Persuaded

by Rachel Schurig

  I was starting to think I was, as well.

  It was a foregone conclusion within the office that Lucy and Rick were together. Living in the same house during her recovery, with all the attention he was paying her, and all the flirting she had always done—it was hard to imagine that they weren’t official. I overhead Mary on the phone with her mother, saying that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if an engagement were announced soon.

  I had managed to keep from reacting to that news, telling myself that I would be happy for both of them whenever it was announced. Then I had texted Will and asked him if he wanted to get a drink after work.

  My interactions with Rick were strictly work related, and that was definitely for the best. We could now manage to be in the same room without being catty or cold. Though we were virtually never alone, I was just relieved that we could be professional. I was so close to getting what I wanted, and I was happy to know that Rick wasn’t going to get in the way of that.

  I was so caught up in everything at work that I nearly forgot about my dad’s visit a half dozen times. I had scrawled it in large red letters on my desk calendar, but I still found myself jumping a little when I saw it, surprised.

  The day of his arrival was a typical Vegas scorcher. I left work at midday to go to the airport. I had asked Will if he wanted to join me, thinking he might like to see my dad, but he’d declined due to a work conflict. “I’ll actually be pretty swamped this whole week,” he’d said regretfully. “We’re on a really tight deadline—basically have no chance of making it, but we’re going to try.”

  So I’d picked up my dad on my own, hiring a black sedan to take me to the airport, thinking it’d be fun to show him a little glamour during his stay. I felt a bit nervous as the sleek black car approached the airport. It had been a long time since I’d seen my dad, even longer since we’d spent any significant amount of time alone together. What if we couldn’t think of things to say to each other? The idea of being awkward with my own father made me feel sad and guilty all at once.

  “Annabelle!” he called the moment he stepped out of the arrivals gate. He looked exactly as I remembered him, as if he hadn’t aged a day in recent years. His hair had a bit more grey sprinkled throughout, but it worked for him. His skin was tan and healthy looking, and he was grinning from ear to ear at the sight of me.

  Without questioning the urge, I threw myself into his arms. As he embraced me tightly, not saying a word, I had to battle the lump in my throat. He smelled like Old Spice and car grease, with a hint of cigar below the surface. It made me happy, for some reason, that Shirley hadn’t been able to rid him of his once-a-week cigar habit.

  “Let me see you,” he finally said, his voice gruff. He pulled back and looked me over, the grin never faltering. “You look fantastic. Look at this outfit—just like a business woman or something.”

  I laughed. “Daddy, I am a business woman.”

  “Well, you look it.” He frowned a little. “Skinny though. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Daddy.”

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and we walked over to the baggage claim belt to wait on his battered, old suitcase, the same one he had taken with him to the National Guard before I was born. He never had cause to travel all that much, save for an occasional hunting or fishing trip with his buddies. That made me happy, too, seeing the ratty, old thing. I’d been afraid he would have replaced it in the last few years.

  “So what’s on the agenda?” he asked as we made our way through throngs of tittering girls and their dude-bro counterparts, all eager to hit the Strip and make some bad decisions.

  “I’m afraid I have to go back to work for a little bit,” I said regretfully. I had explained to him about the proposal and how tight things were at work, but he hadn’t been able to adjust his time off. I was determined to carve out as much time as humanly possible, and he assured me he was looking forward to some time at the blackjack tables.

  “That’s fine, honey,” he said, adjusting the bag on his shoulder. “I told you I didn’t mind and I meant it.”

  “I thought maybe you could come to the office for a bit,” I said, feeling shy for some reason. He had never seen where I worked.

  His entire face lit up. “I would love that. See where all the magic happens, huh?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know about magic. My blood, sweat, and tears, yes.”

  The sedan was waiting for us at the curb, and my dad whistled at the sight of it, cutting off when the uniformed driver came out to take his bag and open the door.

  “This is going to take some getting used to, sweetheart.”

  I giggled, feeling silly all of a sudden. “Wait until you see my apartment.”

  At the office, he was practically swelling with pride when the driver dropped us off. “Oh, my bag,” he said, turning back to the car.

  “He’ll bring it home, Daddy.”

  “But how will he get it to your apartment?”

  “The doorman will take care of it.”

  He looked at me as if he wasn’t quite sure of what to make of me, but then I led him into the marble-floored lobby and his eyes went wide. I kept sneaking glances at him as we rode up in the elevator. I was feeling a strange mixture of anxiety and hopefulness—I realized that I wanted him to be proud of me, to see this place that I had worked so hard to build and be impressed. After everything that he had done to get me here, I wanted him to feel as if it had been worth it.

  “That’s your name,” he said softly, running his fingers over the etched glass. “Elliot and Russell.”

  I nodded, that lump back in my throat. “I told you my name was on the letterhead, Daddy.”

  He shook his head. “It’s different seeing it right in front of me.”

  I led him into the office, warning him to duck slightly when we passed the assistant desks. “I have a temp in for Lucy,” I explained in a whisper. “Marni. She’s super scary.”

  “Doesn’t she know that you’re the boss?”

