by Claire Adams
"I don't want it, Mom. I can't. I can't take this thing he's worked his whole life for. I can't give ten, twenty more years to this."
She leaned on the counter, looking at me. She didn't have any grays unless she got them colored and I didn't know about it. Her warm, blonde waves were pinned back. She had a classically beautiful face, which had aged gracefully. "It's always been your father's dream for you, Cam."
I shook my head at her. "A while ago, that had been a good enough reason. Now... I know I can't do it for him. Not in the way he'd need me to."
"Think about it," she said, coming up to me. "Take a couple weeks and think it over. If you tell him you don't want to take over the company, he's going to want to know what you intend to do instead."
"I know."
"Just wait. Wait ‘til we're back from Greece then tell him. He...he's going to be upset, but you have to understand where he's coming from. You're his only son, which makes him proud and terrifies him at the same time. He loves you, and this was how he knew how to show you that."
I nodded. In its own way, it made sense. If he laid a path for me himself, he'd never have to worry about me, but it didn't work like that. I loved him too, and if he wanted to show me that, he'd let me make those decisions. I could wait. They would only be gone ten days. After that, I was telling him.
Chapter Two
Natalie
I dropped the sun visor and looked at my reflection in the tiny mirror. I pulled a lipstick out of my purse and carefully drew it over my mouth. Living as far away as I did from work, sometimes I had to get creative with my time. Moments like this, I felt so proud of the decision I had made a year ago to move out of Salt Lake. Get stuck in traffic because you took too long curling your hair in the morning, or improvise in your car before work and get there on time. My hair looked fine. It looked great, in fact, because I had actually done it that morning before leaving the house. Makeup wasn't a requirement for showing up to work, but let's be real: it totally was. One of those unwritten rules. I didn't wear much. Foundation, lipstick, blush, and some mascara, and I could make it work, but it wasn't that glamorous getting ready in your car.
Well, you know what to do, Nat, I thought, shave your head or get up earlier. I grabbed my purse off the passenger seat, checked my face one last time, then got out of the car. I'd stop by the bathroom to make sure everything looked okay. It was only Tuesday, way too early in the week to be this stressed out. I checked my reflection in the elevator mirror discreetly as I got on. It was a long way up to twenty-fifth floor. I had been at the job for just over a couple years, one year since I had become in-house counsel and moved into my office. Coming off the elevator, I stopped at the bathroom for one last head-to-toe evaluation.
I toyed with my hair, sticking a loose bit behind my ear. My bangs were getting too long; I had to go see Kasey about that. After touching up my make up again, adding bronzer to give the illusion that I still had some color left over from the summer, I finally went to my office. I shrugged my coat off and hung it on the back of my office chair, sinking gratefully into my chair. I should have gotten used to the commute to work by now but hadn't. I was as drained when I got to work as when I was leaving it. Yeah, and whose fault is that?
I liked living in Provo, but it was inconvenient, to say the least. Why would a woman with an apartment ten minutes away from her office move forty-five minutes away to another town? For a man, of course. A guy. My ex, who, after badgering me to move into his house with him, had said yes to a job offer that had taken him to Texas. It had been wrong of me to think that my moving for him would have meant him staying for me. He hadn't stayed. I was living out the rest of the two-year lease at his old place, and after that, there was no guarantee I wouldn't be apartment hunting in Salt Lake again as much as I liked my neighborhood.
A sudden knock on the door startled me as I checked my emails. It swung open, and in walked Grayson Porter, my boss. I always felt the urge to stand up when he walked in, like he was a judge and this was a courtroom. He was a commanding presence, a tall, dapper man in his mid-fifties. I had worked with Porter Holdings for months as a legal consultant before I had finally met Mr. Porter. He wasn't as scary as I had expected the extremely wealthy head of a national real-estate company to be.
"Ms. Cooke," he said, smiling at me.
"Mr. Porter, good morning."
"Good morning, Natalie," he said, taking a seat in one of the chairs across my desk. "You're well?"
