“Edward,” Marek interrupted, buttoning his Armani jacket and offering a tight smile. “Unfortunately I have a meeting to get to,” he told him. “Ms. Bradbury and I have talked, and she’s agreed to adjust her lesson plans to make accommodations for Christian.”
Excuse me?
I started to twist my head to shoot him a look, but I stopped, correcting myself. Instead, I clamped my teeth together and lifted my chin, refusing to look at him.
I would not be adjusting my lesson plans.
“Oh, wonderful.” Shaw smiled, looking relieved. “Thank you, Ms. Bradbury, for compromising. I love it when things work out so easily.”
I decided it was best to let the issue lie. What Shaw didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and Marek would most likely zone out of his parenting responsibilities for another few weeks before I would have to deal with him again.
“Ms. Bradbury.” Marek turned, holding out a hand for me to shake.
I met his eyes, noticing how one was not quite as wide as the other, giving his expression a sinister look as it pierced me.
Two things could be assumed about Marek: He expected to get everything he wanted, and he thought he just had.
Idiot.
The chilled pint glass was a welcome relief in my hand as I took a sip of the Abita Amber, the local favorite brew. It was mid-September, and the evenings still hadn’t cooled down enough to be pleasant. If not for the humidity, the city might feel more comfortable instead of like a stuffy, packed elevator with no room to move.
I fingered through the container on my table, counting all of the sugar packets as I sat at Port of Call, waiting for my brother to join me for dinner.
Seven Equals, six Sweet’N Lows, five regular sugars, and seven Splendas. What a mess.
I twisted around, grabbing another container off the table behind me, and picked out what I needed. The little packages crackled as I pulled them out and fit one more Equal, two more Sweet’N Lows, three regular sugars, and one more Splenda into the uneven container on my table.
Leaving the rest in the borrowed container, I replaced it on the table behind me and then recounted all of the packets. Eight, eight, eight, and eight.
Perfect.
I took a deep breath and set the container back along the edge of the table with the condiments and napkins, and…
And I stopped, looking up to catch my brother standing at the table with a drink in his hand, watching me.
Shit.
I rolled my eyes and waited for him to sit down.
We hadn’t seen each other in four days. I’d offered to help with student council after school this week, and he’d been buried in research and papers.
His white oxford was wrinkled and open at the collar, but he still drew women’s eyes as he approached the table. He leaned back in his chair, giving me the eye that said he was thinking and he had things he wasn’t sure he should say or how to say them.
“Out with it,” I relented, shaking my head and looking at the tabletop.
“I don’t know what to say.”
I shot my eyes up, tucking in my chair. “Then stop looking at me like I’m Howard Hughes,” I ordered. “It’s a nondestructive disorder that’s very common. It soothes me.”
“Nondestructive,” he repeated, taking a drink. “Was it five or six times that you went back into your apartment to make sure your stove was off today?”
I shifted, straightening my shoulders as the server came by, setting down waters on our table.
“Well, how am I supposed to remember if I shut it off after cooking the heroin?” I joked, and my brother broke out in a laugh.
I knew he thought my obsessive-compulsive bullshit was baggage that I needed help getting past, but the truth was, it was something I felt I needed.
Ever since I was sixteen anyway.
When someone you trusted steals your sense of security and holds your life in the palm of his hand for two whole years, your mind finds ways to compensate for the loss of control.
I felt safer when things were in order. When I had dominion over even the most trivial of matters.
My entire family – my parents and sister, now gone, and my brother – had paid a hefty price for letting someone we thought we could trust into our lives all those years ago.
In comparison, my little compulsive disorder was of no concern to me.
If I didn’t count the sugar packets or make sure the stove was off four times this morning or brush my teeth for a count of one hundred twenty seconds, something bad would happen. I didn’t know what, and I knew it was ridiculous, but I still felt safer carrying on with my day.
Normally, during work, when I was busy, it didn’t concern me as much, but when I was idle – like now – I tended to fiddle, arrange, and count.
It was a false sense of security, but it was something.
Control over anything, even if it couldn’t be everything, calmed me.
“So how’s school?” he asked.
I leaned my elbows on the table and took a sip of beer. “It’s pretty good. I like the kids.”
The kids were actually the easy part. Keeping their attention was hard and energy-consuming, but keeping up with all of the side duties was more frustrating and a huge time suck.
“You look tired,” he commented.
“So do you,” I shot back, smiling. “Don’t worry. I’m fine, Jack. I’m on my feet all day, and by end time I’ve hit the wall, but it’s a good kind of exhausted.”
“Like tennis?”
I paused, thinking about that one.
“Kind of,” I answered. “Only better, I guess. I used to feel like I went out there on the court and gave my all. I used every muscle and every ounce of perseverance to fight through the struggle.”
“And now?” he pressed.
“And now I do the same thing, but I know why,” I answered. “There’s a reason for all of it.”
He watched me, a thoughtful look crossing his face. He seemed to buy what I told him, and why shouldn’t he? It was true.