  “Daddy, I don’t think she’s ever had a boss in her life.”

  Once we were clear of Marni, I straightened again. “My office is this way.”

  Again he stopped, wide-eyed, at the door. “This is all yours?”

  I nodded happily. I spent so much time chained to my desk, I almost forgot how nice it was. Seeing it through his eyes reminded me of the little personal touches—the desk I’d found at an estate sale, the gilded gold picture frames I’d brought back from a trip to New Orleans. And, of course, the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the entire back wall.

  “Isn’t the view great?”

  “It’s incredible.” He stepped inside hesitantly, as if afraid he might mess something up. “You can see the entire Strip from here.”

  “You can see my apartment, too. Come here.”

  We stood at the window, and I pointed out all of the landmarks—the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel, the Bellagio fountain, the Stratosphere Tower with its crowning assortment of thrill rides. “I feel sick just looking at them,” he told me, and I laughed.

  “I went up there once. Never again.”

  He gazed down at the view, shaking his head every so often. Finally he turned to me. “You probably need to get to work.”

  I glanced down at my watch, a delicate Tiffany silver piece the Russells had given me for my eighteenth birthday. “I think I have time for a little tour, if you’re up for it.”

  “That sounds great.”

  So I led him down to the conference room, explaining it was where we handled most of our interactions with clients. “Unless we’re trying to schmooze with them, of course. Then we take them out to dinner. Fancy fancy.”

  He laughed and followed me to the creative department, where our in-house architect and designer worked. Jim and Rick had put them to work designing some of the back-end features in the resort, so I got them to pull out their little scale models of the staff bathrooms and the storage rooms. He declared it very impressive. />
  “Wait until you see the lobby model in Emma’s office,” I told him, leading him back down the hall. Emma’s room was empty when we arrived, so I let us in and turned on the light.

  “Why is hers so much bigger than yours?” he asked, wrinkling his nose a little.

  “Because she entertains clients here, Daddy. I don’t have to worry about any of that.” He made a scoffing sound but otherwise didn’t answer.

  “Where did she put it?” I wondered aloud, eyes scanning the shelves. I was sure she was displaying the model, but it clearly wasn’t here.

  There was a knock on the door, and I shouted a distracted, “Come in,” before I remembered that we weren’t in my office. The door swung open, and there was the lobby model—right in the hands of Rick.

  My mouth dropped open. Until that minute, I had somehow never considered the fact that my dad and Rick might cross paths. When I pictured my dad’s visit, I saw us touring various sights in Vegas, not here in the office, where Rick was usually found chained to his desk.

  “What are you doing in—” he started, before his eyes landed on my dad. They widened. “Mr. Elliot?” he asked, every bit as startled as me.

  “Rick?” my dad sounded shocked. “Is that you?”

  “It is.” Rick’s gaze flashed to me before refocusing on my dad. “I had no idea you were coming to visit.”

  “I had no idea you would be here. Wait, do you work here?” He stared at me. “Annabelle, you never said.”

  The expression on Rick’s face made me falter. Was he hurt? “It never came up, Daddy.”

  Rick seemed to gather himself, setting the model on Emma’s desk and striding across the room to shake my dad’s hand. Of course, being my dad, he instead pulled Rick into a hug. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Elliot.” Rick’s voice sounded strange, like he was struggling to control it.

  “It’s good to see you, too, young man. What on earth are you doing here? Last I heard you were back in London.”

  “I haven’t been to London in years,” Rick said, and I gaped at him. He hadn’t been home? I couldn’t imagine why not. “I’ve been working in Europe, though.”

  “You’re an architect,” my dad said, and I wondered at his memory. It had been years ago, yet he remembered what Rick’s ambitions had been.

  Rick seemed surprised, too. “That’s right. And now I’m working on a project with Annabelle and Emma.”

  My dad’s eyes flickered to me, and I found I had to look away, as if embarrassed. I probably should have mentioned it, but I’d been trying so hard to convince myself that it wasn’t a big deal that it had completely slipped my mind that my dad had a connection to Rick, as well.

  “I’d really like to catch up,” Rick was saying, his voice as sincere as I had heard it since his arrival.

  “I’d like that, too. I’ll have to make sure my daughter leaves some time for that. I have a feeling she has my itinerary pretty jam packed.”

  Rick laughed lightly. “I’m sure she does.”

  “I left you plenty of time to relax,” I said, feeling annoyed that they were choosing to talk about me instead of to me. “The only set-in-stone stuff is the trip to the Grand Canyon—which was your request by the way.”

  “The Grand Canyon?” Rick asked, his eyes brightening. “Where are you staying? I have a friend—”

  We were interrupted by another knock on the door. Figuring I’d already invited two people into Emma’s office, I yelled for whoever it was to come in.

  “Emma?” Liz asked sticking her head around the door. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw me. “Oh, Annabelle. What are you doing here?”

  Before I could answer, she noticed Rick and my dad, who were now examining the lobby model. “Ooh, is that it?” she asked, crossing to Emma’s desk. “I’ve been dying to see it.”

