Under My Rules

by Rhonda Bowen

  Khai closed his eyes.

  “I need a second tree.”

  Portia watched as he fell backwards into the truck against the tree as if she had knocked him over. She folded her arms and shook her head.

  “And you say I’m dramatic?”

  Chapter 12

  Khai was glad to see that Portia’s mood had improved since hours earlier when he picked her up. Instead of pouting from the passenger seat, she was humming Christmas carols after searching through his satellite radio to find a channel that played them. Now they were on their way back to the city and more importantly to Portia’s mother’s house.

  Khai wasn’t sure how he felt about this part. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to meet her mother, he did. He was more than a little curious about the woman who had birthed the enigma sitting beside him. But it was weird meeting the mother of a woman he wasn’t dating. In fact, if he really thought about it, the fact that she had asked him to go with her to buy a tree when she had a brother and Brady to help her was also kind of weird. But honestly, he wasn’t trying to think about it. He was just trying to enjoy this Sunday after Thanksgiving with his friend. His beautiful, interesting friend, who had more curves than a racetrack and who he often found himself thinking about in very non-platonic ways.

  “So why couldn’t you get Brady to do this with you?” He took a left where she directed into her mother’s neighborhood.

  “Because he’s still in Dallas with his parents for Thanksgiving,” Portia said. “He’s not back until Tuesday.”

  “And you couldn’t wait till then?”

  “Christmas trees get bought the Sunday after Thanksgiving,” she said. “That way I can have my trimming party the first weekend in December before everyone else gets bogged down with Christmas events.”

  “But if you got it on Tuesday or Wednesday, it would still be in your apartment for the weekend,” Khai reasoned.

  “Not if I couldn’t find a tree,” Portia said. “If I wait until the middle of the week, then I can only go after work, which means I only have a couple hours to search instead of the whole day like on the weekend. Plus, with the sun setting close to five, I barely have enough daylight to see the trees I’m picking. You can’t pick a tree in the dark, Khai. That’s just asking for disaster.”

  He tried to be quiet about it. When she whacked him on the shoulder, he knew she had caught him laughing.

  “Don’t laugh at me!”

  He would have felt bad, then he noticed the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. He knew she realized just how crazy she sounded.

  “Okay fine,” she said with a laugh. “I am a little neurotic with the schedule, but you can’t tell me it doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does, PJ,” he swallowed back another laugh. “In your world, it definitely does.”

  He knew that would have earned him another whack. Luckily, they pulled into her mother’s driveway.

  “Mom, I’m here!”

  While she went to open the front door, Khai retrieved her mother’s tree from the trunk. It was a little smaller than the one Portia picked for herself and easy to carry. According to Portia, her mom hated big trees and barely had the space for one anymore. From what he saw as he headed up the walkway, she was right. The home was a small two-story Victorian with a single car garage and a front porch that ran the length of the house.

  Khai maneuvered the tree around the Volkswagen in the driveway and up the steps. He paused at the door.

  “Come in, Khai. You can take the tree over there.”

  “Uh, PJ, I can’t exactly see you.”

  “Oh!” She giggled and came around to the other side of the tree. “Sorry. Just follow me.”

  “Ok, I think I found the tree stand. Oh my, that’s a big one!”

  Khai could hear the voice he assumed to be Portia’s mother, but didn’t see her until moments later after he had set and secured the tree in its stand. He stood and found himself looking down slightly at an older copy of the beautiful woman he had come to know. Okay. If this was how Portia was going to age, he could get with it.

  “Mom, this is Khai. Khai, this is my mom.”

  Khai wiped the dust from the tree on his pants before reaching forward. “Nice to meet you, Miss Wynters.”

  She smiled brightly at him. “You can just call me Yvonne. And it’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Finally?” Khai turned to look at Portia. A smile tugged at his lips.

  So she had been talking to her mother about him.

  “You can wipe that smile off your face,” Portia said smirking. “My mother knows everyone in my life, even creepy Carl.”

  “Yes, I hear you had something to do with getting rid of him,” Yvonne raised an eyebrow at Khai.

  Khai shrugged, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Just helping out a friend.”

  Yvonne chuckled. “I’ll bet.”

  “Ooookay,” Portia put a hand on his shoulder and turned him towards the door. “So mom, that’s your tree. We’ll help you decorate it after dinner this week.”

  “Thank you, baby,” Yvonne said as she followed them to the door. “But I thought Derek would be bringing it this year like he always did?”

  Khai turned to look at Portia. The way she avoided meeting his eyes told him more than she could have with her words. Before any of them could say anything however, a car door slammed and footsteps sounded on the porch.

  Portia moved towards the door. “We should g—”

  “Portia, what are you doing here?”

  Khai looked up to find Derek standing at the door, a confused expression on his face. Probably the same confused expression Khai had on his.

  “What do you mean what am I doing here? I need a reason to see my mother?” The look on Portia’s face could have melted ice.

