by C. L. Donley
C. L. Donley
Rich Little Poor Girl
Copyright © 2019 by C. L. Donley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
First edition
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
Find out more at reedsy.com
Contents
Prologue: Ten Years Ago
Present Day
Present Day
Ten Years Ago
Present Day
Present Day
Ten Years Ago
Present Day
Ten Years Ago
Present Day
Ten Years Ago
Present Day
Ten Years Ago
Present Day
Present Day
Present Day
Epilogue
I Love Reviews!
Have You Joined the Mailing List Yet?
About the Author
Also by C. L. Donley
Prologue: Ten Years Ago
Solomon Dvorak doesn’t see— only hears— the young cafeteria worker walk out of the room as he looks down from the 45th floor of his corner office, down at the empire that his father built, that he’s managed to continue in the same tradition.
His blue eyes are vivid yet uninviting, his marble stone features sterile and wrinkled. He feels a tremor in his hand, in his own brain, and wonders just how much time he has left. But he only wonders, refusing to ever have it confirmed. His father had allowed a doctor to declare a deadline over his existence, and he’d naively rushed to meet it. Solomon would not be following in his footsteps.
He supposed it was too much to ask for God to spare his family another medical clusterfuck. So he didn’t ask.
Any minute now, Ben was probably going come storming in here, pigeon-toed and angry. Because Solomon had done yet another thing for his own good. It vexed him to no end that Ben walked around the building without his crutches, waddling around like some fucking aquatic bird. An unintended consequence of being born a Dvorak. Who would dare tell him that they all pitied him and thought he was a freak? Everyone kept calling him “brave,” and Solomon was forced to hide his disdain for his son’s private rebellion.
“Mr. Dvorak, your son is here to see you,” his intercom warbles.
Solomon Dvorak feigned ignorance.
“I have two sons, Margaret, which one are you referring to?”
Sure enough, before Margaret could answer, Ben roared through the double doors in his usual sharp dress, his scissor walk over pronounced, his espresso brown eyes blazing but not particularly threatening. Not like his older brother Grant, a young version of his own father, intimidating and sure, like a lion. Ben was more like a very stern puppy. Good for nothing but attracting women and getting people to buy things they wouldn’t otherwise. Not entirely useless. Solomon’s last resort, you could say. Today, the puppy was baring his teeth.
“What the hell’s going on? Was Cynthia fired?”
“Back from lunch already, Mr. Dvorak?” Solomon said to his son, “I think the quants downstairs are still awaiting your contribution.”
“Look, whatever you have against me, take it out on me. If you ever want this company to outlive you, you’ll stay out of my personal life!”
“You insult me, Benjamin. What brought Miss Gordon to my office was a professional matter.”
“Since when does a cafeteria worker need to speak to the CEO of the Dvorak Group?”
“It was a very serious professional matter.”
“The mashed potato serving sizes are too big dad? Save it. Why can’t you admit that you’re trying to run my life, the way you’ve tried to run everyone else’s?”
“I know you well enough to know that trying to run your life is beyond my powers.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her that she is terminated effective immediately and that for the sake of my son, we won’t be pressing charges.”
Ben just stood there stunned.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I have it on good authority that Miss Gordon had extensive plans to sabotage the company. Plans that involved you.”
“'On the good authority’ of whom, one of your goons? I don’t want to hear anymore. You’ll say anything to get what you want.”
“Not true. You think I don’t want you to be happy, son? Everything I do, I do it for the family, Benjamin.”
“Is that why mom left? And Grant’s a fucking basket case? Because of all your magnanimous sacrifices?”
“Your mother didn’t ‘leave.’ Moving your mother’s treasure chest of belongings from Scarsdale to a storage unit and a Manhattan apartment hardly deserves the term.”
“Was this your call? Or Melanie’s?”
“Melanie was concerned. I looked into the matter for her, that’s all.”
“There is no ‘matter.’ Cynthia’s a friend. A good friend, and one of your best employees. She doesn’t deserve this.”
Good indeed, his father thought with a faint smirk, his long fingers pointing into a pyramid as he spoke like a movie villain. “I applaud your… diplomatic language son. You’ll need it in the future. But honestly, you can’t be so sloppy about these things,” he said, moving from his chair to sitting on the edge of his large polished desk. “I understand your insistence to start at the bottom, and I admire it. It’s commendable. But it’s not necessary. Not if it leads you to forget who you actually are.”
“This is fucking insane! I’m here, aren’t I? I want to be! I’m doing what you wanted, I’m taking over the business! You really think I’m going to let you imprison me like this?”
“Ben, don’t be so dramatic. You imprisoned your own self with your recklessness. You have a fiancée who’s concerned. Who, instead of becoming jealous and unruly and calling things off, did the right thing, the prudent thing, and asked for help. You’ve humiliated her, and you will make it up to her.”
