Never Say Never (Resetter Series Book 2)

by Brenda Barrett

  "Yes." Sky suppressed her annoyance but some of it shone through.

  He frowned and was about to say something when Betsy came off the phone.

  "Sorry Duke." Miguel has a ten o'clock with the South American people. "That's what I was setting up."

  "Drat it." Duke sighed. "What time can I come back, I need to talk to him about Trinidad."

  "About eleven or lunch time," Betsy said picking up the phone again when it rang.

  He glanced at her and Sky could feel his stony regard.

  When he walked over to the desk and glowered down at her, she felt nervous. This was Travis' illegitimate brother, the housekeeper's son. The one who was making a power play to run the company?

  "Who is your contact?" Duke asked her unsmilingly.

  "Excuse me." Sky frowned looking up at him with as bad a glower as his.

  "The coveted assistant job to Betsy is usually filled by close friends of Miguel Jefferson's circle of exalted friends. Who pulled strings for you to be here?"

  "That is none of your business," Sky said coldly.

  "Do you know who I am?" Duke hissed.

  "No." Sky sneered. "Should I?"

  "You insubordinate..." Duke stepped back from the desk. "You just lost your job."

  Sky smiled at him coldly. "It won't be the end of the world will it? Life will go on. You on the other hand will still be cold, arrogant and ignorant."

  Duke pointed at her. "By the end of the day you are out of here!"

  Betsy put down the phone and looked at Sky and then the retreating back of Duke, "What's wrong?"

  Sky inhaled twice before she could calm down her racing heart. She hated confrontation and in her opinion this one was uncalled for.

  "He asked me who pull strings to get me this job and I told him it was none of his business and he lost it. Said I would be out of here by the end of the day."

  Betsy frowned. "Usually he doesn't act so volatile. It really was none of his business. Firing you is my purview not his, don't worry. Though next time, be polite, he is the vice president of operations. He has Miguel's ear. How is the filing going?"

  "Good," Sky said looking down at the pile on her desk.

  "Then we are good." Betsy went back to typing up some document or the other and Sky exhaled tremulously.

  If she were fired today surely that would be some sort of record.

  ****

  Travis wheeled down the hallway toward his father's office. It was the first time he was going to see him since Christmas holidays. At that time his father had tried to avoid him like he had some communicable disease.

  His father was an inadequate parent at the best of times. His disabled son made him uncomfortable.

  Travis sighed. He wasn't looking forward to this meeting. They had agreed to have lunch. One hour out of Miguel Jefferson's busy day. He had no idea what they were going to talk about for that long.

  He was surprised to see that when he arrived at the outer office where Betsy held the fort that Sky was not there and Betsy looked frazzled.

  Betsy was never frazzled.

  "Hi Travis, I double booked Miguel for lunch. Duke wanted to see him."

  Travis raised an eyebrow. "Where is Sky?"

  "I sent her to run an errand in Finance." Betsy groaned and looked over his head a painful expression on her face.

  "Duke, I was just telling Travis that I double booked you both for Miguel."

  Travis spun around and regarded Duke who was staring at him transfixed.

  "What are you doing here?" Duke finally asked.

  "Just checking on my dad, having lunch, catching up," Travis said stressing the 'my dad' and liking the way that Duke winced.

  "I have business to discuss," Duke growled impatiently. "I take precedence over your little girly chat."

  Travis laughed and spun around to Betsy. "Tell my father that I am here and Duke is here. Let's see who he decides to see."

  Betsy picked up the phone looking between the two men as they waited. Travis glanced at Duke, he was nervous! This little game of choice was important to him. Travis was certain though that his dad would see him. His mother had already made the call and practically threatened him to see Travis.

  His mother had more clout than the pharmaceutical governing board where his father was concerned.

  Betsy hung up the phone and looked at Travis. "He said you should come in. Duke, he is asking that you have a talk first thing tomorrow."

  Travis wheeled toward his father's office. Not before looking back at the murderous look of darkness that had descended over Duke's face.

