by B. B. Hamel
“How many of those names do I have to remember?” I ask.
He laughs a little. “None,” he says. “I barely remember any of them and I’ve known most of these people my whole life.”
“They’re all business owners?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “And congressmen, a senator, and at least two generals.”
“Really?” I ask, surprised.
“Sure. You didn’t notice? This is a rich person’s charity event.”
“Sorry. I don’t have much experience hobnobbing with the upper crust.”
He grins at me. “Well, get used to it. These things are mostly excuses to network. They’re incredible political.”
“Like how?” I ask.
“Well, look at that guy.” He nods at a man in his forties, relatively fit, wearing a dark suit and a red tie. “He’s an up and coming Republican guy. Wants to run for the house in four years. He’s here to meet some possible donors, shake some hands. Smile at the generals, that sort of thing. He’ll make a nice, large contribution, of course, but he wouldn’t be here if it didn’t benefit him in some way.”
I frown to myself, shaking my head. “Is anyone here for the right reasons?”
“I am,” he says, taking my hand.
“Seems like you’re doing a lot of political stuff yourself.”
He kisses my cheek softly. “I don’t need any of this,” he says. “I have enough.”
I smile up at him and understand what he’s trying to say. I kiss him lightly on the lips. “Okay, fine,” I say. “You’re not some stodgy old upper class jerk like the rest of these people.”
“Good, I’m glad you approve.”
“But you better not change. And don’t go into politics.”
“I promise.” He hooks my pinky with his. “Cross my heart.”
“Good.” I laugh and we let our hands drop down to our sides. I look back out over the crowd and feel a little calmer, less nervous. Elliot is likely out in that crowd somewhere, but I don’t see him. Instead, I spot the security guy Nick wearing a suit and standing near one of the walls. He catches me looking at him and gives me a quick nod.
“There’s Nick,” I say, but Carson doesn’t respond. He’s half turned away. I look at him and then follow his gaze across the room.
An older woman just entered and is surrounded by a group of people, shaking her hand and greeting her. She’s in her seventies, most likely, with distinguished gray hair and a tasteful pantsuit. She looks remarkable for a woman of her age, very poised and in control of herself.
“Who’s that?” I ask him.
“That’s my mother,” he says, glancing at me. “That’s Cora Price.”
“Oh,” I say, looking back at her. She’s not at all what I expected. I thought she’d be younger, but of course she isn’t. Carson is almost forty, she’d have to be in her late seventies at least. “She looks great,” I say.
“Mother does everything with grace,” he says flatly.
We stand there for a minute or two until his mother spots him and waves with a sweet smile on her face. She makes her way across the room and Carson walks up to her, meeting her halfway and kissing her on the cheek.
I miss what they say at first until I join them. Carson turns toward me and gestures. “Mother, this is Kylie. My date.” He emphasizes the last two word.
Cora Price’s eyes are sea blue and crystal clear. She may be old, but her mind is clearly still sharp as a tack, and I suspect she’s in better physical condition than I am. She looks at me for a moment, clearly appraising me.
“Lovely to meet you, dear,” she says finally.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Price.”
She laughs softly. “Please. Call me Cora.”
“Okay, Mrs. Price. I mean, Cora, sorry.”
“She’s very pretty,” she says to Carson. “Where’d you find this one?”
“In the street,” he says, his face completely expressionless.
“Of course you did,” she says. “I’ve heard all about her from your brother.”
“Where is that piece of shit?” he asks her.
“Skipping out, for some reason,” she answers.
I squirm slightly, very uncomfortable. I can tell from the tone of her voice that whatever Elliot told her, it was not flattering at all.
“I’ll never understand your devotion to him,” Carson says. “We both know he’s a swine.”
“At least he’s a married swine with children,” his mother returns. “And how old is this one? Twenty?”
“Nineteen,” I say softly.
She laughs softly and shakes her head at Carson. “Come now, when are you going to get serious?”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you of all people, mother,” he says, holding back some anger. “And I am serious. Very serious.”
“About this girl?” His mother laughs again. “She’s lovely, she really is, and may be very nice. But she’s much too young for you.”
“That doesn’t matter to me,” he says.
“It should. It really should.”
I stand there, feeling so incredibly uncomfortable that I want to scream. He didn’t really warn me that this might happen, although he doesn’t seem very surprised about it. I can’t believe that she is openly saying these things right in front of me like I don’t exist. It’s both demeaning and infuriating, and I don’t know if I want to run away or scream at her.
“You don’t even know her,” Carson says.
“You want me to know her?” Cora asks.
“Yes,” he answers. “Give her a chance.”
His mother watches him for a moment, considering, and then nods. “Very well. I’ll give her a chance.” She turns her gaze on me and I’m inches from running for the hills. “Come on, dear. Let’s have a chat.”
Carson looks at me and nods. I force a smile on my face. “Okay,” I say.
His mother turns and walks off. Carson nods at me again. “Good luck,” he says softly, and then I’m walking after his mother, nervous as hell and a little bit afraid.
