“It seems like I do still have a job,” I point out with a shaky laugh.
He’s not impressed, judging from the way he scowls. “Barely. Thanks to me. Once again.”
I bite my lip. “I’m grateful, Ryland. Really, I am. I never normally behave like that. I don’t know why, but he annoys me so much.”
“I warned you,” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I warned you, I did everything but beg you to avoid running your mouth in there. And that crack about Maddie! Oh, my God, I couldn’t believe it.”
“I shouldn’t have said it,” I admit, blushing. “It was low.”
“Lower than low,” he agrees.
“I can’t stand him. I know he’s your friend and you mean a lot to each other, but I really can’t stand him.”
“And that means absolutely nothing. Christ, how old are you, anyway?”
“Old enough to know what you’re saying,” I mumble. I take a deep breath and have a reality check. “It doesn’t matter if I like my boss. He’s still my boss, and I ought to respect him.”
“Right and right,” he replies, nodding his head almost comically.
“I just don’t like getting pushed too hard,” I admit. “And he pushed me. Maybe because it’s already so hard as a woman—”
“Don’t give me that sexual inequality, mansplaining, mumbo jumbo right now.”
“Hold up. Mansplaining mumbo jumbo?” I ask, hands on my hips.
“You know what I mean,” he groans as we step off the elevator. “I mean that it’s no excuse for your behavior. And I’m not always going to be around to save your job for you. I shouldn’t have to babysit you.”
“All I’m trying to say is I’ve had to fight hard for respect in my profession.”
“And you get it. From me. And you will from him too, but you’ll have to earn it. I know you can save the day. Don’t screw it all up by saying things you can’t take back. Okay?”
I nod, resigned and exhausted. Maybe it’s time to call it a day. I can worry about Lincoln Cage in the morning. And every day thereafter until I fix this issue.
Lucky, lucky me.
Samantha
“You’ve been working too hard, dear. It’s a good thing for you to take the evening off and visit with family.” I don’t think Sophia has strung that many words together in my presence in all the years she’s been married to my father. Wife Number Four is by far my least favorite, and that’s saying something.
“I’m just glad to have the opportunity,” I reply with a smile so tight, I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack. It’s absolutely ridiculous, the whole charade we go through every month. My monthly visit to my father’s house for dinner. A dinner which, if history serves, I won’t be able to digest without the help of antacids. Who could enjoy a meal eaten in a mausoleum, because that’s exactly how it feels to sit here with these people at their ridiculous, sixteen-seat dinner table which only holds four of us.
My father looks distracted, as always. We haven’t even made eye contact since I arrived. He’d have to look up from his phone in order for that to happen. Back in the day, it used to be the newspaper which ate up his attention. Now I can see his face, but it doesn’t improve anything. Now, I just get to watch him actively avoid looking at me.
Sophia has spent the entire meal picking at her food, shuffling it around on her plate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat a proper meal, or even a proper course unless it involves a thin soup or dry salad. No wonder she always looks and sounds irritable, even when she’s trying to be polite.
Veronica, on the other hand, never bothers trying for politeness. My beloved stepsister. The lazy brat. She swings her wavy hair extensions over one shoulder, running the tip of her tongue over her glossy lips before asking, “Don’t you get paid at this job of yours? The one you were so thrilled about the last time you were here?”
“Aw, Ronnie, it’s so nice of you to remember our last dinner together.”
Her cheeks flame red. She hates that nickname. “Just because you like to be called Sam doesn’t mean we all enjoy being mistaken for men.”
“Oh, sweetie. Nobody could ever mistake you for a man,” her mother interjects.
Right. Not with the ridiculous implants she got a few months ago. Does she really think nobody noticed her going from a flat chest to a C-cup? It wasn’t even a subtle difference. But then, she’s never been one for subtlety. She applies her makeup with a putty knife, for God’s sake.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” she continues, nostrils flaring. “I wondered if you got paid any decent money, since you still haven’t bought any decent clothes.”
“Some of us pay our own rent and bills,” I remind her, keeping my voice as sweet as I can. “We can’t all live with our parents.”
“Maybe if you were good enough to run Daddy’s company, you’d have a half-decent wardrobe.”
That’s it. I’ve been trying. I really have. All these years of her digs, her insinuations, her reminders that I don’t have a boyfriend or a husband. I’ve managed to avoid unleashing on her all this time, but I’m still smarting from my encounter with Lincoln and my inability to find a solution to the drone problem. “He’s not your daddy, for one thing,” I remind her coldly.
“But he is, dear,” Sophia insists, her eyes sparkling as she rides to her daughter’s rescue. As always. She smooths both hands over her perfectly coiffed, bleached hair while explaining, “I’ve encouraged her to refer to him as her father, after all.”
“She’s nearly my age. Don’t you think it’s a little late for her second childhood?” I ask, the meal long forgotten. Not like I was missing much, anyway. At least we had a decent cook while I was living in this monstrosity of a house with its eight-thousand square feet and indoor grotto and a million features that are completely unnecessary for a home only three people live in. It’s like a wax museum, complete with Sophia, the Waxwork.
