by Dawn Edwards
She was the nicest and sweetest friend a girl could ask for. I wish she had been around for high school; it would have made my four long years at the academy at least slightly bearable. She was more sociable; I knew she had a wild side, which she worked on keeping locked away. I’d met her family a few times, they lived not far away in Connecticut, and they were as reserved as she was rebellious.
Zoe was beautiful, with long wavy strawberry blond hair and dark green eyes that were often mistaken for hazel in low lighting, and she had plump Angelina lips and fair flawless skin. She was a bit taller than I was, with a long frame and little to no curves. She had a true swimmer’s body. We clearly couldn’t share clothes, but we shared almost everything else with each other.
She was already at the office when I arrived. We have always shared the same quad office, with two other interns my father’s company typically kept on staff throughout the year and especially in the summer.
Amber had been working with my father for a few years now, working in many different areas, like me. She was a year older than I was; smart, beautiful and our fathers were best friends. There was a guy working with us this summer also, but he wasn’t starting for another few weeks. Unlike the rest of us, he’d earned his internship position through the good old-fashioned way of application and interviewing.
For me, nepotism was the only way.
‘You’re in early,’ I said, taking the empty desk next to Zoe; we’d leave the new guy to sit next to Amber.
‘I had swim practice and just came right over,’ she said, not turning to face me. Instead, she was looking out the window.
I stood over her, following her gaze, where there were a few men working, one of them I recognized as Drew, the guy my father just hired.
‘Have you seen all the eye candy out there?’
I laughed, walking back to my desk. ‘I have. They will be around for a while, Dad’s hired them for a bunch of projects—well, the guy in the green shirt at least, he’s the project manager.’
She stood up, looking out the window for a better view. ‘Well, I hope the weather warms up, like a lot, so they feel the need to work without clothes on…’
‘Zoe,’ I laughed. That was one of the things I loved about her, I rarely had to ask her what she was thinking. But it was also one of the reasons Matt didn’t like her, had never really liked her. I also knew the feelings were mutual.
Things have never been smooth between Zoe and Matt. I always figured it was a power struggle thing. She’s been there from the very beginning, the day we all met, nearly two years ago in Florida during spring break. And from the very start she had never warmed to him, never truly liked him. I knew it was the same with Breton, that they just put up with Matt because of me. I guess everyone else saw right through him, but my rose-colored glasses truly made me love blind.
It was Breton and Josh’s last year of their undergrad, and they had never done what they had called ‘a proper university spring trip full of debauchery.’ I had wanted to go along, though they really didn’t want me there, but my parents knew they wouldn’t unleash full debauchery in my presence, so I was allowed to go, and I got to take my best friend with me. Oh, and my parents were wrong on the limited debauchery, the two of them were completely out of control.
Our parents had rented us a house right on the beach. Josh’s girlfriend Julia had come, along with two other guys who lived with Josh at Yale. They weren’t really attractive, to say the very least, and Zoe was rather disappointed.
However, on our third day, we all went out to one of the beach parties, where a really hot guy caught the eye of Zoe. His friend—who turned out to be Matt—took a liking to me, and the rest, as they say, was history.
I had been nursing a beer, I really was having a hard time drinking it, maybe it was the taste, the fizz, the smell or the fact that it was now warm as piss from me holding it for the past hour. Earlier, I hadn’t liked the rum cooler Zoe gave me either, as it was strong and too sweet.
‘Do you like beer?’ Matt has asked me.
I shook my head. ‘Am I that obvious?’
He took the beer from me, placing it on the counter. ‘Come, I’ll get you something better.’ He led me to the bar, holding my hand, and ordered me a drink and asked for extra juice and Sprite. The bartender handed me the drink and Matt paid him.
I took a sip. ‘Mmm,’ I said, taking another drink. ‘This is good.’
All night he stayed close to me and suggested after a few drinks that I stick to water, that he didn’t want me to get drunk, preferring me sober enough to chat with, get to know and enjoy my company. Apparently, he didn’t like the company of passed-out drunk girls.
As I think back to first meeting him, even from the get-go, he was controlling what I drank and how much. Here I was thinking he was being nice, keeping me safe, avoiding a hangover and bad decisions. Little did I know that meeting him wasn’t the only bad thing from that week.
We had spent the entire day together, had dinner together and partied back at our beach house that evening, along with a bunch of others Breton, Josh and their friends had met.
While everyone else had been making out, including Zoe and Matt’s friend, in the room I had been sharing with her, Matt and I sat out on the deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We lost track of time as we talked for hours until the sun started to come up.
Our conversation had flowed easily, he asked a lot of questions about Boston, as he had applied for a few jobs there he told me. He was waiting on interviews but asked questions about neighborhoods and if I knew of any of the companies. One I did, my father’s friend owned it, but I didn’t tell him that. In fact, I didn’t tell him much of anything about my personal life.
When his friend had emerged, wanting, needing to get home to sleep, Matt hugged me. ‘I actually had a really fun day…night.’
I smiled up at him, ‘Me too…actually.’
