Boss Meets Her Match

by Janet Lee Nye

  Shrugging, Matt lifted his hands palms up. “There’s no making it right. If you were Lena, would you ever want anything to do with us? Our family? She thinks we’re a bunch of racists.”

  “Can’t say I blame her after that. But you know—right? That isn’t true. Your mother just grabbed the lowest hanging fruit to attack you with.”

  “That doesn’t even matter. Doesn’t matter why she did it. She did it. There isn’t any taking the words back. The damage is done.”

  “I am sorry. I like her. She’s very smart and must be very good at what she does to be so well respected.”

  “You checked her out?” He shouldn’t have been surprised, but still it angered him.

  His father raised a hand and smiled. “Just looked at her firm’s website. I was curious. You’d never brought a woman for us to meet before.”

  The anger faded under the weight of sorrow. Fat lot of good it did. “That’s a mistake I’ll never make again.”

  “I am sorry,” his father said as he rose to his feet. “If I can do anything to try to fix this, tell me, Matt. I will.”

  Shaking his head, Matt stood. “I don’t think there is. No taking it back now.”

  “I’m guessing you won’t be coming up for Thanksgiving or Christmas?”

  “I can’t, Dad. I can’t even think about looking at her right now. I’d say things and, once again, ruin everything for everyone.”

  His father’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “I understand. But you and me? We’re good?”

  Were they? Matt nodded and realized he was glad his father had come. They still had a way to go, but they’d each grown up a bit. “Yeah, we’re good.”

  “Thank you,” his father said before pulling Matt into an embrace. As he hooked his arms around his father, Matt tried to remember the last time he’d hugged the man. Twenty years? Twenty-five? He stepped back with a lump in his throat. Never too old for your father’s approval to mean something to you.

  After his father left, he returned to the painting. The pain felt manageable now that he’d poured most of it onto the canvas. He pulled another tube of paint from the box and added it to the palette. Twirling a brush between his fingers, he thought about the portrait he’d painted of Lena after the first night they’d been together. How he’d struggled to capture the expression in her eyes. His fingers stilled on the brush and he dipped it lightly into the yellow paint. Began adding small patches of yellow to the angry reds and despairing blacks, brightening the edges of gray.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE GATHERING THIS Sunday was small and Lena was grateful for that. Her head still hadn’t forgiven her for the shots. She’d poured the rest of the bottle down the kitchen sink while Sadie laughed. Hangover and heartbreak notwithstanding, she’d made it out to Edisto early enough to attend the 10:00 a.m. mass with her parents.

  Father Greg was talking about forgiveness. Almost made her believe it wasn’t a coincidence.

  After church, she sat on a stool at the large granite-topped island in the kitchen, chopping whatever vegetable her mother put in front of her. Her father sat across from her, slicing fruit for sangria. Lena watched as her parents teased and talked while they prepared the meal. Her mother had her lighter skin and straight black hair. Her father was darker, mostly from a lifetime spent as a roofer, and his black hair, now shot through with gray, was curly when he let it get a little long. A wistful longing flooded her heart.

  This is what she wanted. A home that, regardless of how much money there was, was always full of love, laughter and family. She wanted to have kids. Lots of them. Four. Maybe five. She wanted to have her cousins come over and to sit on the porch sipping sangria while the kids all played together, growing up as close as brothers and sisters, just as their parents had done.

  Her mother’s arm slipped lightly across her shoulders. “What’s wrong, Lena?” she asked.

  Turning into the warmth of her mother’s touch, Lena let the tears loose, half-horrified of her loss of control, half-relieved to finally let the pain out. The last time she’d cried in her mother’s arms like this, it had been about her boyfriend slapping her. And now, a dozen years later, she was crying over the emotional slap she’d endured from Matt’s mother.

  When the tears began to taper, her mother asked again what was wrong. Lena shook her head, unable to look into her mother’s eyes. “I’m in love. I was in love. Everything is wrong,” she whispered in Spanish. This wasn’t a conversation for English.

  Ana left her side and moved to the stove. She began shutting off burners and turned to her husband. “Go watch television. Lena and I are going to talk.”

  “It’s okay, Mamacita. I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

  “You aren’t fine. Come with me now.”

  Sliding off the stool, Lena followed her mother upstairs. They went to the room Ana had turned into her own sanctuary. Bookshelves lined the walls and photographs of family and landscapes hung on every inch of available wall space. There was a rocking chair with her knitting basket beside it and a double-wide lounge chair for reading.

  The two women curled up on the lounge chair. “Tell me what’s going on. Is this about Matt?”

  Lena rested her cheek against her mother’s shoulder, feeling six years old again. It was nice. To let go of the weight of responsibility. Being a grown-up wasn’t nearly as great as kids thought it was. “It’s over.”

  “Did you want it to be over?”

  Not trusting her voice, Lena shook her head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” Lena said. “You were right.”

  Ana leaned back a little and Lena felt her stare. She peeked up. Her mother looked puzzled. “About what?”

  “You and Papa want me to marry a Hispanic man.”