“Now, now, girls.” Sophia chuckles ditzily, glancing at my father who hasn’t looked up from his phone screen. “Let’s not fight and ruin the evening. We see each other so rarely.”
And this is why. I can barely care at this point. It’s all a farce, a pitiful attempt at making us look like a family. We’re not. I’ve never felt like part of them and never will. We’re just different types of people. Sometimes, I wish they would leave me alone and allow me to live the rest of my life in peace. I wouldn’t mind never having to lay eyes on this ugly, ornate wallpaper again. I’d never have to touch my lips to the heavy, crystal wine goblets or get a headache from my stepmother’s cloyingly sweet perfume ever again. It would be glorious.
But it’s impossible, because I can’t imagine not having any family at all. Even a bad, distant, disappointed father is better than none at all.
“Don’t worry, Mommy,” Veronica croons, flashing her mother a fake smile. “Nothing she has to say upsets me. I’d be a nasty old maid, too, if I were her.”
I have to let go of my goblet before it makes contact with the side of her head. “Is that silicone in your chest, or did all the air from your head move downward?”
Her gasp would put even the hammiest actress to shame. “How dare you?” she demands, jumping up from the table and spilling red wine all over the pristine linen.
It soaks in, reminding me of blood. I’m not usually so morbid, but I watched a movie last night where a man was killed on a snow-covered ground. “Do you really think anybody would think those things are real?” I ask curiously, gesturing to her chest.
“You bitch!” Instead of flinging her water in my face, which I was almost sure she would, she storms out of the dining room with Sophia at her heels. I can hear their shoes click-clacking across the tile floors, reminding me of horse hooves. Veronica’s demands that I leave immediately floating over it all.
I sigh, resting against the high-backed chair. It’s just me and Dad now, and it might as well be me alone. He’s oblivious. I wonder if he heard anything that just to
ok place.
As it turns out, he did. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, young lady.” He sounds so bored, I’m surprised he doesn’t yawn outright.
“I don’t know. I thought the comment about Veronica’s implants was pretty good.”
My dad has no sense of humor. He looks at me for the first time and frowns. “Be that as it may, you have no right to speak to your stepsister that way. You know how it upsets Sophia.”
“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” What about me? I want to ask with all my heart, want to let the question pour out of me along with all the pain of his absence from my life. Why don’t I matter? Why haven’t I ever mattered? It doesn’t even make a difference that I studied what I did and made a career where I have in the hopes of earning his respect?
He folds his hands on the table, looking me square in the eye. When he does, I almost wish he’d go back to his emails or whatever it is he’s been engrossed in. “Veronica does make a good point,” he claims, looking me up and down. “If your boss over at Guardian Technologies thought you were worthwhile, he’d pay you enough to allow you to dress yourself up a little.”
As always, I feel myself shrinking into my own skin. Wishing I could hide from his critical stare. Those icy eyes, so light, they’re nearly clear. They see right into my soul, touching my insecurities one-by-one until I’m raw and directionless while wondering again, why I even care what he thinks. He certainly doesn’t give a shit about my thoughts.
“I’m a Senior Engineer,” I remind him with all the dignity I can muster.
“A title, and a title only,” he dismisses, shaking his head. “Samantha, it’s best you drop the pretense now, rather than allowing it to drag out until you’re too old for any man to want you.”
“I don’t care if no man—”
“Every woman with sense cares about that,” he cuts me off irritably. “You’re still an attractive girl. Stop wasting your time. It isn’t as if someone with your limited abilities would ever come up with some groundbreaking development.”
“How would you even know the first thing about my abilities?” I whisper, disappointment threatening to choke me. And how is it that he manages to remind me so much of Lincoln Cage? Didn’t he also doubt my abilities?
“You are my daughter, my flesh and blood, so of course, I love you, but that doesn’t blind me to the reality of this business. I know what I am talking about. You don’t have what it takes to survive in the difficult business environment you have chosen.”
“How can you be so cruel?”
“Perhaps because I have little respect for people who insist on wedging themselves in places where they are unwanted. We both know you’ve been determined to take over my company since you were a teenager, regardless of whether or not you were ever considered for the position. Which you weren’t,” he adds, as though he needs to. “I never had any intention of naming you as my successor, but you insisted on being undignified and struggling to curry favor. It’s all very unseemly.”
“Unseemly?” I gasp. Tears burn behind my eyes, but stay unshed as I stand with all the dignity I can muster. Holding my head high, I look down on him. This man is my father, but I do not know him and he does not know me. Any love he might have felt for me dissolved when his marriage to my mother did. If they’d stayed together, I might have, but as it was I never had a chance.
He has never loved me.
He forced her to give him custody to punish her. I don’t blame her for running away, clear to the other side of the planet. I would’ve done the same thing in her place.
“Well, Father. You are wrong. I never, not one instant, wanted to take over your company, I just want your company. I wanted you to love me.” My voice breaks and I know, I cannot stay another moment here. “Don’t worry I won’t sully your perfect domesticity with my unseemliness. I’m leaving, and I won’t be back for another dinner, or anything else.”
