I swallowed down a chuckle. “I see I got someone’s panties in a wad. Very well. Start writing. Book me an appointment with Jasper Stephens—you’ll find his number in my email, which you should have access to by now. Then a meeting with Irene Clarke. She’ll want to meet outside the office. Don’t allow for that to happen. I want her here, and I want her to bring the other CEO of her company, Chance Clement. Then send a driver to JFK—my stepmother should land there at half past four, and book me a taxi to Fourteen Madison Park for seven p.m. We’re having dinner there.”
I continued rattling off orders. “I want you to send fresh flowers to Trent’s mom—it’s her fifty-eighth birthday—and make sure there’s a personalized card with my name on it. Find her address. She still lives outside San Diego, but I have no fucking clue where. Ask the receptionist what I had for breakfast, and make sure it’s on my desk every morning from now on at half past eight or earlier. And coffee. Make sure there’s coffee as well. Make extra copies of every single document in this file.” I tossed a thick yellow file her way.
She caught it midair, still typing on her iPad, without lifting her head.
“Familiarize yourself with what’s inside. The players. Their likes and dislikes. Their weaknesses. There’s an upcoming merger between American Labs Inc. and Martinez Healthcare. I don’t want anything to fuck it up. Including my new PA.” I rubbed my chin, my gaze shamelessly gliding over her body. “I think we’re done here. Oh, and Emilia?”
Her eyes flicked up, meeting mine from across the desk.
I smirked arrogantly and tilted my head to one side. “Doesn’t it feel like we’ve come full circle? The daughter of the help becomes…” I dragged my tongue across my lower lip. “The help?”
I didn’t know how she’d react, just knew that I wanted to poke her one more time before she left my office. This woman made me feel uncomfortable, exposed. Fuck, I didn’t even know why I’d hired her ass. Well, I did. Still, most of the time she made me feel like I wanted to explode and tear the whole place apart.
Help raised her head proudly and got up from her seat, but didn’t make a move toward me. She just stared at me like I was a fucking freak. I knew my shirt was stainless and ironed. Black, crisp, and sharp. That I looked presentable. Handsome, even.
Then what the fuck was she staring at?
“You’re still here,” I said, moving my eyes to my laptop screen, clicking on my mouse a few times without purpose. She needed to leave. I needed her gone.
“I was just thinking…” She hesitated, staring at the reception area through the open blinds of my glass office walls.
My eyes snapped to where her gaze landed—the golden FHH hung inside a bronze circle. There was a hint of a frown on her full pink lips, and despite disliking her, I wouldn’t mind having them wrapped around my dick under my desk at some point.
“FHH?” She scrunched her nose in a way that I suspected most men would find adorable.
“Fiscal Heights Holdings,” I replied, curt and formal.
“Four Hot Holes,” she shot back. “You’re the Four HotHoles of Todos Santos. You, Trent, Jaime, and Dean.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Just hearing her utter his name aloud made me want to punch the desk. The initials of our enterprise were our little secret, but sometimes, especially when we met once a month for beer and business, we’d talk about how we’d fooled everyone. How people put their hard-earned millions in the hands of a company whose name stood for four football idiots, three of whose rich daddies paved their way to success.
But not Help. She knew. Saw past our bullshit. Guess that was what had always drawn me to her. To the girl who lived off cheap carbs and wore four-year-old shoes but never once fawned over my big mansion and glitzy car.
There were several reasons why I hated her. The first and most obvious one was that I suspected she knew what Daryl and I were talking about in my family’s library. That she knew my secret. It made me feel pathetic and weak. The second one was that she looked just like a young Jo. Same eyes. Same lips. Same slightly overlapping front teeth and that Lolita look about her.
Hell, even the same Southern accent, even though I could hear that she’d lost most of it now, after ten years.
Hating her was like atonement to my mother, Marie, for a sin that wasn’t even mine.
