And my sister did. She put me in her car and drove me far, far away from The King’s Land.
From my engagement party.
From my fiancé, who didn’t even try and stop me.
From the life that was never meant for me.
I should have known better.
1
VERONICA
Five years later
You know what no one ever tells girls about?
Money.
No one ever tells women to have their own money and know what to do with it. How to protect it and take care of it. How to make a fire out of it that will keep a woman warm and safe her whole life. No one ever tells a newly single woman how much she’ll need to take care of her household after her husband dies or runs off with someone else. Or how to pay for the kids’ college and her husband’s spousal support, if that’s how it shakes out.
Women were lambs to the slaughter in so many ways. And at Her Safety Net Accounting and Investments I was trying to change that.
I had a few wealthy clients, women for whom I managed a low-risk hedge fund. But most of the women I met with were like the one sitting across from me, Denise.
On their own for the first time and at varying levels of broke.
“You gonna answer that?” Denise asked, casting a long look at my phone buzzing on the Formica table between us. We were in my auxiliary office—the back-corner booth of Patsy’s Pies.
“No,” I said and turned the damn thing off. Which was what I should have done from the beginning. Sabrina’s been after me all morning. “It’s just my sister.”
“She’s been calling a lot.”
“She’s not good at taking hints.”
“She in trouble?”
Denise was pretty well versed in trouble these days. She could probably smell it on my phone. “Not her.”
After my disaster engagement party, Sabrina landed on her feet in Hollywood. She was kind of a big deal. Bea, on the other hand…
“But I have another sister who is kind of…always in trouble.”
“I got a brother like that. He’s always in trouble. But I got another one that tries to keep us out of trouble. It’s not easy.”
I had sudden and deep empathy for the brother trying to keep Denise and her brother out of trouble.
“Anyway…” I made an effort to put us back on track. “You have to declare the money your ex-husband gives you for child support on your taxes.” She sat with one child on her lap, the other beside her in the booth.
I had a real office above Patsy’s, but it was amazing how much better scared, embarrassed women felt with a milkshake in front of them. Or, at least, in front of their kids. Surrounded by a little hustle and bustle. Free coffee refills helped, too.
Upstairs, it was just two chairs and a desk, and some plants I couldn’t keep alive. The office could be quiet and intimidating, and women with no childcare options always worried that their kids were going to break something.
Patsy’s Pies had a real anything goes vibe to it.
“But it’s cash, and it’s not like he gives me what he’s supposed to,” she whispered with one eye on her toddler, who wasn’t listening. He sucked chocolate shake halfway up his straw, pinched the end and then let it go so all of the liquid fell back into his cup.
“Look Mom!” he said,
“I see it, buddy.” She wasn’t looking. Denise had the pulled-too-thin look of a woman who has woken up from a dream and doesn’t recognize where she is. I saw this look a lot.
“I understand.” I stacked up her tax forms. “But having a record of what he does give will help you in court if you go back. It will protect you.”
The word protection meant something. It was shocking to realize how little protection other people gave you. A brutal lesson.
Denise nodded and kissed the infant’s head. “What else do you need from me?”
I gave her the single sheet of paper that I handed to every woman who was filling out her own tax forms for the first time. Seriously, the number of women who went from their father or mother doing the forms to their husband doing them, without ever once doing it on their own, was staggering. Women who lived below the poverty line were convinced they didn’t actually have to do taxes. But filing your taxes could open a lot of doors to aid organizations. Government funding and grants.
This was what my mother’s foundation was supposed to do when I took it over. This had been my plan all along, teaching women about financial independence. And I was doing it.
Just on a really small scale.
“You could email me the stuff on that list,” I told her. “Or, if you want to bring the originals, we could make copies of it upstairs.”
“When?”
“Soon,” I said carefully. “It seems hard, I know. I do. But it’s not once you do it. Once you just…do it. You’ll be like—jeez, what was I so scared of? It’s no big deal.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said, trying to make a joke. And I was relieved to see her smile.
Sometimes I told clients what I’d had to do to get to where I was now. Most of the time I didn’t, because these meetings weren’t about me. And I had had a diamond fucking necklace to pawn. Some of these women barely had gas money.
That night five years ago, the clothes on my back and the jewelry around my neck were the only things I took from my father.
The ranch, my life as a King, my fantasy married life as a Rorick—I left it all behind. When I sold the jewelry and the dress I was able to open up my own accounting business and put all that King Family Drama behind me. I rented a nice little house in a not-so-nice neighborhood. I stayed in touch with Sabrina and, of course, Bea, who moved in with me four years ago. But everyone else was dead to me. My father sent his lawyers, trying to tempt me back with money. I sent them all packing.
And Jennifer. Fuck Jennifer. For years I kept thinking about how she’d sent me to the study to hear my father and…that man…discuss their arrangement. She wanted me to be hurt. Punished. Put in my place. She divorced my father a few years ago, lived like a queen south of Galveston.