  “She just brought me this wonderful tree she and Khai got,” Yvonne said grabbing her son’s arm and leading him into the living room. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Derek frowned. “But I always get you your tree.” He turned to look at his sister. “You know that.”

  “Oh, I figured you would be too busy running Solid by yourself to bother with the people in your life,” she shrugged. “My bad.”

  Derek’s expression hardened into stone as he glared at his sister. She glared right back. Khai knew instinctively that whatever was going on with them had nothing to do with Christmas trees.

  “You know I always do this for Mom,” Derek growled.

  “Whatever, Derek. It’s just a tree,” she rolled her eyes. “Get over it.”

  The expression that passed over Derek’s face made Khai grab Portia’s arm. He almost shoved her out the door.

  “We’re gonna go. Miss Wynters, nice to meet you. Derek.” Khai didn’t even wait for a response as he hustled Portia down the driveway into the vehicle.

  She had used him.

  He knew it, but somehow he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that his Portia, the woman who always did the right thing, who always took the high road, had just used him to get back at her brother. And he hadn’t even realized it. He, whose job it was to know the details of everything, had missed this.

  He was still seething about it when they pulled up to her driveway.

  “Khai.”

  He had caught her sneaking glances at him during the drive but she hadn’t tried to say anything. Not until he opened her door for her to get out of the car.

  “Khai, I’m sorry.”

  He opened the back hatch and pulled out the tree, tossing it over his shoulder. He didn’t wait for her as he headed up the walkway. She ran ahead anyway and opened the door so he could take the tree upstairs. He didn’t look at her until he rested the tree on the ground in her living room.

  “You used me.”

  “No. I didn’t mean to. I just...”

  He was angry, but he was trying his best to keep the volume of his voice in check. “I have never used you like that. Never lied to you. Never omitted information, b
ut you downright used me just now. All to get back at your brother? Is that what I am to you? Someone you call when you need something but who you kick out of your apartment when you get tired of them?”

  There was a look of panic in her eyes as she searched his face. “No, of course not. You’re my friend.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes!”

  “So why didn’t you tell me the reason you asked me to come with you today was because you were too mad at Derek to ask him?”

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t the reason.”

  He felt his chest ache from how hard he was trying to hold back his anger. “Wasn’t it?”

  “No.” She reached out her hand to touch him, but seemed to think better of it and pulled back, wringing her fingers together instead. “I asked you to go with me because I wanted to go with you to pick the tree. I love taking my time to find the right tree, but Derek always tries to rush me to pick one so we can go. I knew you wouldn’t be like that. You’re never like that with me. You never make me feel like...like you have somewhere else to be when you’re with me.”

  He stared at her. Her words punctured holes in the balloon of anger in his chest. So she had wanted to spend time with him. The thought made him happy, but he tried not to dwell on it too long. After all, she had still used him.

  “You still used me to get back at Derek with your mother’s tree.”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I did and I’m sorry.”

  He looked at her expectantly. She took another deep breath, then sank down into the couch.

  “He wants to give away forty-five percent of the company.”

  Khai frowned. “What?”

  She looked at him. “You know we’ve been looking for investors to grow the company. I’ve always said to him, it’s better to spread the investment around through several investors, each having a small part, rather than through one big investor. Having someone interested in investing so much into your company is great, but when they hold forty-five percent, it’s dangerous. It takes control of your company out of your hands and puts it into the hands of someone else. If they decide they want to go another direction, they just need to get a few other shareholders on board to swing a vote. If one day they decide to pull out, it puts us in a precarious position.”

  “That make sense,” Khai sank down beside her. “Have you shared that with Derek?”

  “Of course,” Portia fell back against the headrest. “We’ve talked about this dozens of times. We agreed that the best strategy was to spread the investments around. Now though, because he has someone interested in putting that much in, he feels like he can’t pass up the offer.”

  Khai shrugged. “It doesn’t matter though. You both have to agree right? If you don’t agree then it can’t happen.”

  Portia turned to look at Khai scowling. “That’s the way it should be right? So tell me why Derek’s already in talks with this investor to agree to the forty-five percent split? He completely went over my head about this.”

  “What happened when you confronted him with it?”

  Portia threw up her hands. “He wouldn’t talk about it. He’s been completely shutting me out.”

  “Portia, right now you and Derek own this company together.”

  She shook her head. “Right now we own seventy percent together. The other thirty percent is split between three other investors. The current split has worked because Derek and I always make our decisions together. But if we split our vote...”

  She ran her hand over her face. “It will cause instability in the company at a time when we need to be united. How can we think of going public when the CEO and the COO can’t even agree?”

  Khai watched anxiety tighten all her features. And seeing her this anxious was like a fist around his heart.

  “PJ, babe, you have to talk to him. Work this out.”

