Текст книги "The Boss's Daughter"

Автор книги: Aubrey Parker

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Brandon

BECAUSE I HAVE NO BETTER idea of what to do, I show up for work on Monday. There’s no word from Mason one way or the other, but in my imagination I picture a river of ice running through the airspace between his phone and mine.

We left on an indecisive point. I barely remember the conversation. I was just trying to run my mouth in any direction I could imagine, but the encounter felt like a cross between being drunk and being punched. Mason’s marvelous at yelling, especially at those who disappoint him. I’d heard it, and I’d imagined it. I just never figured I’d be one of those people.

Once it was over, I stumbled back to my truck and drove home, growing increasingly annoyed.

I was so weak, there in his office.

In a negotiation, you’re not supposed to make your needs obvious. I hadn’t realized it was a negotiation, after I’d waited for his return, but it was. I was negotiating to keep my job; he was arguing that I should be fired.

And so I basically got down on my knees to lick his shoes.

I talked about how much I respect this company. I even talked about Riley, though maybe that might have been my self-sabotage streak (the same one that makes me drink hard when things get particularly bad) at work. I barely remember what I said. I only remember the tone, and the taste in my mouth that slowly dawned as I drove home, still exhausted, now coming down from adrenaline and shame.

Why should I have to work so hard to keep my job? I had to keep reminding myself: Mason didn’t know what happened between me and Riley, as much as I think I talked about her in that meeting for some reason. So he wouldn’t fire me, would he? I only blew my promotion.

But thinking that mitigating thought just worked me up even more.

I gripped the steering wheel.

I gritted my teeth beneath my lips.

I drove faster than I should have.

How dare he berate me. How dare he make me feel like a slacker, like the other asshole slackers we’ve all heard rumors of the great Mason James taking to school? When we heard about those reprimands, they always made sense. Some guy who never showed up for work. Someone who stole. Someone who harassed coworkers or yelled racist epithets from job sites. Someone with sticky fingers, skimming off the top and thinking the company wouldn’t notice.

And now I’m in with them?

It doesn’t matter that I may have kept my job. I deserve my job. And the promotion.

I’ve always come to work on time. This was literally the only time I’ve ever been late, and it was just a little late, on a weekend. And it wasn’t my fault. I tried to tell that to Mason – about the truck’s failure, hoping Riley didn’t share something similar, with a nonsexual twist, when she got home – but he wasn’t willing to hear a word. I don’t remember everything he said because I was too busy staring at my navel and playing shamefaced, but there was something about how a real man doesn’t make excuses. About how a real man always has contingencies for the things that are important.

But interestingly, I don’t even think he was rebutting my truck defense. It sounded like he didn’t believe me. Like the moment I started to explain, he was waving his hand to waft my bullshit away from his sensitive nose.

Insulting.

Condescending.

By the time I got home, I’d almost decided to quit.

Fuck Mason James. Fuck his company. Let’s see what happens if I quit. Not only will the Stonegate project fall apart; he’ll see how much crap I was holding together. Stuff I wasn’t even responsible for. Stuff I handled because it was wrong and needed to be right, and no one would fix it but me. I should do it just to make him beg. I should stalk off and let everything come crumbling down, then see if his opinion of me changes.

Let’s see what kind of deal he gets on the land he’s considering without my insights. Sure, the survey and zoning specialists nailed their assessments, but there’s one thing I meant to bring up in that meeting as a gotcha that I’m sure nobody’s mentioned: The city is planning to repaint the water tower visible at the east end of the land’s view. Everyone with a north-facing window, looking into the beautiful valley, is about to get an eyeful of garish yellow blight once the paint job is finished. It’s not front and center, but people who pay what Mason wants them to don’t want something like that even in the peripheral vision of their luxury home.

I figure it’ll cost him $10,000 per unit in resale value, on ambiance alone.

Given the planned three hundred or so units, that’s $3 million. If they’re capitalizing the land at 10 percent, which they may or may not be, that’s at least $300K, maybe a half million less that Mason should be paying. And knowing Mason, he’ll get it to at least a million. Everyone knows Life of Riley is staking out the land on the hill near the creek, and if they mysteriously pass, every other developer will think twice.

The financiers won’t hurt as much as the seller, but it’s not exactly a lending boom right now. The banks act like they have all the power, that they’re not willing to lend their precious money and that therefore everyone should beg. But the truth is that banks have to lend or they die, and that it’s them in desperate need – for someone like Mason James, who’s a safe credit risk and willing to assume massive loans.

Let’s see how this deal goes without me.

Let’s see how the Stonegate project would do without me.