Emphasizing the actually, the same as he had done as if it had surprised him. I was just surprised he had taken an interest in me, not knowing at all who I actually was. Typically, guys took an interest in me because of who I was, well, in fact, because of whose daughter I was. There had been lots of hot, drunk girls around all day and no shortage this evening as well. I was neither hot nor drunk.
To be fair, he hadn’t drunk much either, and while he wasn’t the worst-looking guy here–that title likely belonged to Josh’s roommate’s–he wasn’t the best-looking either.
Matt was a bit taller than I was, with a solid build, and a bit chubby from beer and pizza. He had brown hair in a neat classic haircut. He wasn’t hot but was above average on the looks scale; in comparison to me, he was the better-looking of us. He dressed in good clothes and had good manners.
He was in his final year at the University of Florida, about two hours from where we were now. He wasn’t forthcoming about his own history, but from what he has disclosed he had no family and after skipping around Thailand and other Asian countries for over a year after high school, he had finally gotten his shit together and felt he was mature enough to enter university.
I had done the math in my head, so he was at least 4 years older than I was.
He looked at me. ‘Um… would you want to maybe hang out tomorrow?’ he asked me, for the first time sounding a bit nervous.
I smiled back at him, nodding. ‘Yes, come by for dinner?’ I asked him, ‘It’s our…Zoe’s and my night to cook.’
‘Great…’
I laughed. ‘It’s a good thing Zoe can cook.’
Matt looked up at his roommate, who was standing against the house with his eyes closed, as if he could literally fall asleep on his feet, right there, right now.
‘I better get going…’ he said, trailing off.
‘Thanks for a fun day.’
‘See you later,’ he said, full of promise, placing a single quick kiss on the side of my cheek.
He hadn’t known who I was, and at the end of the week when he and his roommate drove
back to Gainesville, Florida, and we all flew back to Boston, I really hadn’t thought much of it.
I lied to him and told him that I didn’t have Facebook but gave him my email and my cell number. To my surprise, he had texted me, quite a bit. I had thought that it would taper off after a few days, then a few weeks, but as we entered into our final exams for the term, he was asking to see me when he came up for his interviews.
I was hesitant for him to come to visit me in Boston. I didn’t want him to see everything that surrounded me and judge me, good or bad. However, he finally wore me down, and I did see him when he came, and on his last day before he was set to leave to go back to Florida to finish his last semester over the summer, my parents drove out, and we all ate in a dive restaurant. My brother and his girlfriend Julia, who Matt had already met, joined us also.
A month later, he had been offered and accepted a job with a company in Boston, to start that fall. It seemed like it was meant to be, and things were really working out. I helped him find an apartment, and he was clearly shocked when I introduced him to my world, first bringing him to the summer house on the Cape, and then family dinners at the Boston townhouse.
Then my brother died.
Only a few months after Matt moved here. Our world was rocked.
I was a mess mentally and even physically. I didn’t think it was fair on him to try and deal with me and my emotional outbursts. I tried breaking up with him, but he wasn’t having it, stated that he wanted to be there to help us through this. He did so much for me and my family in the weeks and months after, that he really did have us all fooled.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The changes in him had been small. Understated and seemingly indirect even.
They started in the fall shortly after he moved here. I thought, wow, a guy who really cares for me, wants to bring my best forward. So, when he suggested that I wear different clothing, I thought, how sweet. When he gave me a spur-of-the-moment gift to get my hair done and suggested I try blond, well, why wouldn’t I try to make him happier? Then after a few comments about how he preferred big boobs, I somehow found myself at a plastic surgeon’s office scheduling a consult for a boob job, when I knew my parents would be out of town, as there was no way they would have been supportive of such a drastic measure. But with Josh’s death, they saw it as a way for me to feel better about myself, not a way to keep my then-boyfriend happy.
When he insisted he pick me up at places or wanted to accompany me to things, I was just happy he cared and wanted to spend time with me.
He had a lot to say about the people I hung out with, to the point where I had few friends left and not much of a social life outside of him and my family obligations of society life.
All the while he was doting, going out of his way to be nice to me, my family. Doing things that were just so considerate. I didn’t see the control at the time, it took me a long time to see it, and by the time I did, it was too late.
Chapter 5
DREW
JESSA WAS STANDING IN the kitchen, cutting up a cucumber, when I walked into the kitchen of the Cahills’ Boston townhouse. As it had been raining all day, and I was unable to work on the parking lot with my crew, I had spent the day at the office with Colleen Cahill going over design options for the interior and exterior renovations of Cahill Global’s office and headquarters.
Steve had told me early on that he would be bringing his wife on to consult and to just call her on a rainy day when we couldn't work, and she’d meet with me. The past two times, prior commitments prevented her from meeting with me, so I really didn’t think it was going to work out.
But this morning, when I called, she told me she could be there in an hour, and to my surprise, she was. I had been apprehensive to work with her, thinking she would be some rich snob who would be difficult to work with. When she showed up, looking like something out of a society brunch, I figured I was in for one hell of a long day. I had only ever met her once before, and she was super sweet to me then, but our exchanges were short and few.