Tennis had been my life. It was fun at times and nearly unbearable at others, and while I hadn’t known what the purpose of working and competing were, I went to bed with the satisfaction that I’d pushed my body to the limit and fought hard.
But I also never felt compelled to do it.
“Avery would be proud,” Jack said in a low voice, giving me a small smile.
I looked away, sadness twisting my stomach.
Would she? Would my sister be proud that I was living her dream?
FIVE
TYLER
“
S
o did you deal with it?” Jay asked about Christian’s teacher as he trailed behind me with his face buried in a press packet for next Monday’s television interview.
I pushed through my office doors, seeing Corinne, my assistant, pouring water into glasses around the conference table off to the left in preparation for our meeting this morning.
“Of course,” I mumbled, rounding my desk and unbuttoning my jacket.
“Well, you canceled a TV spot for that meeting. You can’t do that again,” he warned.
I cocked an eyebrow and ignored him, looking over his shoulder to Corinne and mouthing, Coffee.
She nodded and left the room.
I let out a breath and focused on the computer screen, checking my messages. “I didn’t ask for the TV spot to begin with,” I reminded him. “I’m not even running for senator yet. Officially, anyway,” I added. “Don’t you think we’re jumping the gun?”
“Tyler, that’s what I need to talk to you about.” His tone sounded annoyed. “You won’t win anything until you step up the schmoozing. The reason campaigns have funds is because they run off donations.”
I shook my head, glancing over my schedule for the day. “I don’t like donations.” I felt like I had to repeat that on a daily basis for him.
“Yes, I understand that. Believe me,” he said, sounding even more annoyed, “I’m
well aware of your feelings on the subject.”
I didn’t need help funding my campaign. I’d built the fifth-largest media company in the South, with interests in television, Internet, and communication. Then I’d sold it and started all over from the ground up, building one of the top-ten-largest construction companies in the world.
It wasn’t that I’d disliked the media world. I’d hated it.
I’d thought that media would be a great place to network and be visible for my political aspirations, but making something that you couldn’t touch felt empty.
I realized I didn’t need to wait to get into office to make positive change. I could start now.
So once I’d felt satisfied that I’d taken the company as far as I could on my own, I’d handed it over, and now I built fleets of things I could touch. Towers, homes, skyscrapers, ships, and even the equipment that built these things. I produced something, and better yet, it was something people needed. Something that gave people jobs.
I owned the sixty-story building that housed my office, more real estate than I knew what to do with, and I certainly didn’t need handouts from people who wanted to have a politician in their pocket.
I had accomplished my successes on my own, and I’d get the Senate on my own.
But my brother had different ideas.
“Tyler, let me explain something.” He dropped his binder on the chair and planted his hands on my desk, leaning down. “When you’re not vying for donations, you’re also not vying for support. When Blackwell got a two-million-dollar donation, he also got their endorsement…” He explained it as if I were a child.
“He got the votes of everyone in that organization,” he went on. “And their friends. And their friends,” he added. “Donations aren’t just about money. They’re about other people putting their confidence in you. They’ll publicly endorse you, because they have a stake in your success when you have their cash.”
“Exactly.” I nodded, the chip still weighing on my shoulder. “I’m not here to play chess with these people and be their pawn.”
I twisted around, picking up an article I’d cut out from the table next to the window. “Look at this,” I shot out, holding up the clipping. “Senator McCoy here cut funding for after-school programs to reroute the money from the state to the city parks in Denver,” I explained. “However, the city parks don’t show that money in their quarterly budget. So where’d the money go?”
The question was rhetorical, so I didn’t wait for an answer. I dropped the clipping and grabbed the new printout I’d gotten off the Internet last night.
“And then this guy,” I started, taunting my brother. “Representative Kelley wants to cut funding to women’s clinics, because ‘why do women need a separate doctor from men?’ ” I quoted him from the article and then looked to my brother, scowling. “This genius thinks both genders have the same reproductive system, and yet he gets to vote on legislation that determines medical treatment for women.”
I started laughing, seeing my brother close his eyes and shake his head.
“This is why I’m running, Jay,” I stated. “Not so I can be a contender in a popularity contest of who’s got the most fucking friends.”
“Oh, fuck you, Tyler.” He groaned, running his hand through his hair and standing up. “I’m going for a drink, and tomorrow I am rebuilding you from the ground up.”
And then he turned, making his way out of my office.
A drink?
I looked down at my watch. “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning!” I argued.
“It’s New Orleans,” he deadpanned, as if that explained everything.
“And another thing…” He spun around, walking backward for the door. “Start being seen with a woman in public.”
At that point I pursed my lips, pretty sick of all of his orders. “I thought you said me being single appealed to the ‘single woman vote,’ ” I gritted out.
“Yeah, single. Not celibate,” he retorted. “You look gay.”
And then he turned around again, disappearing out the door.
I rubbed my hand down my face, feeling the back of my neck break out in a sweat.
Jesus Christ. Why was this so complicated?