  She seemed to realize that there was someone besides Rick in the office, and her eyes glinted a little. “Annabelle, really, do you think you ought to let the maintenance staff see it before Emma even gets a chance to check it out?”

  The very air around us seemed to freeze, as her words registered. And there was that damn glint in her eyes again, the same glint that she’d had a decade ago when she told Rick about Emma giving me clothes. The same glint I had seen countless times over the years as she made her little quips and digs. As she put me in my place. I’d told everyone in the office that my dad was arriving today—had said goodbye to Liz an hour ago when I left to pick him up. Not to mention the fact that she had met my dad on several occasions. She knew exactly who the man at Emma’s desk was.

  My eyes found my father’s, and I was relieved to see that he was confused rather than offended. And that might have been the end of it. I might have rolled my eyes at her and pretended I didn’t get the dig, pretended I believed her to be confused or harmlessly joking, the way I always did. But then, for some reason, my eyes flickered to Rick as the color rose up in my cheeks. Again, I remembered that party long ago. He had the exact same look in his eyes as he’d had that night. Disdain and dislike mixing with anger. He knew what she was doing, too. Had always known what she was like, what the whole group of them was like. And he had warned me, had even offered me a way to escape from them.

  But I hadn’t taken it. I had stayed right where I was, too afraid to change. Too afraid to fight back.

  Suddenly, I saw myself as I must have appeared to Rick. So eager for the attention of these girls, so eager for the perks that came along with being their friends, that I had turned my back on everything worth having. I had stooped to their level. I was as bad as they were.

  “Excuse me?” The words were out of my mouth before I even planned to say them. Liz’s eyes widened a bit, as if in challenge.

  “Isn’t that the maintenance man?” she asked, clearly enunciating each word. Her eyes widened again, this time in fake embarrassment. “Oh my gosh, that’s your dad. I’m so sorry, I totally forgot he was coming today.”

  In that moment, I hated her. Maybe I had always hated her, but there was something about this slight that pushed me over the edge. Maybe it was the fact that she was speaking about my father instead of to him. Maybe it was the knowledge that it had been coldly intentional, that she found amusement in what she was doing. Maybe it was seeing what she was up to through Rick’s eyes.

  Or maybe it was the fact that, while she had always looked down on me, she was now daring to judge a man who had worked harder in one day of his life than she had ever worked in the entirety of her own.

  For whatever reason, something in me snapped. I was done with her shit.

  “You can go to hell, Liz,” I said, my voice deadly calm. “But first you can apologize to me and apologize to my father.”

  She stared at me, incredulous. “It was an honest mistake, Annabelle—”

  “Like hell it was.” My hands were shaking, so I crossed my arms, hiding them behind my elbows. “You’re being bitchy and you know it. I’m sick of it. So you can say you’re sorry to my father, and to me, or you can look for another place to work.”

  Her eyes were slits now. “You think you have the right to—”

  “I own half of this place, in case you’ve forgotten. I think I have every right.”

  She stared at me, as if trying to determine if I would dare follow through. Finally, she turned to my dad. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Elliot,” she said, her voice so fake and sweet it made me want to hurl—or slap the hell out of her. “I forgot you were coming in today.” She turned to me, the grin still there. There was a warning clear in that grin—you should not have messed with me, peasant.

  “Sorry, Annabelle. Won’t happen again.”

  Then she turned on her heel and swept from the room, leaving us in silence.

  I turned away from my father and Rick, breathing heavily. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run after her and kick her ass. I wanted to make her feel every bit as embarrassed and out of place as she had tried to make me feel over the years.

  I wanted to rip out
the little part of me that was still, even now, embarrassed of who I was. Where I came from. Embarrassed of my father.

  What in the hell was wrong with me?

  “Annabelle?” my dad said, his voice concerned. “Honey, are you okay?”

  I hated that Rick had witnessed that. Hated that he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had been right all along, that my friends were exactly what he thought they were. He was probably congratulating himself on getting away from me and all my sorority-sister-shaped baggage.

  “I’m taking the rest of the day,” I snapped, turning to the door. “Dad, let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait—what? You want to leave? I thought you had work.”

  I’d been hoping I could have gotten out of there without having to look at Rick again. I sighed, turning back to where they were standing, certain I would see grim satisfaction on his face. Instead, his expression was unreadable. I looked at my dad.

  “I want to take the afternoon off,” I said simply, willing myself not to cry. “You’re only here for a few days, and I want to spend time with you.” I crossed my arms again. “You have a problem with that?”

  “No. Uh, no, of course not.” He looked almost afraid of me as he scurried away from Emma’s desk to join me at the door. Then he turned back to Rick. “Let’s have that catch up, okay?”

  “Definitely,” Rick said, his voice soft. His gaze shifted from my dad to me. He held mine for what felt like a long time before blinking. I took a shuddering breath, sure I was about to burst into tears, before slipping through the door and out into the hallway.

  It was only once we reached the elevator that I finally recognized the expression on Rick’s face. Pride.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The taxi ride back to my apartment was silent. I sat next to my father, seething, fighting back tears, while he looked out the window at the passing Strip and pretended not to notice the awkward tension.