim CEO.”

  My eyebrows arch up of their own accord.

  “It makes perfect sense. Even I can see that,” Ali says. “Dad said he needed to think about it, but surely he must have thought about it before.”

  I let a short silence fall as I process Ali’s words. What she’s proposing isn’t too far removed from what we had initially planned. “What did Sebastian say?”

  “He didn’t agree because you’re not family, but that’s bullshit. Besides, who else is going to do it? Him?”

  “Your dad doesn’t want him.”

  “My dad… might be gone soon.” Her voice cracks a little.

  “He has the best care money can buy.” It sounds so hollow—so inadequate.

  Ali shakes her head. “If that’s the case, why isn’t his doctor insisting he have the surgery straight away? On the way over, I did some research. This is not a surgery to hold off on, Jill. He’s doing it for the company. For fucking Lennox Breweries, which is the very reason we never saw him after Mom died. And now he’s going to let it kill him.”

  “It’s his life’s work.”

  “And Sebastian and I are his children. What’s more important?”

  “Different things are important to different people.” I haven’t had a conversation this emotionally charged in a very long time.

  “At least I know where I stand now.”

  “I’ll talk to him.” Not that it will do much good.

  “You can’t tell him that you know about this. This sort of thing needs to stay under wraps. He won’t like me blabbing to you.”

  “I know.” Over the years, I’ve become an expert on Jeffrey Lennox as well. “He’ll have to tell me eventually.”

  “But eventually might be too late. I want him to have the operation this week.” She shoots me a sideways glance. “I won’t be able to take you to Paris.”

  “Forget Paris, Ali.”

  “You can go on your own.”

  That sounds about as appealing as the prospect of having heart surgery. “Forget it,” I repeat. “It could be that he’s scared, you know.”

  “My dad?” Ali scoffs. “I’ve never known him to be scared of anything.”

  “He was scared when you left… He’s scared for Sebastian and the addiction he can’t seem to kick.”

  “Scared is not the word I would use. Perhaps he harbors a small amount of concern.”

  “He lost his wife when she was only—” To my shame, I don’t remember how old Veronica was.

  “Mom was thirty-four when she died. One year younger than I am now,” Ali says.

  Then it dawns on me that who is most scared of all is this woman sitting next to me, who has lost so much already.

  “Maybe we’re all a little scared.” I curve my arm all the way around her shoulders.

  “I’m scared. I mean, to be completely honest, Jill, some days I don’t even know if I want to be CEO. What kind of life is that, anyway? I’ve seen what it’s done to my dad. He was never there. Not even when we needed him most of all. If that’s the kind of person this job turns you into, then I might actually want to pass. Sebastian can have it.” She shudders as she inhales deeply. Then she leans her head on my shoulder. “I
really don’t care about Lennox Breweries that much.”

  “You’re upset,” I whisper in her ear. “You need a good night’s sleep. Maybe a night cap.”

  “Will you join me?” Her heads tilts toward me.

  “Of course. What can I get you?” I know I have to move—remove myself. This is beginning to look a lot like that time in her bedroom. But I seem to be physically incapable of doing so, of even putting one more inch between us.

  “I’ll have this,” she says, and closes her eyes. Then, she kisses me.

  And I let her.

  This time, I don’t care about decorum or how preposterous it is. I kiss her right back. Her lips open slightly as I press mine against hers. She turns her head, then her body, so she faces me. There’s a small distance between us and I’m the one who bridges it. I cup her chin in my hands and draw her near. I don’t need to check in with some hidden part of myself. I don’t need permission from anyone, least of all myself—I would never give myself permission if I were to ask, anyway. I surrender wholly and completely to what I feel in that moment, and my single-most desire is to feel Ali’s lips against mine again.

  Her eyes flutter open and shut and then they disappear from my field of vision because I’m kissing her again. Her tongue meets mine and the contact sets all of my skin on fire. It awakens something inside of me that I haven’t allowed myself to feel for years. And why? Perhaps, if I hadn’t denied myself the occasional bout of passion—love, even—I wouldn’t be kissing the boss’s daughter right now. But Ali has ceased to be Jeffrey Lennox’s daughter. She has to. She’s my friend. A woman I’ve gotten to know better and, who, just by being herself, has gotten under my skin. Where her foolish actions and words used to infuriate me, they now awaken something else entirely.

  “You’re not pulling back,” she says, when we break for some much-needed air.

  “I’m not,” I state the obvious.

  “Why?” She’s slightly breathless.

  “Because I don’t want to.”