"Fine, thank you. What can I do for you?" I asked, turning my attention to him.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" he asked. No, nothing important, but it had still been nice of him to ask. He was the boss; even if I had been doing something else, I wouldn't have told him to come back later when I could accommodate him in my busy schedule.
"Not at all," I said.
"Good. I wanted to talk to you about something," he said. "Well, that's not strictly true. I have a request to make." I frowned a little, looking at him. This wasn't about to be the usual kind of request that I had come to expect while working for him. If it was, he would have just come out and said it already. What did he want? If he had to give it all that preamble… Great, now I was nervous.
"Yes?"
"I'm going to be absent next week. My wife and I are taking a vacation."
"Oh, that's nice," I said tentatively. "Where to?"
"Greece. I've been promising to take her on a tour of the islands for about five years now," he said with a wry smile. Grayson Porter's work ethic was famous. He allegedly hadn’t taken time off in years. He worked late constantly and had been responsible for an almost quadrupling of the company's net worth since he had taken over from his father.
"Sounds like a good trip. Everyone can do with a vacation once in a while."
"She's been telling me that for years now. It's probably a good time. Cameron could do with a little experience handling things without me." Cameron, his son: the younger Mr. Porter. He looked like his father must have twenty years ago, with slightly lighter hair and hazel eyes instead of brown like his dad's. The similarities ended there as far as I knew. I'd seen him around a few times and spoken to him fewer times than that. Once the older Mr. Porter was done, the plan was to have Cameron take his position. Now, I was in no place to judge the guy's leadership skills, but he hadn't made any indication that he would be half as good as his dad was at the job. Maybe he was great, and I was just being a bitch. His dad seemed to have faith in him, so who was I to say otherwise?
"I'm sure he'll be well supported," I supplied, figuring he didn’t want to hear what little faith I had in his heir.
"He's a fast learner," he said confidently. “Once I retire in a few years, we'll see just how fast." Retirement… yeah, he had talked to me already about the legal implications of his retirement: what that would do to Cameron, what it would mean for the company. When I had first become in-house counsel at Porter Holdings, I had been at a loss as to what Camron Porter's actual job was. It was like a corporate apprenticeship of sorts. His father was getting him ready to take over once he was done. That wasn’t uncommon, even though the practice itself didn't make the most sense to me. The guy was retiring, but he wasn't senile. He probably knew what he was doing. Who wouldn’t kill to have their whole future laid out for them? A free ride like that with guaranteed employment at the end? Sounded like a good deal, ethical issues aside.
"I suppose we will," I said.
"Hm," he said, pausing. He was pensive, a deep frown furrowing his brow. "He's been preparing for this his whole life. I've been preparing him for this his whole life."
"Then he should do great."
"He should. I want him to, but," he paused again. "You don’t have children, Ms. Cooke, do you?" I shook my head. "Cameron and I have differing opinions when it comes to the future. The closer we get to his actually taking the reins, the more resistant he's becoming. He has a distinct lack of interest, which affects his drive." Spoiled brat: it is called bei
ng a spoiled brat. Call him what he is, I thought. He was upset about having to take on real responsibility, and he was pitching a fit like a three-year-old.
"I've spent his whole life preparing for the day he wouldn't need me anymore," he said solemnly. "I think he's reacting negatively to the changes that he knows are coming."
"So what do you need me to do?" I asked. Was he disinheriting his son? Was that it?
"He's my son, but that's both the bridge and the barrier between us. I wanted to ask you to talk to him. If he can't take it from me, maybe he would understand it coming from someone he could relate to." Someone he could relate to? Who the hell was that? I had no idea, and I knew he couldn't mean me.
"I'm not sure I understand," I said.
"He isn't much older than you are. Maybe that's what he needs: to hear it from someone else. Someone closer to his age who hasn’t been telling him the same thing his whole life."
"Mr. Porter, he and I aren't exactly associates. I have hardly had to work with him during my time here."