And that man…well, he didn’t reach out at all. Not once. And I told myself that was for the best. More proof in those early days when I wondered if maybe I should have given him a chance to explain.
If maybe it would have been worth it to marry him, so I could keep the foundation. The company.
Take care of Bea.
Bullshit. Bullshit fucking nonsense.
So, yes, in a lot of ways it was easy for me to say.
But it didn’t make the pain of being alone and heartbroken and scared any easier to bear.
“It will be easy for you, too,” I told Denise. “Trust me.”
“Thank you, Ronnie,” Denise said and looked around for the waitress. “I’ll just pay—”
“My treat,” I said.
“What?” she asked. “You don’t have to—”
“I know, but I’m going to have lunch anyway.”
She thanked me again. Prompted her children to say thank-you, and I exchanged fist bumps with the boy.
My heart squeezed as I shook the tiny fist of the baby in Denise’s arms. Lately, I’ve been having a lot dreams about babies and I usually wake up crying.
And it’s not like time was running out on me. I was only twenty-eight. But my biological clock must have been kicking in. Or maybe the sliding doors nature of my run from The King’s Land, and Dallas in general, created this imaginary life of what might have happened if I’d stayed. Five years was a long time. It’s hard to believe I wouldn’t have a family by now if I’d stayed.
It’s hard to just stop wanting something. Even if you know it’s poisoned.
But I did want children and I hated to think that was something I’d left behind in that other life. Bea was on me to date, and I tried, but inevitably something went wrong.
Bea called it self-sabotage. I called it self-preservation.
The assholes didn’t just declare th
emselves, you know?
Denise walked out the door with her kids and I rushed to the bathroom because I’d had one cup of coffee too many. In the bathroom I turned on my phone and saw four more missed calls from Sabrina. And a few texts.
SOS.
Seriously, Veronica.
Call me.
Please.
I called her, but her phone went right to voice mail. Which, since she never turned her phone off, meant she was on the other line.
After the bathroom I went on up to Melody at the counter and gave her my lunch order.
“Soup is broccoli–cheddar,” she said, because she knew my weakness.
“Excellent. I’ll have that.”
“Grilled cheese, too?”
“Yes, you devil. And could I have the tiniest piece of cherry pie, too?”
Melody looked over at the rotating pie display. “Before or after?”
I sucked air through my teeth. “Before.”
Melody cut me a sliver of pie and handed it to me. “I’ll bring the rest by.”
“You’re the best, Melody,” I said and turned to face the restaurant. It was one of those old-school diners, like a little rabbit den. Coat stands by each booth. Tables with wooden chairs in the center. I always took the back booth in the corner, because it was right by the kitchen and no one cared if I sat there all day.
“Hey!” Janice, a redhead with freckles like a sky’s worth of stars splashed across her face, caught me at the corner. She had one hand full of pancakes, a burger in the other.
Hmmm…should I have gotten the burger?
“A guy was asking for you,” she said.
“A guy?” I bent sideways to see my booth. And there was a man there. His back was to me and the rest of the restaurant. He’s wore a blue coat.
A prickly fight-or-flight impulse flooded me. Over time, a few husbands and ex-husbands have come to tell me to keep my nose out of their wife’s/girlfriend’s/ex-wife’s business. That my financial freedom mantra was fucking shit up for them.
And to them I always said “Good.” And then threatened to call the cops.
It was usually the only thing required.
“Did he say who he was?”
“No. But he knew you always sat in that booth. Said he’d wait for you. Sorry, if that—”
“No. It’s cool. Totally fine.”
The phone in my back pocket rang again, but it was the police siren ringtone—which was the one I assigned to Bea. I let it ring while I crossed the restaurant to my booth. The guy’s hair was a little long, a dark brown, almost black. Under the fine blue wool of his jacket, his shoulders were very wide.
I really hoped he wasn’t going to be trouble.
“Hi,” I said. “I understand you’re looking—”
He turned to me and the words died. They just curled up and died on my suddenly dry tongue.
“Hello, Veronica.”
Oh, his voice.
All these years and his voice still sent shockwaves through me. My knees buckled, but I forced myself to stand. I forced myself to stay when the impulse to run was screaming in my head.
I forced myself to be calm, when all I wanted to do was throw this pie in his face.
“Clayton,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
2
VERONICA
“Please,” he said. “Sit down.”
I did. Not because he said so, but because it was my damn booth. I wasn’t going to run away from my own damn booth. I took my time, though, setting down my pie. Shifting my computer and paperwork to the side. I felt like I looked calm. Cool.
Indifferent.
Inside I was a war zone.
My poker face was as good as his now. Perhaps better. And when I finally looked at him, I was stone cold, baby.
Fuck you, I thought and refused to catalogue the changes in his face. I had a sense of his being honed down, somehow. Sharper. Everything extraneous taken away. But then I forced myself to stop noticing anything.
I watched his eyes drift over my body, taking in the high ponytail, my new bright-red glasses and my flowy black shirt, which hid all my cheese sins.