  She shook her head. “You know what hurt the most? He didn’t even talk to me first. I kept asking him about who his potential investors were and he wouldn’t let me in on it. It’s not so much about the forty-five percent. I don’t like it. It’s bad business. But if we both talked about it, prayed about it and felt this was what God was saying we should do, then I would have been ok with it.” She squeezed her eyes shut, her voice cracked. “But he shut me out. Like my opinion doesn’t matter. Like I don’t matter.”

  He reached over and pulled her closer, folding her into his arms. He felt her fingers grip his sweater as she sniffled against his chest. He hated to see her like this; hated to see her hurting because someone she cared about had put her second…again.

  She didn’t know it, but he knew about Barry. He knew about the loser she dated before and he had heard enough to know that the sorry excuse for a man had not valued her like she deserved. And then there was her absentee father. Khai knew nothing about him other than the fact that he lived in another state and that Portia never talked about him. He was one more person that had let her down. But he never thought Derek would join that list.

  It was decided.

  He would be having a talk with Derek.

  Very soon.

  Portia pulled back, wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry to cry all over you.”

  He shook his head, wiping wetness from her cheek with his thumb. “It’s okay.”

  She frowned. “Did you just wipe tree-dirt on my face?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Not intentionally.”

  “Either way, I’m gonna have to go wash my face now.”

  He chuckled. “Okay.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then slipped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

  “Thank you, Khai.”

  Her embrace triggered a wave of emotion in him. But before he could show her just how welcomed she was, she got up and crossed the floor to her room. He lay back against the couch and closed his eyes.

  Portia.

  Right now all he wanted to do was walk out there and fight the world for her. He knew he could take care of her. If she gave him the chance, he would treat her the way she deserved, value her like the prize she was.

  Would you?

  The question seemed to come from somewhere outside of him. It annoyed him. Of course he would take care of her. He cared for her, more than he had any other woman. He would never place her second.

  What about when it gets hard?

  Not even then. He would be there. Just like Kristoffe was for Mandy. If his brother could do it, so could he. They weren’t that different. They came from the same cloth.

  Except he has something you don’t.

  That thought disturbed Khai. He didn’t want to think about faith. About God. About all the things Mandy had been talking about at Thanksgiving. He couldn’t deal with that right now.

  But what if this thing that he didn’t want to think about, was what determined the kind of man he really was? He wanted to believe he was a stand-up guy, that he would do the right thing in every situation. But was he? He thought about the flash drive full of information sitting in his condo in LA. Was he even doing the right thing in his life now? And if he wasn’t doing right when it came to himself, how could he be sure he could do right by any of the people he cared about?

  What kind of man was he really?

  He wasn’t sure. But he knew he couldn’t keep dodging the questions for much longer.

  Chapter 13

  It was not a good day.

  The moment Portia opened her eyes in bed that morning she knew it wouldn’t be, and her four outfit changes before she could get through the door proved it. The voices in her head had awakened bright and early this morning, practically yelling at her as she looked at herself in the mirror.

  She knew she had put on some weight. She could feel it in the waist of her pants. She secured her belt on the third hole instead of the fifth and that meant something in her waistline had changed, and not for the better. And that realization made her struggle with the temptation to skip breakfast.

  But
the tiny voice in the back of her head - the one almost stifled by the negative ones - reminded her that it was a slippery slope. One skip of breakfast and before she knew it, she would be going that whole day without eating. And that scared her.

  As if that hadn’t been enough, she arrived at work that morning to find an unfamiliar and unwelcome voice in her mailbox. Portia didn’t even bother to wonder how the woman had gotten her number. A quick Google search would have easily attached Portia’s name to Solid Step Footwear and a call to the front desk would have sent the call straight to her voicemail. That didn’t make it any less irritating.

  “Hi, my name is Casey Wynters. I’m the daughter of Douglas Wynters. We have the same father. I was wondering...hoping actually...that maybe we could talk. I know this is kind of awkward but, we are family so—”

  Portia deleted the message after that. Casey, or whoever she was, was wrong. They were not family. Her family was Derek and her mother and her mother’s brothers and sisters and her mother’s parents. She would even loop in her grandparents on Douglas’ side since they had at least made the effort to stay in contact with Portia and Derek after the divorce. But beyond that, she didn’t have room for anyone else.

  It didn’t stop the rest of her day from going off kilter however. It was almost one-thirty and she was behind schedule. She was still trying to talk herself into having lunch. Lunch, which she really should have eaten an hour ago. She had been at it on and off for about an hour.

  “So now you’re siccing your boyfriend on me?”

  Portia looked up wearily from her desk. “Excuse me?”

  Derek’s eyes glared at her. “You’re just gonna tell everyone on the street about our business?”

  “I didn’t tell everyone anything.”

  “So why is Khai calling me about company things when he’s not a part of our company?”

  Portia decided she would take her lunch break after all. She didn’t need this kind of stress. Not today.

  “First of all, Khai is not my boyfriend.” She stood and grabbed her coat off the back of her chair. “Secondly, I mentioned why I was upset to him because he’s my friend, and apparently the only person right now who cares to listen to anything I have to say.”