She leads us through the crowd and down a side hall. The wait staff ignores her, almost like everyone knows her, until we finally end up at another bar at the other end of the building. There are a couple people sitting there drinking, men that look like regulars. Cora pulls out a stool and sits, and I join her.
“Gin martini,” she orders from the bartender, and then glances at me. “Are you old enough to drink, dear?” she asks.
“Make that two,” I say to the bartender. He smiles and walks off.
“So, you’re with my eldest,” she says. “Who are you and what do you want?”
I’m pretty taken aback by how direct she is. Her tone is cold and calculating, and I don’t know what to say.
“I, uh, I’m Kylie,” I say. “I’m from Los Angeles. I met your son when he, well, he helped me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Helped you how? Paid for you for the whole month?”
I blink. “I’m not a prostitute,” I say.
“Of course. So you’re from Los Angeles, then. What are you doing here?”
“I’m starting a new life,” I say. “I came here with nothing and had nothing when I met your son. He gave me a place to stay and helped me.”
“So you’re a freeloader,” she says. “After money, I’m guessing.”
“No,” I say, flustered. The bartender returns with two martini glasses. Cora smile at him and pays him, leaving a generous tip, before turning back to me.
“Listen to me, Kylie whoever you are. My son Carson is a decent man, but he doesn’t know how to settle down for the life of him. I’ve seen your kind with him before, you never last long, and you always leave heartbroken. Is that what you want?”
I shake my head slowly. “No, of course not.”
“You’re young. Carson is rich and handsome. It’s easy to see why you’d want him. But he’s also powerful and important, and he might even take over the Price Oil Company
someday soon. I simply cannot have someone your age around him, mucking things up, getting in the way. Do you understand?”
“I don’t want to get in the way,” I say. I sip my martini to help with the nerves.
“Here’s what I propose. Save everyone the trouble and leave. I will buy you a plane ticket to anywhere you want and I will pay you ten thousand dollars if you will leave tomorrow.”
I stare at her, completely shocked. I can’t believe that this is happening. “Have you done this before?” I ask her softly.
She laughs. “Of course I have. You’re not the first problem I’ve made go away.”
I can’t believe she’s saying this. She’s bribed Carson’s girlfriends, or whatever they were, to leave him. She paid women he might have cared about to run out on him because she didn’t approve. No wonder he hasn’t had a serious relationship, his mother has been buying the girls off and making them go away.
“I can’t do that to him,” I say.
She sighs. “Fifty thousand, then. But you leave tonight.”
I gape at her, shocked. Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. I’ve never had that much money, and maybe never will.
“I don’t know what to say,” I answer, stalling.
“Listen to me, dear. Take the money and go. You’re young and pretty. Don’t get involved with a man like Carson.”
“Why not?” I whisper.
“Enjoy your youth,” she says, sipping her own drink. “Carson is going to be busy soon. He’s going to be a very important man, assuming he doesn’t mess it all up. You’ll just be a distraction for him, a distraction he can’t afford.”
I watch her for a moment, not sure what to say. On some level, I know she’s telling the truth. I know she’s absolutely right about all of this. Carson is an important man and he’s already incredibly distracted by me. And his brother is already using me against him, trying to destroy him.
I am getting in the way. I know it, and can’t do anything about it. But I don’t want to run out on him like this. I don’t want to hurt him and be just another in a long line of women that hurt him. He doesn’t talk about that, but I’m starting to suspect that it’s true.
If I stay, I could hurt him. If I go, I could hurt him. I don’t know what to do.
“Take some time, think about it,” his mother stays, standing. “Enjoy the martini. It’s very good. Here’s my number if you decide.”
She places a card on the bar in front of me and walks off, leaving me alone at the bar.
I take the card. It’s a simple business card with Cora Price’s name and private number on it. I twirl it between my fingers, lost and confused.
What am I going to do? If I go back in there, I know that I won’t leave. If I look Carson in the face again, I know he’ll convince me to stay somehow. I don’t want to go.
I know that I should. I don’t care about the money, though. I don’t want a dime of it. It never mattered to me, having money, aside from being able to afford a place to live. I can’t accept that money and sell Carson out like that, he doesn’t deserve it.
But he also doesn’t deserve having me around, destroying his chances at getting the CEO position. I’m a liability. I’ve already done so much damage.
I sip my drink, mind going in circles, terrified of what I’m going to do.
23
Carson
I spend the next hour chatting and shaking hands, the usual charity event bullshit. My mother returns about ten minutes after she left with Kylie and informs me that Kylie is held up with some distant relatives at the other bar, and she’ll be back soon.
But she doesn’t come back. Dinner is served and everyone is seated, but Kylie is still missing. My cousin and aunt are in their seats, looking content as always, and so she can’t still be talking to them.
I lean over toward my mother. “Where’s Kylie?” I ask her.
She shrugs, looking innocent. “I don’t have a clue.”
“What did you do?” I hiss at her.
She frowns at me. “Don’t talk to me that way. I’m still your mother.”