The third one, though, was part of the reason why I didn’t just hate Help, I respected her too. Her indifference to my power somewhat disarmed me.
Most people felt helpless around me. Emilia Leblanc never had.
I uncuffed the links on my dress shirt and rolled my sleeves up, taking my time and my pleasure in knowing she was watching me. “Now get your ass out of my office, Help. I have work to do.”
“Darlin’, bless your heart, I swear you look too good!” Jo clutched my cheeks in her cold, leathery hands. Her manicured fingernails dug into my skin a little deeper than they should have, and not by accident.
I flashed her a detached smile and allowed her to lower my head so she could kiss my forehead one last time before everything between us went to shit. This was the most physical contact I’d allowed her over the years, and she knew better than to overstep her boundaries. She smelled of chocolate and expensive perfume. The cloying scent felt rotten in my nostrils, even though I knew other people probably found it sweet.
Finally, she released me from her grip and inspected my face closely. The bluish tinge under her eyes suggested she was recovering from yet another facial surgery. Jo was what happened to the Bond Girl twenty-five years later. Her resemblance to Brigitte Bardot used to be uncanny. Only unlike Bardot, Jo never agreed to this thing called nature. She fought it, and it fought right back, and this was how she’d ended up having more plastic in her face than a Tupperware container.
That was her problem. All the bleached-blonde hair, surgeries, makeup, facials, and superficial bullshit in the world—the designer clothes and shoes and Hermès handbags—couldn’t cover up the fact that She. Was. Getting. Old.
She was getting old, while my mother remained young. My mother, Marie, only thirty-five at her death. With hair black as night and skin white as a dove. Her beauty was almost as violent as the accident that eventually ended her life.
She looked like Snow White.
Only unlike Snow White, she wasn’t rescued by the prince.
The prince was actually the very man who agreed to poison the apple.
The witch in front of me arranged for it to be delivered.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the truth until it was too late.
“I adore this restaurant!” She fluffed her over-styled hair and followed the maître d’ to our table, gushing about expensive shit and mistakenly thinking it passed as small talk.
I tuned her out. She wore the gray Alexander Wang dress I’d bought for her birthday—it took me forever to find a cheap knock-off that’d make her rich friends laugh at her behind her back—and a perfectly applied lipstick a shade darker than her favorite red wine, just to make sure she’d look prim and proper, even after her meal.
A part of me was angry at Help for not fucking up any of the tasks I’d given her today. I thought she’d promised to be a shitty PA? If only she’d forgotten to book Jo a driver, I wouldn’t be here now.
I trudged through the avant-garde design of the exclusive restaurant, moving past walls made of live plants, French doors, backlit black cabinets, and ornate paneling. For a few seconds, I felt like a kid who was about to endure some punishment he dreaded, and on some level that’s exactly who I was.
We sat down.
We drank our water silently from crystal stemware that was as impractical as it was nonsensical.
We flipped through the menu, not looking at each other, murmuring something about the difference between Syrahs and Merlots.
But we didn’t talk. Not really. I was waiting to see how she was going to broach the subject. Not that it mattered in any way, of course. Her fate w
as sealed.
She’d not murmured a word about the reason she’d flown here, not until after the waitress served us our entrees. Then she finally spoke up. “Your father’s getting worse. He’s going to pass soon, I’m afraid.” She stared into her plate, poking at her food, like she had no appetite. “My poor sweet husband.”
She pretends to love him.
I stabbed my steak with my fork, cutting into the blood rare filet, chewing the juicy piece of meat, my face blank.
But my hate for him is genuine and real.
“That’s a shame,” I said, my voice devoid of emotion.
Her gaze met mine. She shivered inside her fake designer number.
“I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to hold on.” She rearranged the silverware over the napkin she hadn’t placed in her lap, straightening them in a neat line.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and spit it out, Jo.” I smiled politely, draining my glass of scotch—fuck wine—and sat back, making myself comfortable. This was going to be good.
Squeal, Mother. Squeal.