  Travis smirked. "By the way how is Melanie?"

  Duke schooled his features into the semblance of a smile. "She is quite fine."

  Travis decided to goad him. "Milly said that since you two got married, Melanie has been stepping out on you with the whole board of Jefferson Pharmaceutical."

  Duke clenched his teeth in barely concealed rage. "Milly is a drug addict whose brain probably has more holes than cheese. I wouldn't put stock in anything she says."

  "But it does make you wonder though," Travis said contemplatively as he pushed the door and went into his father's office. "Melanie has always been a good time girl."

  ****

  "I wish you would get along with Duke," Miguel said when he wheeled into the office.

  "Why?" Travis asked stopping his chair right in front of the desk

  "Because he is a good man." Miguel cleared his throat and then rested back in his chair and looked at Travis. "He is going to succeed me as president of this company."

  "Because I am crippled," Travis said curling his hands around the chair.

  "No, because he is my son and he works here. He cares about the business. You don't." Miguel growled.

  "So you finally admit he's your son."

  "And I noticed you don't look shocked." Miguel sighed. "I guess you knew for a while now."

  "No." Travis gritted out, "I found out when a reporter told me a few weeks ago."

  "It wasn't a secret." Miguel shrugged. "It was bound to come out one day. Now you know."

  Travis squinted his eyes and looked at him. "It was a secret, you are just acting nonchalant about it because you want somebody of your blood to succeed you and in your screwed up mind Duke is the only legitimate candidate, because all your other children are disqualified by some perceived criteria. You have no clue how to be a father do you?"

  Miguel laughed dryly. "It doesn't exactly come written in a manual. If you weren't crippled and in hiding I wouldn't have to resort to having Duke succeed me."

  "There!" Travis held up his hand in exasperation. "Dad, the reason I am not working in this company is you. You believe that since I can't feel my legs my brain can't be working. You wrote me off ten years ago. I had no encouragement to stick around here. I proved myself time and again that I could do things. I got my doctorate, I teach at a university!"

  "I don't want to argue with you," Miguel said soothingly, "I really don't. Why is it that every time I meet with a member of this family there is an argument?"

  "Because you suck at being empathetic," Travis said frankly. "You have lost touch with your own family members. Your own offspring."

  "You all are a mess." Miguel snorted, "I don't have time for messes."

  "Milly is missing," Travis said heavily.

  "Milly is always missing." Miguel snorted. "When she is found again, I will pay for her rehab as usual. She is a money pit. The most exasperating, ungrateful, unthankful..."

  Travis looked at him solemnly. "How did you get like this?"

  "How?" Miguel growled. His phone rang and he ignored it.

  "You were never this bad, one time when I was younger you were nice. You used to take Duke and me to cricket games, you taught us how to drive, you were around and we could talk to you. Though at the time I had no idea that Duke was your son. I was actually feeling lucky that my dad could be so available to my fatherless friend. I didn't mind sharing you with him
at all. You should have told me."

  Miguel sighed. "I couldn't. Children don't keep secrets well. They have a tendency to blab."

  He drummed his fingers on the desk. "I might as well tell you..."

  The phone rang again and he held up his hand and barked into it. "What?"

  When he hung up he looked at Travis sheepishly. "The lunch is here. Let's go over to the table."

  ****

  Travis had no appetite for the well-prepared spread. He nibbled at the grapes in the fruit platter while his father ate the salmon and salad.

  "You were going to tell me something," Travis said after a few minutes of silence.

  Miguel pushed away his plate and sighed. "1976, you were eleven, Duke was ten. The cold formula was going well, I had just got it trademarked. The business was taking off and doing great but that February, I'll never forget it. Munro Smith, my friend, my best friend and chief accountant left the company."

  "I don't remember him." Travis frowned.

  "That's because he didn't leave the company empty handed. For a full year he siphoned off the money from the company, piece by piece. By the time he left there was nothing left and I had a load of debt miles high."