His rude-boy lip quirked, just a little, a grin he couldn’t control, and then he said, “You look good, Veronica.”
All my shock exploded into rage. My hands shook with it.
You’re going to come here and mock me? Fuck. You.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your father has died.”
I blinked and blinked again, waiting for the news to settle around me. In me. But, weirdly, all I could think was that that was why Sabrina was calling me.
My father was dead.
“A heart attack,” he continued. “It was sudden. But he hasn’t been well for a while.”
Should I feel shocked? I didn’t. I didn’t even feel grief. I felt nothing.
I’d come to terms with my relationship with my father years ago, and his buying me a husband had been the final nail in the coffin. But I imagined, for a second, how my sisters would be feeling. Sabrina and Bea with all their daddy issues. This was going to hurt them.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His hand lifted like he might…what? Touch me?
Was he insane?
I shot him a don’t even think about it glare and his hand settled back down on the table.
“Hey, Ronnie.” Melody put down my food in front of me. The cheese soup and the grilled cheese sandwich. My side of the table was a cluttered mess—my lunch, my work. Denise’s son had left a toy car.
His side was empty. There was only him, his crossed hands. The navy suit. The glimpse of white sleeve. Looking at his wrist sent something cold and awful through me. I was done with my shame. I’d packed it up, put it away, but looking at him I could feel the way it lingered.
Its cold, awful fingers around my heart. And stomach.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Melody asked Clayton.
“He’s not staying long,” I answered, and Melody’s smile, before she walked off, was razor sharp.
The idea of eating my food in front of him was utterly repugnant. So I pushed my plate and soup to the side for a second.
“Is there anything else you need to tell me? Or did you track me down to Austin just to give me the good news?” I asked. I was trying not to be sarcastic. Not to reveal anything. But I was failing.
“The funeral is in three days at the ranch. Followed by the will reading.”
I widened my eyes. “I don’t…care about the will. I want nothing of his.”
“I can understand that. But should you change your mind…” He opened up his suit jacket and pulled out an envelope. He set it down on the table and slid it over to me. Resolutely, I didn’t touch it.
“The foundation,” he said, “will be discussed.”
“He kept it going?” I asked. “I thought for sure my father would close that down after I was gone.”
“The company kept it going.”
Damn it. Damn him.
But I still left the envelope on the table. I could read it when he was gone.
He smiled and I was reminded of how he used to admire my stubbornness.
He smiled and I was reminded of how he tasted. And how I could never get enough of him.
My cheeks got hot and I looked down at the little toy car left behind by Denise’s son. A little red sports car.
It wasn’t real, I had to remind myself. That smile was a show. A trick.
“You’ve made a good business for yourself,” he said.
“You’re making that assumption from my satellite office in Patsy’s Pies?”
“Your real office is upstairs,” he said. “Her Safety Net Accounting and Investments.”
“How do you know that?”
Was he in touch with Sabrina? Seemed doubtful.
“Do you honestly think I wouldn’t have kept track of you?” he asked, leaning forward, so close I could smell him over the butter and cheese of my lunch. I leaned back, bu
t it wasn’t far enough. “You were my fiancée, Veronica.”
Kept track of made me feel like I was something he’d misplaced. A sock or a watch.
Ugh. Not a watch.
“You’ve been busy the last five years,” he said. “Starting your business. Bea moving in. You’ve accomplished a lot.”
“You had me followed?” I asked.
“I had to know you were all right.”
“The irony of that makes me a little sick,” I said, resisting the urge to throw my soup in his face. “You’ve delivered your message. You can go.”
He didn’t move and I wanted to scream at him.
“You should be at the funeral,” he said. “I think…for your sisters, you should be there.”
“Will you be there?”
“Of course.”
“Then I won’t. Leave.” The words sounded high and strained, and he just sat there, like what I wanted, what I needed, just didn’t matter to him.
Not today, Satan, I thought and started to gather my shit. My computer and files. The left-behind toy car. If he wouldn’t go, I would.
“Veronica,” he said, and his fingers brushed against the knuckle of my thumb. I felt it so specifically—so completely—I had to fling his fingers off. Fling them off or literally blow up.
“Don’t.” I couldn’t look at him, only stare down at my grilled cheese sandwich, furiously blinking back tears.
“I’m sorry.” He gathered up his fine blue jacket and his rude lips, his leaner face and strong wrists and…left.
He just left.
I didn’t watch him go. But I heard the bell over the door, assumed it was him, and exhaled so hard I was folded over the table. My head against the Formica.
“Jesus H., hon, who the fuck was he?” It was Melody, of course. She liked the gossip.
“No one,” I said to the Formica. The girl for whom he was everything was gone. Burned to dust in the humiliation of that night. In my back pocket my phone buzzed and I pulled it out.
I didn’t have to look.
“Sabrina,” I said.
“Oh, my God, Ronnie,” my sister said, her voice thick with tears. “He’s gone. Our father is gone.”
Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me to go. I can’t do it. I love you, little snowflake, but I can’t…
The Tycoon Page 3