She took a tissue from her purse, patting the mist of sweat from her waxy Botoxed forehead. It wasn’t warm in the restaurant.
She was anxious.
It felt good.
“Baron…” She sighed, and my eyes clenched shut, my nostrils flaring.
I hated that name. It was my father’s. I would’ve legally changed it long ago if it weren’t for the fact I didn’t want anyone to know I gave a shit.
“You don’t need all of his money,” Jo said with another sigh. “You’ve built a multi-million-dollar company on your own. And of course, I have no expectations about how much I might inherit. I just need a place to stay. This whole thing has caught me so unprepared…”
I was only ten when Dean’s father, Eli Cole, a family law attorney who represented some of the biggest actors in Hollywood, shut Dad’s office door for a two-hour consultation on estate planning. Despite being crazy for Jo—or maybe because he was crazy for her and never really trusted himself—Dad insisted on a prenup that protected every penny and gave Jo nothing if she ever filed for divorce.
Death wasn’t a divorce, but she was worried about the will.
Neither Jo nor I knew what his will said, but we could guess. My father was a vain old man whose wife was his once mistress, a second violin to his business empire. And me? To my father, I barely existed except as a name that symbolized his legacy, but unlike her, I could help that legacy live on.
In all likelihood, I was going to be in charge of his entire business empire soon. I would hold the purse strings, and Jo was worried that my main vice—vindictiveness—would mean she was going to lose her cushy lifestyle. For once in her miserable life, she was right.
I exhaled, lifting my brows and looking sideways, like she’d caught me off guard. Not uttering a word—it was too much fun to watch her hopeful gaze as it met my armor of indifference—I took another slow sip of my scotch.
“If we find out that he…” she trailed off.
“Left you penniless?” I finished for her.
“Give me the mansion.” Her tone was clipped, and surprise, surprise, she was no longer pretending to be warm and motherly. “I won’t ask for anything else.”
The way she looked at me—like a brat who’d been denied their favorite toy, like she was in a position to negotiate—almost made me laugh.
“Sorry, Jo. I have plans for that mansion.”
“Plans?” She seethed, her bleached teeth shining with saliva. “It’s my home. You haven’t lived in Todos Santos for ten years.”
“I don’t want to live there,” I said simply, tugging at my tie. “I want to burn it to the ground.”
Her blue eyes flared, and her mouth collapsed into a frown. “So if it comes to that, you won’t give me even one thing, huh? Not even the mansion.”
“Not even the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. Sans fruit,” I confirmed, nodding. “We should do this more often. Jo. Spend time together. Dine. Share a nice wine. I had a lot of fun tonight.”
The waitress placed the bill on our table, the timing perfect, just like I’d arranged. I smiled, and this time—this one miserable fucking time—my smile actually reached my eyes. I yanked my wallet out of the breast pocket of my blazer and handed over an American Express black card. The waitress took it immediately and vanished behind a black door at the end of the busy room.
“Remember, Baron, we don’t know what the will says.” Jo shook her head slowly, her eyes hard. “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others.” She was quoting the Bible now.
Nice touch. I distinctly remembered Thou shalt not kill somewhere in there, too.
“I smell a challenge. You know I’m always a little silly for a challenge, Jo.” I winked and thumbed my collar, widening it. I’d been in this suit for far too long. I wanted to shed it along with this shitty day. My expression remained amused.
“Tell me, Baron, do I need to seek legal representation for this?” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table
Elbows on the fucking table? Josephine would’ve smacked me good if it were me with my elbows anywhere near the table when I was a kid. Her brother would’ve finished the job with his belt in the library, too.
I cracked my neck and squeezed my lips together, pretending to think about it. I definitely had legal representation of my own. It was the nastiest motherfucker to ever study law, and it was me. I might be cold, heartless, and emotionally handicapped, but Jo knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was also the best in the business.