“I’m going to make it up to her by calling it off. She doesn’t deserve me, and I’m too young to be doing this.”
“I would agree with you in this case, but if you’re throwing away a good match just to chase a cafeteria worker—”
“I’m going after her, dad. Whether you want me to or not. There’s nothing you can say to convince me she’s guilty of whatever your ‘good authority’ has cooked up.”
“I figured as much,” Solomon sighed, feigning deference. “Honestly, I hope you find her. I suspect she’ll leave town to avoid investigation, but I’m a romantic at heart too, Benjamin.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I hope I’m wrong. She’s very bright. Smart. Tough. She called me a cunt.”
“She what?” Benjamin snickered.
“I can see why she captured your… imagination.”
Ben put his tongue in his cheek. “Okay, I’ll bite.”
“Bite what?”
“Cut the bullshit dad, why would Cynthia leave town?”
“I promised her that I wouldn’t tell you the details.”
“I see.”
“It was part of our… deal. For a petty deceiver, she seems to care a great deal about your opinion of her.”
“Fine. It looks like I’m going to have to find out for myself.”
“Benjamin, your judgment has be
en severely clouded by this young lady. I doubt your search will result in the truth. If she is innocent, then let her come to you. That is my advice.”
“Screw your advice.”
“Did Miss Gordon tell you anything about how she came to work here?”
“The new cafeteria manager. Poached her from the last place he worked, what of it?”
“Did you know her mother was laid off a year ago by the Delco Plant, a Dvorak subsidiary?”
“No.”
“And that her mother was sold a subprime mortgage loan by Penny-Wilde, who sold it to Century Acquisitions, now also a Dvorak company?”
“What the hell does this have to do with anything?”
“It appears your sweet kitchen wench isn’t who she said she was. I’ll simply leave it at that.”
Ben gave his old man a squint before he shook his head as if fending off a spell.
“I can’t listen to anymore. I’m going to find Cynthia. And if you try to stop me, I’ll quit.”
“You’ll do more than quit, Benjamin. You’ll leave and never return.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, dad.”
“Where will you go? What will do?”
“Stop pretending to be concerned. Besides, I can figure that out after school.”
“Surely you don’t expect me to pay for that anymore. Your little private savings would barely cover a semester.”
Of course, he knew about his savings, Ben huffed. Still, he was immovable.
“Fine. I’m sure there are plenty of places I can go with an undergrad degree in finance and the last name Dvorak.”
“Not if I call in a favor at every other investment bank between here and China.”
Instead of going off in a rage, Ben just laughed. It all just seemed so hysterical. Of all the things to make his dad pull out all the manipulative stops, it was Cynthia.
“All this? To keep me from chasing after some girl? What does she have on you?”
“All this, Benjamin, to keep you from ruining your life and running what I’ve built into the ground.”
“There’s more than one way to do business, dad. What, you’re gonna let Doug run this place?”
“Doug has been with me almost as long as you’ve been alive.”
“And I’m sure he knows where aaall the bodies are buried. If you want to give the family business to a depraved opportunist just to spite me, then you may as well disown me anyway.”
“Valerie and Grant will get everything. Based solely on the condition that you get nothing.”
Ben was further stunned. This time it wasn’t amusing.
“Well. It’s nice to see how you really feel about being a father. Dad.”
“That’s your one problem, Benjamin. You still insist on referencing your feelings, as though they could possibly be relevant. You’re an investment banker, son. If you want to grow a conscience at the last minute, by all means, chase your conniving bed wench. You’ll have a full range of feelings at your disposal then. The only thing you won’t have is access to any more of my finances. You’ll see how important feelings are then, Benjamin. You’ll be very knowledgable. Knowledgable and poor. It’s a wretched state to be in— or so I’ve heard.”
Ben felt pain and anger welling up inside him, but the last thing he would ever do is let his father see that he’d hurt him.
Ben was suddenly finding out that he was too chicken shit to go after the woman he loved, too spineless to be happy. With brute force, he cut the cord to his emotions.
“You’re a monster,” was all he said.
“Yes, yes. You all keep saying this,” Solomon said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s a good thing I never had this sentimental problem that you have, or else I may not be able to come to work every day and provide for you ungrateful lot. I’ll need your resignation notice by the end of the day, by the way. In case you’re truly serious about this little tantrum of yours. You may as well head to your mother’s house because your apartment locks will be changed.”
“Suck a bag of dicks, dad.”
“Or, you could… do nothing. And I’ll assume you’re ready to put your grown-up britches on and act like an adult. And in that case, I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”
“The earliest, you bastard,” Ben said, steeling his resolve to come up with a plan to escape his father’s stranglehold on his life. “You’ve taken away the one thing that would’ve kept me in line, dad. For now, I’m going to play your little game. Until I’m the best at it. And then I’m going to beat you at it. This company will be mine, dad. And when it is, my first order of business will be to fire that fat fuck,” Ben replied, referring to Doug, who was in the room. Ben pointed directly to him without taking his eyes off his father.