  Miguel snorted. "If I had just paid attention to AJ Sullivan, he had been in my skin for months to get the books audited. I didn't listen because I thought that Munro was doing a wonderful job."

  Travis nodded. "A.J. is the best in his field. Still is."

  "The best." Miguel agreed. "Anyway, after Munro ran off with the money, it's as if all the bad things that could happen to me happened. It was a watershed year, I tell you. First, Arlene started agitating for me to tell the world about Duke but what she really wanted was for me to tell your mother.

  "Your grandfather had offered to give me a loan to cover the shortfall because he realized I was in deep. I was desperate at that point to be honest, so I accepted. I had creditors knocking at my door; we were going to lose the house.

  "And then in the midst of the turmoil I had to be working at the office, I had three households to take care of.

  "Marla was pressuring me to spend more time with the girls; Arlene was threatening to tell Pasha about Duke. You were looking at me with those big sad eyes, Daddy why can't we play ball on Sundays.

  "I was always working. I had to. I had no choice.

  "If Arlene blabbed about Duke, your mother would leave. Your grandfather wouldn't give me the loan. We would probably be living penniless in a tenement yard in Kingston. So, I paid Arlene to shut up. Like a greedy pig she took the money and stopped insisting that I spend time with Duke like I spend time with you and she kept the secret about Duke from Pasha.

  "I bought Marla her precious pottery business so she would stop badgering me too. By '78 we were back in the black but by that time I realized that the women in my life were mercenary."

  "What about my mom?" Travis asked hoarsely.

  Miguel wiped his mouth and then answered. "Your grandfather's loan was for a 30% stake in the business. It passed to her when he died in '82, which makes your mother an equal shareholder to me.

  Don't for one minute believe that she isn't as mercenary as the other two. In the last couple of months that I told her I wanted Duke to succeed me, I have seen another side of Pasha I didn't know existed."

  "I didn't know about any of this," Travis folded his arms contemplatively.

  Miguel sighed. "This whole thing has turned into a numbers game. With four children with 5% shares and other investors at 20%. Your mother and I are on equal footing as far as decision making for the next president is concerned.

  "If I vote for Duke to succeed me and the investors vote likewise that's 50% against 50%. A tie."

  "Are you sure that Carly and Elizabeth won't back you on this?" Travis asked,

  Miguel laughed harshly. "They have both stopped speaking to me. I think Carly might, her children work here after all, but Milly will vote for anybody you vote for."

  "I can't vote for Duke," Travis said abruptly. "He was evil to me when we were younger. He has always hated me and I didn't even know it. He has always wanted to be your only son. He has tried everything to get me to fail even drugs."

  "You could have fought back." Miguel hissed. "Good God man, grow a pair."

  "It is easy to fight when you know who your enemy is. I had no idea he had some sort of brotherly vendetta against me. He is ultimately the reason I am in this chair!"

  "No he is not. Your stupidity is the reason why you are in that chair!" Miguel stood up and threw down his napkin.

  He looked through the window, "Duke is a sly competitor, a cut throat businessman. He is the best man for the job. Not a whiner like..."

  "Me," Travis inhaled roughly, "too bad for you, this whiner has more say in your business than you do."

  Miguel looked at him with furrowed brow. "You have a point. Report for work tomorrow and I'll see if you can handle this job. Otherwise, I am going to have to go to war with my own wife and it won't be pretty."

  Chapter Fourteen

  And here is a new release from Donna Lewis, I Love You Always Forever, the announcer said over the radio. Sounds like this one is going to be a hit this summer.

  Sky had the radio blasting on Power 106, while she washed her hair. It was a week since she started the new job and almost a week since Travis had also taken up residence in the office across from his father's.

  She thought that she would see more of him but she was mistaken. This Sunday morning she was alone at home as he had left already to go to some important meeting with some bigwigs.