  Ana sighed. “Lena. We want you to be with someone who loves you. Who you love. Yes, we think that being with someone who shares a culture with you might make things easier. Marriage is the hardest work you’ll ever do. But the most important thing is to be with someone who accepts you for you. One hundred percent.”

  “Then what was with all that Hispanic Bachelor fixing up y’all were pushing on me?”

  “We were just trying to give you choices.”

  Choices. “I have a choice to make now, Momma. An important one. And I don’t know what’s right.”

  “Digame.”

  Lena told her. Told her everything. Toward the end, she got up to pace while the angry words flowed out of her. “So this is where I am,” she finished, sitting on the edge of the lounge chair. “I love him. He’s amazing and talented and kind and smart and everything I’d ever looked for in a man. But...”

  Ana sat forward and took her hand. “But his family isn’t.”

  Lena shrugged. “I don’t know. I liked his father. He seemed like a nice guy. It was his mother, pulling that vileness out of nowhere. I love Matt, but I want kids and the thought of my children’s grandmother...” She rubbed the backs of her arms.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

  “That part of me wants to say it doesn’t matter. I love him so much that I want to pretend that his family stuff will work out. But I know it’s going to always be there. His mother planted a poisonous seed in our relationship that will grow and strangle out any love we have.” Ana stood and took both Lena’s hands in hers. Lena looked bleakly into her mother’s eyes. “There is no way to go on from here,” she whispered.

  “There’s always a way,” Ana said. “Sometimes it’s a very difficult way, but there is always a way.”

  “How, Momma?” Lena’s voice broke on the words. “How?”

  “Talk to him. Be honest. Brutally honest. Tell him exactly what you just told me. That poisonous seed metaphor is perfect. Use that.”

  Dropping her mother’s hands,
Lena turned away. “Have you been talking to Sadie? That’s all she says. Talk to him.”

  “It’s good advice.”

  Lena turned back, surprised by the anger in her voice. “I don’t want to talk to him,” she said.

  Ana pointed a finger at her. “Don’t let your pride keep you from love, Magdalena.”

  “What is love if I don’t have my pride?”

  “Pride isn’t the same thing as dignity. It’s your choice now, Lena. You can keep watering that seed she planted and let it grow. Or you and Matt can work together and make it wither and die.

  “But for now, come back to the kitchen. We’ve got about a thousand tamales to roll. Hannah is picking up Jules and bringing her and the kids for dinner. Lucia is bringing her kids too.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” Lena said, throwing herself down in the rocking chair. She needed a minute. Her mother’s words stung. Like this was her fault. This wasn’t her mess to clean up. That was on Matt and his starchy mother. And he had wanted her to stay there after she’d been disrespected! He hadn’t even called her. Hadn’t tried to talk to her. Nothing. It’s only been a day. Standing, she scowled at her own thought. Shut up. It’s done. Over. You’ve walked away from men for the stupidest of reasons. This is an actual, real reason to walk away.

  She crossed the hall to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Trying to hide the evidence of her tears. Drying her face, she met her own eyes in the mirror. Lifted her chin. You are Lena Reyes. You are the most sought-after financial guru in this town. You bow to no one. You certainly won’t bow to that stuck-up, evil, mean bitch. Mrs. Charles Beaumont Matthews the Fourth. Who is she to judge you?

  Squeezing her hands into tight fists and shaking them loose, she took another deep breath. Matt’s mother wasn’t even worth the energy of her anger.

  A loud ruckus arose from downstairs. Hannah and Lucia had arrived. With at least eight kids in tow by the sound. Lena let it wash over her. The happy, loving noise. A single voice rose above the others. Jules.

  “Is Auntie Lena here?”

  She took the joy in that sweet little voice and rubbed it like a balm over her bruised heart. If all she was ever going to be was an auntie, then she was going to be the best damned aunt on the planet. Let Mrs. Stick-Up-Her-Butt Matthews go back to her cold, silent mansion. Lena would stay right here with her messy, loud, loving family.

  * * *

  MONDAY MORNING, LENA was deep into her office routine. She kicked her shoes off under the desk and powered up her computer. Mose’s report of the weekend activities in the worldwide market was on her desk. She thumbed through it, making notes between sips of coffee. It looked to have been a relatively uneventful weekend so no major reevaluation of assets needed to be attended to immediately.

  She set the report aside and focused on her daily schedule. She loved this. The game of numbers. Move this here, sell that there. Watching her clients meet their financial goals. It filled her with pride. Making rich people richer was only the means to the end. Because of them, she could take someone like Josh Sanders, Sadie’s first hire from paycheck-to-paycheck poverty to having financial security. That’s where her real love of the game came was. Helping others.

  Speaking of which. She switched from her work calendar to her personal one. She had a lunch date with several women key in her outreach project for the teens at St. Toribio’s. She had a team. The series of talks was starting to come together. The phone on her desk buzzed.

  “Yes?” she asked Chloe as she picked up.

  “Mr. Matthews is here.”

  She froze. Matt. She was aware of the time stretching out, of Chloe patiently waiting for a response but she had nothing. Thoughts tried to form but scattered before she could grab one. Her fingers clenched around the receiver. When she found her voice, the words fell out in a stuttering staccato. “No. Meeting. Busy. Make up something. Anything.”