His father smiled as Ben turned on his tiptoes, in his familiar bowed and labored gait.
“I’m genuinely glad we understand each other better, Mr. Dvorak.”
“Go to hell,” Ben replied as he walked out of the high double doors.
1
Present Day
“Mr. Dvorak, Evan is here to see you.”
“Send him in, Lisa.”
Benjamin Dvorak finds himself in the spacious corner office that once belonged to his father, sitting behind the massive cherry wood desk that holds 101 memories. Almost as many as the hospital. Almost.
For the first time in ten years, there’s only one Mr. Dvorak at the company again. But for the first time ever, it’s Benjamin, not Solomon.
Not as ceremonious of a transition as he’d imagined. He didn’t get to fire Doug yet, for instance. But it’s just as well. He’s only been in charge for six months, and he hasn’t wanted to make waves or make anyone feel nervous that ought to feel nervous. Ben wants the slip-ups to continue so that the hammer drop could have its full impact.
But it seems another drops before he has the chance.
Just now, he’s called a meeting with Evan Bolinger, his Junior VP of Derivatives Management, once his contemporary that came up alongside the ranks with him when they were both lowly undergrad analysts. Evan recently sent a scathing open letter to a New York newspaper slamming the Dvorak Group for their unethical practices.
The double doors open tentatively and Evan shyly appears on the other side as his assistant closes them behind him.
“Pull up a chair, Mr. Bolinger.”
Evan respectfully takes a seat, wondering if he should be formal or fraternal with his new boss. He doesn’t yet know what type of CEO Ben planned to be. He seems to be running the place in a way that no one would notice the old man is gone.
“My second time in the big office after all these years, and it’s you,” Evan sighed.
“Should’ve blown up your career last year, eh?” Ben replies with a grin, though Evan doesn’t return it. He seems a bit nervous.
“Come on, Evan, there’s no way you could think this was gonna end well.”
“No, it’s just… how’s your dad?”
“My dad?”
“Sol— Mr. Dvorak.”
“I know who my dad is.”
“I trust he won’t be coming back?”
“He has no plans to come back as of yet. I can’t imagine why any of that matters.”
“It’s a big deal for everyone.”
“Maybe,” Ben shrugs. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I suppose I was asking about you in a roundabout way. Doug talks.”
Doug. The name makes him want to spit fire. Turns out he does indeed know where the bodies are buried so, for now, he stays.
“Doug is holding on by a thread of blackmail.”
“Doug talks a lot. Says when he last spoke to Sol he sounded very confused.”
“Doug has not spoken to my father, he’s a liar. Sol Dvorak is just taking a long, overdue vacation,” Ben says it in a way so stoic that it could only be a lie. “Speaking of vacations…”
“Look, I’m not expecting to get my severance,” Evan be
gins reasonably, “or the rest of my annual bonus, or any of the time, sweat and tears from the best years of my life that I gave.”
“A smart man.”
“I just want my stock.”
Ben gives him an exhausted head shake.
“Your stock is predicated on you completing your contract.”
“Which I have.”
“How do you figure?”
“Ben… I’ve been here twelve years.”
“And now you’re quitting,” Ben briefly raises his thick eyebrows.
“I’m entitled to at least five years’ worth of stock.”
“You didn’t have stock options when you first started, Evan,” Ben says, sitting back in his father’s chair. “I didn’t. No one did.”
“Stop pointing that out, as if you were ever on the same level as us,” Evan sneers.
“You’re right, I had more of a handicap. I chose to work my way up,” Ben insists.
“My ass.”
He shouldn’t let the implication get to him, but he does. He’s the boss now, as he would have always been. He didn’t have to take the time to prove himself, but he did. The more he tried to earn his colleague’s respect, the more they refused to give it. Jealous shits.
“You would’ve probably sucked my father’s dick if you could trade places with me and skip every rung you had to climb.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ben.”
“You manage derivatives to make a difference, Evan?”
“I manage derivatives because I wanted to do business.”
“You sure it wasn’t because you wanted the prestige of putting The Dvorak Group on your premium stock business cards?”
“I could’ve easily gone to Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.”
“But you didn’t. Maybe there, you couldn’t overcharge your least knowledgable clients without reproach so easily?”
Evan sucks on his teeth. “Same thing happens everywhere and you know it.”
“Problem is, the public thinks it only happens here. And that, Evan, is because of you. What would you have me do?”
“I’m the last one to play the martyr, you know that. But that’s how bad it’s gotten. Things have to change, Ben. I did what our Junior Management Directing cocksuckers told me, same as you. What was your excuse, choirboy? Had to live in the city off of $150K, did you?”