But as it turned out, she was pretty amazing, and knew all about interior design, having studied it and worked in the field before having children. She told me she initially started working with Steve with his first company before they were married. It was abundantly clear that she really had an eye for it, and her recommendations were better than what I could have come up with. When she questioned some of my designs, she appreciated the theory behind it and only made a few recommendations for changes, all of which I agreed with.
We were in a large boardroom all day; it was across from her daughter Jessa’s office, who I saw walking in and out a few times that day. I heard her laughing with the redhead, who I’d seen watching me and my team when we had been working on the parking lot over the past week.
My guys were getting a big head at having girls watching them work, and I was a bit annoyed as it was distracting them from the job at hand. They were all out of our league, which I reminded them of.
Colleen—as she had repeatedly instructed me to call her—had invited me to dinner at her house this evening. I declined at first, but she insisted that I come, citing that they always did family dinners on Thursday nights, and there weren’t many coming tonight. With that, I felt to continue to decline would have been rude.
‘Hey,’ I casually said to Jessa as I walked into the empty kitchen. I startled her, as she faltered her cutting but didn’t cut herself—thankfully—as she looked up to me.
‘Drew,’ she said my name in almost a whisper.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you...um...your mom invited me.’ I stumbled on the words, trying to speak to her, feeling a bit nervous with her gorgeous green eyes on me. There was something about this girl that really affected me.
‘So, do you girls get any work done in that office of yours?’
She turned and looked up at me, biting her lip to hide the smile that was forming, but there was nothing that she could do to stop the blushing that was forming on her cheeks. There must have been some chemical reaction because it seemed like when all the blood rushed to her face to make her blush, all my blood rushed to my dick.
‘Of course, we’re very professional,’ she tried to say seriously but failed and was also losing the battle to hide the smile on her face.
I laughed. ‘I’m sure your productivity levels are impressive.’
She looked around, watching her mother walk past the kitchen, carrying some napkins. ‘That’s nothing, wait ‘till the weather warms up.’ She smirked at me.
At first, I didn’t really know what she meant by the comment. Why their productivity would go down when it was warm, then I caught on: it would be too hot for shirts. ‘Ahh, we’ll be long gone before it’s warm enough to work shirtless.’
‘Zoe’s going to be devastated.’ She pretended to be sad as she finished cutting her cucumber.
‘Just Zoe?’ I questioned, raising an eyebrow suggestively. I knew I was flirting, but with her, I couldn’t help it. Boss’s daughter or not, I was totally fishing for her to give something to confirm she welcomed it. I knew it was a risk, especially doing it right here, out in the open.
‘I will let her know you send her your sympathies,’ she told me playfully as her fiancé Matt walked into the kitchen. I saw her face falter just slightly before she pressed a fake smile onto her face for appearances. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or for him. But I did know something was going on, and I didn’t like seeing her pretend. No one deserved it. She deserved to be happy, to have the spark in her eyes, the fun in her voice and bounce in her movements, just like she had a few moments ago. He extinguished her spark, silenced her voice and guarded her movements.
I wanted to knock the guy out. It was a strange feeling, I’d never felt protective like this before. Not even over my mother when I was younger.
‘Sympathies?’ Matt questioned, looking from Jessa, to me, and back to Jessa, likely assessing that the space between us wasn’t great
enough, or maybe it was the fact she was talking to a guy. He seemed like the type of guy that anything and everything would set him off, the poor girl was probably going to hear about it later. ‘Who died?’
‘Zoe’s dream.’ Jessa recovered quickly.
‘Wet dream,’ I murmured with my back towards him, in a low voice, that I was sure Matt didn't hear from his position on the other side of the island. I picked up the dish of roasted potatoes.
‘Matt, can you take the bread please?’ Jessa asked, looking to the bread basket next to him. As she tossed the rest of her cucumbers into the bowl of salad and led the way into the dining room, Matt and I followed her.
Colleen had the table set, Breton was walking down the stairs in a pair of sweatpants and an old hoodie, Jessa wasn’t much better in yoga pants, a tank top, and hair in a bun. I didn’t feel so bad now in jeans and a flannel shirt. Matt was in a suit and looked out of place, as Mr. and Mrs. Cahill had changed into casual clothing also.
Jessa took a seat on one side of the table next to Matt, Breton and I sat on the opposite side of them, and Steve and Colleen flanked the ends of the table.
‘What’s he doing here?’ I overheard Matt ask Jessa, nodding across the table towards me.
‘He and Mom have been working a lot together this week, she invited him,’ Jessa said in an even voice. It was clear she had no problem with me here, but based on the glaring look he gave me, it was obvious he was trying to mark his territory. He was one of those controlling manipulative types.
‘Why?’ he asked again, annoyed.
She shrugged her shoulders, not wanting to discuss it, trying to steal a glance at me without him seeing. I sat in place, happy to be there, despite him
During dessert, when Matt got up, I noticed Jessa snap a picture of me and type something into her phone. I’d have to ask her about it later. She was smiling to herself when she sent the text and put her phone back in her pocket,