"I understand, but it's not work I want you to talk to him about, not strictly. He's a private person; he always has been. I feel like an outside perspective from someone he considers a peer would make him more amenable to our plans. It's his professional life, true, but it's bigger than that, and that is what he doesn't want to understand." I looked at my boss, wondering how I could say no to what he was asking, even though I wasn't really sure I understood it in the first place anyway.
His kid didn't want to take over the family business; I didn’t see what the big problem was. He had enough money that he didn't have to work for it. So what if his passion wasn't in mergers and acquisitions? Let him go off and become a professional flute player; why not? He'd never go hungry, and he'd be off his parents’ backs. Clearly, if Mr. Porter was being pushed to ask me for help, he was running out of options. The way he talked, he knew as well as I did that it was an unusual request.
"I could try, Mr. Porter, but I don't know how I'd be able to convince him."
"It's his," he said. "All of it. Everything his mother and I have done since he was born has been for him. Me coming to work every day has been so he has something when I am no longer there,” he said. I swallowed, a little shaken by his earnestness. "He's my real legacy, not this company. I built it so he can begin to build his own." I took a deep breath, realizing I was at a loss too. Where the hell would I even start? What had I just agreed to?
"I'll see what I can do," I said quietly.
"Thank you, Natalie. I appreciate your help." I nodded weakly. "You don't have to talk to him immediately. After I return to work, after his unofficial trial run, try saying something to him."
"Okay. I'll do that." He got up.
"Thank you, Natalie," he repeated. I said that it was alright and watched him leave the way he had come in. Whoa. Alone in my office again, it was hard to rationalize that that conversation had even taken place. He had asked me to talk to his son, like he was a troublemaker in school and needed a little guidance. Like he was selfish with his toys and made the other kids in daycare cry. Awesome. Just great. And here I'd thought that my babysitting days were behind me.
I couldn’t fucking wait.
If I didn't love my job so much, I'd feel bad about how relieved I was at the end of every day. I had about another hour on the road before I got home, but that was my own fault. I'd stop complaining about that one day, but today was not that day. I walked the hallway from the bathroom back towards my office. I was so ready to kick these heels off. They were new, nude pumps. They were only three inches high, but they hurt because I hadn't broken them in yet. Looking up, the sight of a man in a navy suit approaching startled me.
Cameron. I hadn't seen him all day. He was walking fast, or maybe he wasn't. He was tall, so maybe his long strides just made it seem that way. His hair was light brown, combed and slicked back from his face. Speaking of that face, he had the kind that could sell you anything. The kind you'd call pretty if it lacked the harder, masculine lines of his nose and jaw.
He was going to be my project after his parents got back from their vacation. The thought was laughable, but I’d given his dad my word. Was I going to... no. I turned into the copier room as he walked past me, waiting the few seconds it took him to disappear towards the elevators. We'd have plenty of time to talk later. I'd save it ‘til then.
Chapter Three
Cameron
My parents’ balcony looked out over the pool. The house was older than I was. They had bought the land together and built their home before I had been born. The guesthouse and the pool had been later additions, and I had gotten to see them go up. It wasn't everyone that got to find their dream home, let alone build it from the ground up. Being in real estate, my father knew a thing or two about houses. It might have been because they had put this place together themselves, or maybe it was just my bias, but nowhere had ever felt more like home.
They had a number of other properties dotted across the county, some rentals, and a place in Puerto Rico where they threatened they were going to move to when they retired, but I didn't think they would actually do it. My mom was too engaged with the community here after thirty years, and Dad wasn't going anywhere without her. The house, just like the company, was supposed to go to me once they were done with it. I hated the way that they did that: reminded me all the time that the day would come when they weren't around anymore. I wasn't a kid; I understood how the life and death thing went. We were all going out the same way, but it had just been the three of us my whole life.