I’d spoken to Eli Cole, too. He’d agreed to represent me in case my father did leave her something and I needed to scare her off. I wanted her penniless. It wasn’t about the money. It was about justice.
The waitress reappeared with my credit card. I tipped her a hundred percent and got up, leaving my stepmother alone at the table in front of her half-eaten dish. My plate was clean. My conscience was, too.
“By all means, please feel free to lawyer up, Mother,” I said as I shouldered into my cashmere pea coat. “Frankly, that’s the best idea you’ve had in years.”
Ten Years Ago
“SURE YOU DON’T WANT TO go back to the party?” I asked Dean between breathless kisses.
He nuzzled his nose into my collarbone, our lips swollen from the last half hour. We’d kissed until we’d run out of saliva and our mouths were numb. I liked his kisses. They were good. Wet. Maybe a little too wet, but definitely enjoyable. Besides, we were still figuring out how to enjoy each other. Things were going to get even better with time. I was sure of it.
“Party? There’s a party?” Dean rubbed the back of his neck, pinching his eyebrows together. “Cut that shit, Millie. I didn’t even notice. Way too busy spending time with a girl who tastes like ice cream and paints like Picasso.” His voice was husky and hoarse.
I ignored the Picasso remark because my style was nothing like his, but I appreciated the compliment, I guess. Okay, it annoyed me a little. Because I knew for a fact Dean didn’t know even one Picasso painting.
God, what was wrong with me?
I liked Dean a lot. He was handsome, with his chestnut man-bun and green eyes. I ran my hand over his bulging triceps, groaning with need when I thought about what they could do to me if and when we decided to take our make-out sessions to the next step.
I knew all about the Four HotHoles, and he was one of them.
Soon, Dean was going to ask for sex.
Soon, I was going to agree.
I would be happy to give him my V-card if not for the nagging feeling that this was just another cruel Vicious joke. Surely, Dean wasn’t hateful enough to date me just so Vicious could make fun of me later? No, he seemed genuine. The sweet messages. The coffee he brought me every morning when we met at school. The late night phone calls. The kisses.
When he’d first asked me for a date months ago, I’d politely declined. He’d persisted. For weeks and
weeks, he’d waited next to my locker, beside my bike, and outside my family’s apartment at the estate. He was relentless and focused, yet kind and sweet. Said that he promised not to touch me until I was ready. Said I shouldn’t judge him based on his reputation. And claimed to have a ten-inch dick, which meant absolutely nothing to this virgin. I might have playfully punched his arm for the latter.
But I was lonely, and he was cute and nice to me. Having someone was better than having no one.
Sometimes, doubt still crept into my mind. The HotHoles didn’t have the best reputation. Even worse, I had unresolved feelings toward his good friend. Granted, most of those feelings were negative, but still.
As if sensing my wall of defensiveness going up, Dean leaned into me on my narrow single bed and pressed his lips to my temple. “I really like you, Millie.”
“I really like you too.” I sighed, rubbing his cheek with my thumb. I’d spoken the truth. The feelings he stirred in me, they were positive. Safe. But they weren’t wild. They didn’t drive me crazy, and they didn’t make me want to act irrationally and unlike myself.
Which was good. I think.
“All your friends are out there. I’m sure you want to hang out with them.” I nudged him softly. “You don’t have to choose between me and your parties.”
But that wasn’t the whole truth, and we both knew it.
“I’d rather stay here with you,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine.
We both looked at our hands, silently contemplating our next step. The atmosphere shifted into something heavy that pressed on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Then I’ll come with you.” I mustered a smile.
I didn’t like Vicious’s parties, but for Dean, I was willing to show my face. Even though it was a face no one wanted to see.
People at school still thought of me as an inbred hillbilly. But now, I was no longer bullied. Once it became known that I was hooking up with Dean Cole, no one dared to stuff crap in my locker or mutter hateful words when I walked by. Even though it was difficult to admit, that was a big part of the reason why I liked spending time with my new boyfriend.