  She couldn’t do this. Not here. Not now. No. If they were going to talk about this, it was going to be on her terms. He didn’t get to just show up here out of the blue and...

  “Lena.”

  She looked up and blinked. He stood in the doorway of her office holding a package. Chloe peeked over his shoulder. “He walked past me, Lena. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Chloe,” she said through numb lips. Sliding her hands off the desk to hide their trembling in her lap, she forced herself to look into Matt’s eyes. He looked terrible, and that both pleased her and made her heart ache. She looked back at Chloe. “Go on—it’s okay.”

  Matt stepped through the door and Chloe lifted her hands in apology. Lena gave her a slight shrug.

  “Close the door,” she said. Her voice surprised her. Calm. Her heart was about to beat out of her chest. Matt reached out and gently closed the door.

  “I have something for you,” he said quietly. “I was going to give it to you last night, but you weren’t home.”

  Lena looked at the brown-paper-wrapped package in his hands. A painting, maybe. “Matt, what are you doing?”

  “I made this for you. I just didn’t have time to give it to you before.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  He smiled that bad boy smile. Yeah, she was going to miss that. Her chest filled with pain. “Too bad,” he said. “Because it’s yours now.” He set it down, leaning it against the wall just inside the office door and turned back to her. “I want to tell you something.”

  No. That she couldn’t do. Her heart hurt too badly. It wanted him too badly. She couldn’t listen to him. She’d make stupid decisions. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just go, Matt. There’s nothing left to be said.”

  The look on his face surprised her. His eyes narrowed and he took the few steps to stand in front of her desk. Looking up at him, she realized he was angry. That stoked her own anger. He had no right to be angry with her.

  “I listened to you, Lena.” His voice calm but the words wrapped in steely determination. “Give me the same respect.”

  She leaned back in her chair, pressing her lips together against the angry words that wanted to fly out. Words she wanted to hurt him with. She lifted a hand. Well?

  He sank down in the chair across from her. “I’m sorry about what happened. I’m sorry my mother used you to hurt me. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how hurtful it was to you when I tried to make you stay. If I’d had any idea that she hadn’t accepted my apology, if I hadn’t believed that she was sincere when she said we would try to become a family again, I would have never put you in that position. I love you, Lena. I love you. I can’t take back what my mother did or explain it away or do anything about it. But that kind of behavior is the reason I left home when I was eighteen. That whole world they live in, of living for other people’s expectations of you rather than living a life you love? I couldn’t do that.”

  Lena crossed her arms against her chest. White boy whining. This was rich.

  Matt stood and paced around the small office. “I envy you, Lena. You had what I wanted.”

  “You wanted to grow up in a trailer park? You wanted to shop at the Goodwill for your clothes? Buy used shoes? Attend schools that were falling down around your ears? You wanted to be called names because of your skin color?”

  Damn it. She hadn’t meant to say anything. She was going to sit here, pretend to listen to whatever excuses he had to make and send him on his way.

  He stopped pacing and turned back to her with a frown. “I’m sorry, Lena. No one should have to go through those things. Your family loved you. That’s what I’m fumbling around trying to say. You felt loved because you were loved. When I was twelve, I won an award for a painting I did. My father told me art was for, quote, pansies, end quote, and I needed to concentrate on getting better grades so I could get into Harvard or Yale.”

  He lifted his hands, pa
lms up. “Did you win an award in school, Lena? Bet you did. Bet you had at least a dozen family members there, cheering and embarrassing you. That’s what I envy. That’s part of why I love you. You did this.” He made a sweeping gesture, encompassing her office. “You did all of this for your family. They were with you for every step. They never once told you your dreams weren’t worthy.”

  Lena resisted a smile. At least a dozen. More like a couple of dozen. Yeah, they’d embarrassed her more than once with their support.

  “You were right. My parents? My mother? They’ve done nothing. My father was handed the keys to the law firm. But, you. You, Magdalena Reyes. Wow. You fought your way to the top with your family cheering you on the entire way. You like to tease me about being a rich trust-fund kid, but let me tell you something, all that money means nothing. Nothing without the love of family.”

  Matt came back and sat down, pulling the chair closer so he was leaning over the desk, his eyes intent on her. “I love you. I want to be part of your life. The woman I see in front of me now. That amazing, strong, passionate woman. I’ve never known anyone like you. I want to paint you for the rest of my life, and even then, I don’t think I could capture all the emotion I see in your eyes.”

  Lena swallowed down the lump in her throat. Don’t get sucked into this. It’s not going to be this easy. “Matt,” she said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat. “You can’t fix this.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t. But can we?”

  Her mother’s words echoed in her mind. She shook her head. Confused. She didn’t know what to do. What to say. Matt slowly stood.

  “Think about it, Lena. You love me. I know you do. I felt it.” He motioned at the package. “That’s for you. I hope you like it. I hope I hear from you soon.”

  She nodded, indicating that she’d heard his words. A bone-deep sense of loss filled her, making her limbs feel heavy as she watched him move to the door. He paused and held eye contact for a long beat. Then he was gone. She crossed her arms on the desk and lowered her head.