Let’s see how any of what I touch at Life of Riley will fare if I walk out, calling Mason’s high-goddamn-handed bluff.

By the time I got home, I was about ready to hit the bar despite the hour. I had women I could call, too, and I almost did. I don’t need any James. None of them. They want to pile atop me, make me feel like crap? They want to tell me I’m useless and unwanted? I’m used to it. I’ve grown immune.

But then Bridget texted me. And after I deflected some questions and apologies about the whole stupid, botched incident, I managed to ask about her business, and if she thought she was on track to start again after her vocal cords recovered.

I managed to ask what I really wanted to know without seeming too obvious, I think.

But of course, it looks like Bridget’s check will be delayed again, and she won’t be paid for another week or two beyond what she’d last heard. Because that’s just my luck. And I’m bone fucking dry.

So much for the repayment I’m sure Bridget would insist on making right away.

So much, accordingly, for my sense of pride.

I didn’t go to the bar.

I didn’t call any of the women I know would love to make me feel better, and I’m not sure why. It’s not like I’d have to pay them. It’s not even like I’d need to buy them dinner. That’s free sex, and it’d let me get lost for a while in the press of warm flesh.

But I must be seriously bummed out because I called no one.

I didn’t call Mason to tell him to fuck off. Or leave a message for him to fuck off when he got back to the office, at his convenience.

I watched TV. For now, TV is free.

On every station, it seemed, there was a woman to remind me of Riley. Even on the skin channels. Especially on the skin channels. Someone has her legs. Someone has her tits. Someone has blonde hair. Someone looks nothing like her, but she’s on a beach, and I’m sure for some reason that Riley loves the feel of warm sand on her skin.

And now here I am at work. On time, like a chump. Wearing one of my nice shirts, again because I’m a chump. I feel for the entire morning like I’m walking around bent over, so willing to do whatever the company needs of me, no matter how degrading.

I’m in charge here, so I guess it says nothing, the way nobody has told me to leave. But there’s been no call from Margo or anyone else at the office asking for one of my foremen and wondering why I’m here instead of the unemployment line.

I do my job and slowly decide that the minute I can afford it, I’ll march back into Mason’s office and demand the vice presidency. It’s that, or I quit. And I’ll mean it. Because the longer I sit here, picking up the slack nobody else ever picks up, doing my job better than anyone else does theirs, going above and beyond without recognition, the angrier I get.

Mason treated me like a criminal. He didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. He did exactly the opposite. For some reason, I was guilty until proven innocent. He wouldn’t listen, as if he’d already decided I wasn’t just late because of something reasonable, but was instead because I’d been busy robbing a liquor store.

Or having angry sex with his daughter.

But he doesn’t know that unless Riley told him. So as soon as Bridget’s check comes in and I get my money back, I’ll turn the tables. I’m going to demand a promotion, or I walk. I’ll make a list of everything I do, everything that would be dead if I hadn’t intervened. And I’ll shove it down his throat.

I’m out of here. I had a naive love of this company, but I’m over it now. The company doesn’t love me back, or it would believe in me.

“Hey, boss,” Shaun’s voice says from behind me, in the small trailer that functions as our on-site office. “Someone to see you.”

I see Shaun standing beside a tall black man when I turn, wearing clothes that are nicer than mine. He’s vice president of finance at Life of Riley, and I’m pretty sure his name is Marcus. I’ve met him before, but it was in the hurly-burly of the office tour a thousand years ago, back when I’d thought I might get a vice presidency myself.

I swallow my anger. Marcus is just a guy like me, doing a job. And today, he’s probably here to ask for mine.

We shake hands, and I fake a smile.

“We just stopped by to get your projections, as we talked about last week.”

“Projections?”

“You said you were on schedule and under budget.”

I understand his words, but they don’t make sense. When I talked to Marcus, he’d been gathering information from Mason’s candidates for vice president of Land Acquisition. It was kind of like a live resume, or a reality show contest. Whoever looked best, with the best credentials, won. But Marcus must not have missed the memo: I’m now persona non grata in Mason James’s eyes … or at least persona not worth trusting with real responsibility, like that of a company VP.

“Sure,” I say, handing him a folder. I copied the documents in more certain times – happier times, when I’d still thought I was a candidate. They’ve been sitting atop my desk for days, neatly collated and ready for delivery.

“I’ll run these back after lunch,” he says.

But earlier, he said we. And now he’s saying I. 

“Who’s with you?” I ask. Because it’s Mason. I’m sure it’s Mason, because even if they’re still pretending I have a shot at the VP job, Mason would want to check up on me. Because I’m that irresponsible, and need to be watched like a child.