Nobody wanted to believe that their parents were going to be gone one day. Maybe some people did, and all that meant was I had been luckier than them to have gotten Grayson and Evangeline Porter as my parents. Retirement wasn’t the end of the line, not by a long shot, but it was a sobering reminder that the line was getting shorter. I looked over my shoulder at them. The balcony's French doors were open, and I could hear my mom and dad talking from inside their closet. Their flight was at noon; I had volunteered to drive them to the airport in Salt Lake.
Mom was probably making my father go through his suitcase according to the list she had made of everything they would need. At some point, fed up with how bad he was at packing, she had probably made him let her do it for him. We had taken international trips every year until I had left for college. As an adult, with everyone a lot busier, they had been harder to coordinate, so we hadn't been anywhere with all three of us together in a few years. They tended to manage to do something for their anniversary each year, but a vacation like this—just because they deserved one—had been a long time coming.
"You don't need more than one swimsuit, Evie," my dad said.
"Yes, I do, and so do you," I could hear her saying as I walked back into their bedroom.
"Honestly, Evie, it's ten days. We aren't relocating." I walked over to their closet, going inside. You could get places as big as my parents' closet in Provo for a price in the lower hundred bucks a month. It was massive, with his and hers sides. Glass topped cabinets at the far end of the room held my father's watch collection and part of mom's jewelry. His open suitcase was on the floor, and an untidy pile of clothes he had pulled out of drawers and off hangers was on the backless sofa in the center of the rectangular room next to my mom's open suitcase.
"Everything okay?" I asked, taking in the scene.
"Just the usual," my mom said, pulling a dress off the rack and turning to me. "What do you think about this?" she asked, holding it against her body. It had a striking red and white floral pattern and came down to below her knees.
"It looks nice," I said.
"Can't imagine who you're trying to impress Evie," my dad grumbled, teasing her.
"You got me this dress, Porter," she said accusatorily. She called him by his last name, which was hers too, which had always been a little funny to me.
"Are the tags still on? I'm returning it." She rolled her eyes and took it off the hanger, folding it
to go into her suitcase.
"Don't be surprised if only one of us gets off the plane in ten days," she said, smirking at me.
"It's going to be me. Your mother's going to run off with a bronzed, twenty-two-year-old named Hercules." I laughed. It was hard sometimes to imagine that your parents had been with other people before they had gotten together and had you. I had heard the story of how they had hooked up a lot of times. Truth was, they almost hadn't gotten together. Right after college, my dad had been a pizza delivery guy to make some extra money while helping his dad out with the company; it had only been around at that point for ten years or so. One night, he had been working as usual and made a delivery to a house, ringing the doorbell. He had had to ring it three times before anyone showed up to get it, and when someone did, it had been Mom. She had been crying, makeup smeared all over her face, eyes puffy and red, and the way Dad told it, he had fallen in love with her right on the spot.
The next time there had been a delivery to her address, he had made sure that he had taken it. Apparently, the night he had first seen her, her boyfriend at the time had dumped her, and that had been why she'd been crying. The asshole had done it over the phone. She had ordered the pizza because she had been expecting him. That second time, he had gotten her name and stuck around long enough to ask her on a date, but she had rejected him. A coincidental meeting at a party a year or so later, and the rest had been history. I didn't know whether being able to joke about his wife leaving him for a young, Mediterranean Adonis meant their marriage was healthy or on the rocks, but I did know I had never seen two people better suited to each other.
I was biased of course, but I also wasn't the only person who thought so. They had to have fought and disagreed in the past, but they had kept me far away from it. Something they had done for the past thirty years had worked because here they still were. He still pulled chairs out for her, and they still ate together at the table when they were both home. I wasn't afraid my mom would be introducing me to a Greek guy she was going to turn into my stepdad anytime soon, or ever. My parents were a bright spot when the darkness felt like it completely engulfed everything. They were good people, good to me and each other. They had values and stuck to them. My mother had been with my dad way before he had ever had a cent to his name and with everything my dad had accomplished, he wasn't a dick about it.