Why was everything so complicated?
I didn’t want the Senate handed to me on a silver platter – I’d planned to work, and I was proud of my platform – but these fucking games… who I dated, what I wore, orchestrating fake photo ops with my kid, who happened to hate me, just so we appeared to have a close family… All of it was bullshit.
I knew CEOs who wrote off prostitutes on their taxes, politicians whose kids were on drugs, and civil projects funded by gangsters. All of these people put on masks to offer a clean, well-put-together appearance that was nothing but a complete lie.
I wanted the job, but I didn’t like pretending I was something I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to lose my freedom.
There was nothing wrong with me. I shouldn’t have to change.
I picked up the coffee Corinne had set on my desk and walked over to the wall of windows, staring out at the city.
My city.
The mighty Mississippi sat like the breath of life not far in the distance, busy with its fleets of cargo ships and tugboats as it calmly flowed past the convention center, St. Louis Cathedral, and the French Market.
I sipped the black coffee, strong and bitter the way I liked it, and noticed the storm clouds in the distance, rolling in from south of the river.
My city.
Life existed in every inch of it. Between the flowers and moss that popped out of the concrete sidewalk slabs, the chipped paint decorating the shops on Magazine Street, and the musicians strumming their guitars in the Quarter, there was so much I never wanted to change.
And so much I did.
That’s why I wanted to be in a position to give back and effect change in this city.
But I didn’t want to play by Jay’s rules. There were sides of me that I certainly didn’t want in the spotlight but that I didn’t want to hide either.
Like the part of me that had wanted to keep fighting her yesterday.
I narrowed my eyes, staring off out the windows.
I hadn’t meant to come off as such a dick, but she’d made me nervous. She wasn’t exactly approachable – not anymore, anyway – and her disdain was thick from the moment she’d walked into the room and seen me.
She acted like she hated me, and I wasn’t sure why I cared.
After Christian had been bugging me time and again about the damn phone, I’d finally had enough and decided, on a whim, to go in and deal with it. I’d intended to make an appointment, but then Shaw – who I’d gathered at the open house was a major kiss-ass – insisted on handling it now to appease me.
I’d waited, and when she’d walked into the room, her long brown hair spilling around her, I could barely handle it.
All I could remember was that same rich hair cascading down the smooth skin of her back as I followed her out to the balcony that night.
God, she was beautiful.
I didn’t care that we were fighting this morning, or that she looked furious with me. She was passionate, and if we’d been in my office instead, that meeting would’ve ended differently.
I glanced over at my black leather couch, imagining what she would look like on it.
She wouldn’t be easy.
In fact, I had a strange feeling it would be like high school, and I’d feel like I’d scored if I just got my hand up her shirt.
But that was wishful thinking. I couldn’t touch her.
Not that she wouldn’t try to resist me anyway – the dynamics of our relationship had changed – but there was no way I could risk hurting my son or thwarting my ambitions.
Tyler Marek Seduces Son’s High School Teacher.
Yeah, the headlines would sink me, and Jay would have a meltdown.
Brynne, Christian’s mother, would cut me off from my son, and Christian would n
ever forgive me. Our relationship was already teetering on the edge, and he only needed an excuse.
So why didn’t knowing any of that make her less desirable?
I opened the oven, grabbing the pot holder and taking the plate out of the warmer. Mrs. Giroux, the housekeeper, had been great about picking up cooking as one of her duties since Christian had come to live here. She had meals waiting for us daily, but even though I tried not to, I did miss dinner once in a while.
Christian and I had eaten together probably five times in the last three weeks. On occasion it was my fault. Something popped up, or I’d been running late, but more times than not Christian avoided me.
He spent time with friends, choosing to eat at their house, or he’d scarf down his dinner before I got home. He was about as distant as his teacher.
I made my way down the marble hallway, carrying my plate, napkin, and a bottle of beer, past the columns to my office, but I stopped, hearing laughter coming from the media room.
“No, dude!” someone shouted while another kid laughed. “Look at these pictures! We should print those.”
I narrowed my eyes, turning to the right and inching toward the room.
“Shit. Vince just tweeted,” I heard Christian say. “Aw, that’s sick! I wonder if this house is still around. Get on Google Earth.”
My mouth tilted in a smile, hearing his excitement. Google Earth? Well, at least it wasn’t porn.
I set the food down on the small table next to the double wooden doors leading to the room and pushed a door open, peering inside.
“Hey,” I said, seeing my son and two friends sprawled out on the carpeted floor instead of using the recliners in the room. They all had their laptops in front of them and looked completely engaged in whatever they were doing.
Christian’s eyes flashed to me, but then he focused back down on his laptop, brushing me off. “Hey,” he mumbled, having lost his smile.
The other two were munching and working, and I stepped into the room, loosening my tie and taking off my jacket.
“Did you eat?” I asked, making my way to the center of the room.
Christian didn’t look at me, only gestured to the pizza boxes on the floor before resuming his work on the computer.