“Yeah, like the times you threatened to run away when you were four, six, nine, and fifteen. You’ll come crawling back. You always do,” he scoffs, reaching for his knife and fork.
I watch him cut a piece of steak, completely unconcerned. “No. Not this time I won’t,” I swear.
He lifts his glass of red wine as if in a toast and that mocking gesture is too much.
I turn on my heel and run out of his mansion. I manage to hold back my tears until I’ve slid behind the wheel of my car. I know the way down the wide, graveled driveway well enough to navigate it with wet, blurry eyes. I don’t stop until I’m off the property, pulling over on the shoulder of the road and putting the car in park before folding my arms over the wheel and crying my heart out.
How could anybody be so cruel? How can a man look at his daughter, his actual flesh and blood, and talk to her the way he talks to me? Is it the blow to his pride when I demanded to live on my own, without his help? I would rather die than let him control a single aspect of my life. He wasn’t nice to me even when I lived under his roof. Every wife he brought home to compete with me and make me feel small. In the end, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Damn him to hell. I’ll never go back there again,” I sob to the otherwise empty car.
At least, I won’t have to pretend to be nice to my step-relatives again. The thought isn’t a bad one really, and it’s almost enough to soothe me into pulling myself together enough to drive home.
Then, at the last minute, I steer the car in the direction of the office. “We’ll see just how impossible it is for me to come up with a breakthrough,” I mutter with renewed determination.
Lincoln
“Daddy?”
I look up from the piles of papers on the desk at my daughter, cozy in the nest she’s built herself in the corner of my office. The kid is self-reliant, I’ll give her that. She keeps herself busy, knows how to pass the time without being a drain on my limited mental bandwidth.
“Mm hmm?”
“Do you work late like this all the time?” She stifles a yawn.
I didn’t realize it was even as late as it is. A glance at the clock tells me it’s nearly ten-thirty. “I’m sorry, kiddo. No, I don’t do this all the time.” Lies and more lies. “It’s a really busy time right now, like we talked about when you first came to live with me.”
She nods solemnly, curls bouncing. “Yeah. You have to show your prototop.”
It’s an effort to keep a straight face. “Close enough. Prototype.”
“Right.” She looks down, mouthing the word as though to commit it to memory for the next time she wants to use it.
Those little quirks in her personality are what endear her to me the most. I love her simply for the fact that she’s alive, of course, but there’s more to it. As much of a pain in the ass as it’s been to work things out up to this point, Regina did me an incalculably massive favor. I’d already missed too much of my daughter’s life.
I push back from the desk, stretching my arms over my head. I recognize my workaholic tendencies. To this point, I’ve had the luxury of devoting my entire life to building the business. After losing custody of her it was a wonderful outlet for me to pour everything I had into the business, instead of sinking into a profound depression.
I haven’t really had the time to sit down and think of what life would look like with Maddie in the picture. Obviously, I can’t raise her in this office. It’s all right for a few days, maybe a week—and even then, it’s not very all right. It’s just an emergency measure. She’ll need stability, structure, the right to a normal childhood. The only blessing in Regina’s timing is that she waited until summer to do this. If I had to negotiate a new school, books and supplies, homework and projects from the first day, I would’ve lost my mind.
There is a ringing tone sounding from the princess tent.
Maddie’s eyes grow round as she grabs her pink phone. “Oh, oh, it’s Mommy,” she announces and scrambles back deep into the tent. “Hello, Mommy,” she greets.
“Hello darling,” Regina says chee
rfully. “What’s the time there now?”
“Uh… it’s nearly bedtime.”
“Right. Are you having a good time with your father?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” Regina sounds surprised.
“Yes,” Maddie says again.
“You mean your father is spending time with you?”
“Daddy is with me all the time.”
“Really? Don’t you have a nanny?”
“No.”
“I see. Why it is so dark there?”
“I’m in my tent.”
“Are you in your bedroom?”
I close my eyes. Fuck, here comes trouble.
“Um…Yes, yes, I am,” Maddie lies.
I open my eyes in shock.
“Are you having a good time Mommy?”
Her mother starts to regale her with a story of what she is getting up to. Apparently, they are in France and just finished watching a polo match. She starts telling her how she met Prince Harry and I tune out and think of my daughter. No matter what, tomorrow, we have to get the paints for her room, because next week I am going to start looking for a nanny for her. Tonight is the last night she is spending on the floor of my office.
“Good night, Mommy.”
“Good night, darling. I’ll call you again in a few days.”
I stand up and walk over to the tent entrance.
Maddie pops her head out of the entrance again.
“Maddie, why did you lie to your mother about being in your own room?”
She shrugs and looks down.
“You don’t have to lie, you know. You can tell the truth.”
“But Daddy you don’t understand. Mommy will be mad with you if I tell her.”
“So let her be. I’ll deal with her. I don’t want you telling lies to protect me, okay?”
She frowns.
“Did you hear what I said, Maddie?”
Too hot to handle: A curvy girl romance Page 18