  She wrung her hair dry and walked out of the shower into the bedroom and screamed. There was a woman sitting in one of the armchairs in the bedrooms as still as a statue staring into space.

  She didn't react immediately to Sky's screams, which had a ridiculously calming effect on Sky.

  "Who are you?" Sky finally croaked.

  The lady looked at her lazily. "They call me Milly, which is short for Millicent." Her voice was raspy and sounded like sand paper on wood.

  "Oh," Sky widened her eyes. This woman looked much older than thirty-six. She was skinny, almost emaciated. She had very light skin and dime sized red marks all over her face. Her lips were black and she had a dead look in her eyes. Like her eyelids were too lazy to be raised much further than she had them.

  "I had to take a break," Milly said conversationally, "escape from here for a while." She sighed and looked at Sky. "Who are you?"

  "Sky." Sky pulled the robe closer to her, "I am staying here for the summer."

  Milly shrugged one bony shoulder. "My brother has a lover? Good for him."

  She got up. "I have to go get some shut eye. Tell my brother I am home, he can call off the dogs."

  She left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Sky sat down on the bed heavily, the towel on her hair slipped off and she took it up and absently squeezed her hair.

  Milly was not how she imagined she would be. Her head barely looked like her neck could support it. And she moved slowly, way too slowly for a woman her age.

  She picked up the phone to call Travis at the office and listened for it to ring. She almost hung up when it rang more than five times but he finally answered.

  "Hey," Sky said briskly, "bad time?"

  "Not really." Travis sighed down the phone. "My father is driving me crazy but apart from that...oh and my mom is inviting us to dinner."

  Sky gasped. "Me? She knows about me?"

  "Yes. She knows." Travis chuckled. "Pick you up at three. Don't worry she won't bite."

  "Don't go yet," Sky said hurriedly. "Your sister is back."

  "I heard a few moments ago," Travis said grimly. "The security firm I hired to look for her, found her in a ghetto with one of Jamaica's most wanted. They got her out of there before tipping the police. He was so wanted that there was a million dollars bounty on his head."

  "Wow," Sky gasped. "No wonder Milly looks like hell."

 
"I can imagine." Travis sighed. "My dad is insisting that she goes to rehab. The apartment is guarded till then."

  Sky hung up the phone. She was a little apprehensive to go outside into the hall. She was a little afraid of Milly but she had five hours to burn until dinner. She wanted to read the Sunday Paper and then watch a movie.

  She eventually developed some courage and crept out of the room and her heart sank as she saw that Milly was in the living room sitting and looking out at the mountain view.

  "Don't mind me," Milly said without turning around. "I might look like death warmed up but I am not contagious and I do smell good, had a shower just now. I just can't sleep. Too many bad images in my head."

  Sky went further into the room and picked up the paper.

  "You want to know why I am this way?" Milly asked Sky conversationally after she perused the papers and her nose in the business section. Trying to remember if any of the news she was reading was familiar from her time travel book.

  "Huh?" Sky looked up.

  "Why I am this way," Milly repeated, "drugged up, battered look like this. Don't have two senses to rub together."

  "I well er..." Sky lowered the paper, "why?"

  "Because of a guy." Milly said turning fully to face Sky. "Ramone Jarrett."

  "Okay," Sky nodded.

  "I was at my father's house hanging with my brother and his friends. One of them, the guy with the deep voice, the one with the keloid skin and the broad mouth was my nemesis.

  "He wasn't particularly attractive like in the classical way. He was the kind of guy that you looked at and you knew he was trouble. Maybe that was his appeal. He was from the wrong side of the tracks; you could smell it on him.

  "He was my age and didn't have a job and he smelled like marijuana. I lusted after him. Uptown girl with all the opportunities at her disposal and I chose Ramone Jarrett."

  Sky looked at her interestedly. Milly was speaking like someone who had all her wits about her.

  Milly seemed to read her mind and chuckled. "I can't remember much of last week but I remember him. I'll remember him forever. I have a thing for bad boys and he was the baddest of them all.