“You’re a spiteful old crone that wants to control everything I do. Where is Kylie?”
She stares at me, the shock evident on her face. I’ve never pushed back at her before and she obviously wasn’t prepared for this.
I know she’s been meddling in my life for years. The last woman I had something serious with disappeared fairly quickly after we began, and later told me that my mother paid her to leave me. That was a very long time ago, of course. I didn’t care much at the time, since I never thought I’d be with that person, but it did make me notice a pattern.
I know she’s been bribing women to leave me for years. It never mattered, although she clearly thought that it did. In fact, she was doing me a favor. I never wanted to settle down, and she was saving me from having to eventually break up with these women. As cowardly as it is, she was helping me, and so I didn’t stop her. The women got what they wanted, which was money, and I got what I wanted. We were all winners.
But now she’s gone too far.
“What did you offer her?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says, playing innocent.
“Tell me, damn it,” I growl.
“Money,” she says. “And a plane ticket. If she leaves tonight.”
“Shit,” I grunt. “And?”
“She called ten minutes ago.” My mother gives me a horrible smile. “She’s already on her way to the airport.”
I stand up and quickly leave the banquet hall. My mother says something to me as I leave, but I don’t listen to her. I don’t care what she has to say.
I’m not letting Kylie go like this. I can’t believe she’d take my mother’s money and leave me. It’s not her, I know it’s not her. She’s not in this for the money and never was.
There has to be another reason, and I have to know why. Even if I can’t convince her to stay, I have to talk to her tonight.
When I get outside, I realize that she took the car. I consider calling the driver and ordering him to come back, but I’m not sure he will, and I don’t want to waste the time. Instead, I call for a taxi.
It comes five minutes later, which is lucky. We head out toward the airport, and I feel strangely nervous, which I didn’t expect.
I don’t know why she’s running away. Maybe she really is just leaving for the money and I misjudged her, but I don’t think that’s the case. My mother has scared away many women for me, but none of them have been like Kylie. We’ve already been through so much, and she’s already had so many chances to run. But she stayed.
I need to know why now, why this night. I need to know what my mother said to her that made her want to leave.
The taxi pulls up to the terminal and I hop out. I don’t know what flight she’s getting, so I head to the departures board and skim the listings. There are planes to Boston, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Austin, and then I pause. There’s a flight leaving for Philadelphia in an hour, which triggers a memory. She mentioned that it was between Alaska and Philadelphia when she was first running away.
Maybe she finally chose Philadelphia.
I head up to the ticketing agent and buy a seat on that flight. It’s a long shot, but it’s the best I have. Getting through security doesn’t take long, though they do give me a second look because I’m wearing a tux, but that doesn’t matter. Once through, I head toward the gate, body roaring with nerves.
What the hell am I doing? I should just turn around and go. If Kylie wants to leave, that’s her business. I don’t own her. This daddy thing, it’s not real, it’s not actually binding or anything. It was just a sexy idea that made me excited, and I thought she liked it, too.
I should just let it go. I should just move on. I can spare myself this absurd scene in the airport, wearing a fucking tuxedo, and just go home. I can win the war against my brother and finish this once and for all.
Except I can’t. Because as soon as I reach the terminal
, I see her, still wearing the dress. She has no bags and she’s staring out the window with a strange expression on her face.
I can’t turn away, not as soon as I see her. I know it, in this moment, that there’s something here I never felt before. I walk slowly over to her, and as I get closer, she turns and looks at me.
I expected her to be angry. I expected her to be confused, or upset, or afraid. Instead, she stands up and runs to me with the largest smile on her face.
She throws her arms around my neck and hugs me. I pull her close, feeling her body against mine.
“You came for me,” she says softly.
“Of course,” I reply. “I told you. I’m going to take care of you.”
She slowly moves back and I can tell that she’s blinking tears from her eyes.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she says.
I sigh, holding her hands. “What did my mother say to you?”
It spills out of her in a torrent. She explains what happened with my mother at the bar, everything she said, and all of her fears. “I don’t want to hold you back,” she says. “I don’t want to be the reason you don’t get what you want.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “That’s not going to happen,” I say. “Elliot would find some other way to come after me if you weren’t here.”
“I know, I just... I’m making it harder, not easier. I shouldn’t be distracting you.”
“You’re a distraction, but it’s one that I want.”
“I didn’t take the money,” she says suddenly, eyes wide. “I just need you to know that. I didn’t take your mother’s money.”
I smile softly. I knew it wasn’t about that, deep down inside of me. I just knew it. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go home.”
She hesitates. “I still don’t think I should come with you,” she says.
“You don’t have to. But I want you, Kylie, more than I’ve ever wanted someone before. I’ve never chased a woman to the airport and I don’t think I ever will again. We don’t have to be afraid. Come with me.”
She watches me and I’m afraid she’s going to say no. If she does, I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably go back to my life before her and keep on going, but nothing will feel the same, not after I’ve tasted this. I can’t keep being the way I was, not after I had something this intense.