But he doesn’t need to answer, because now I can see Marcus’s car through the doorway.

It’s not Mason.

Standing beside the car, looking like she doesn’t want to be here any more than I want her to be, is Riley James.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Riley

THE LOOK BRANDON GIVES ME from the office trailer chills me even in the warm air. I’m wearing the most professional outfit Phoebe could find, and it’s suitable for a meeting with any number of stodgy feminist groups. But still I feel like I’m standing here naked, all of my girl parts visible for Brandon to stare at.

I feel intimidated by his gaze. I feel like I’m being judged. I feel like he’s staring at this strange nakedness I’d swear is real, but he’s not turned on; he’s embarrassed for me instead. He’s looking down on me, like a fool. This isn’t like entering a man’s bedroom naked, it’s like walking into a big room full of people while not wearing clothes.

I want to cover myself up. I want to turn away.

Instead, I stay where I am, trying not to look directly at him or away. Every little gesture and movement of my body feels deliberate, and not in a good way. Would a person who didn’t care about being here cross her legs and lean back? Or would she stand ramrod straight, as if on review? Should I go forward to show him that none of this is a big deal, or should I start sniffing around the job site as if searching for loose ends?

I went to bat for Brandon, and still he’s looking at me like he has no idea. His stare says he hates me. Like he blames me for everything, and not just what happened since the weekend. My family was rich, and his was poor. I had both parents once, and kept a father, whereas he probably knew neither. I’ve never had to do more than say please to get what I wanted, while Brandon always had to slave away for weeks and months and years.

I’m everything he’s always struggled against.

And as I stand next to this expensive car in my lady-suit, I find there’s nothing I can do to make myself less hateful. If I’m stoic, I’m sure he’ll feel I’m here to judge him – which, if you read between the lines of what Marcus probably just told him, is exactly what I’m here to do. But if I’m light and casual and friendly, he might think I’m still on the hook. He’ll think I’m recalling what happened between us and wanting more, which I definitely am not.

Except that sometimes, I kind of am.

Before the ride home, we were doing remarkably well. We had fun at dinner. Famous levels of fun, too – not just polite, well-mannered banter. The stuff we bonded over was deep-me, not surface-level Riley. And it must have felt deep for Brandon too because after we talked about music, he took me to hear some.

I tingle at the memory of his touch – the innocent brushes before things became serious.

I wonder if we could ever move beyond this. If we could erase the last handful of hours spent together and cut things off before I climbed inside his truck. He’d offered to call me a car, and as I watch him now, I’m wondering what would have happened if I’d taken it.

I’d have gone home, feeling good about this handsome, ambitious man who’d so impressed my father.

I’d have drawn a bath.

And if I’m honest, I’m fairly sure I’d have detached the sprayer and done what felt right, recalling our long and sensuous evening.

The brush of his fingers on mine.

The way he looked when we listened to Gavin play his haunting song.

The looks Brandon gave me all night long.

And if all of that had happened, I’d be here just the same, standing beside this car. But there wouldn’t be this horrible tension. This feeling that Brandon blamed me for something, the feeling that I’d betrayed myself and my intentions to be serious for once rather than the flighty girl my father expects.

Ironically, if we hadn’t had sex, right now a part of me would be dreaming of it. Only it wouldn’t just be sex. My fairy tale mind would be looking forward to the day we might make love.

But not here. Not now.

If you think he’s our man, Riley, my father told me, then you go there today with Marcus, and find out.

After speaking again with Chief Wood and learning that Brandon wasn’t the man who busted up Room With a Cue – something he wouldn’t have found out if I hadn’t pressed – I think my father feels sheepish by Morgan James standards. He’ll admit when he was wrong to most people, but to me he’s still hedging. The best he can manage is a reluctantly apologetic manner. And a reluctantly conferred position of responsibility.

It’s interesting that what’s saved Brandon’s skin at this company is the same thing that’s letting me prove myself.

And right now, it’s like Brandon knows it. As if, looking at me, he’s thinking that I orchestrated this all on purpose. Maybe I seduced him to save him and move up the ladder.

Brandon and Marcus come forward. Marcus doesn’t seem to know we’re acquainted, so I allow him to introduce us. Brandon follows my lead, and soon we’re shaking hands and saying it’s nice to meet each other.

I hold Brandon’s hand, and my traitorous mind recalls the way it felt on my bare ass, the chilly night air kissing my skin. I look into his eyes and remember the hungry way they locked on mine. The sense that he meant to devour me. And, paradoxically, I remember the way they looked earlier – the opposite of lust filled. At the Overlook, they’d been soft, sad, deep. He’d seemed older then, and I’d felt much, much younger. But we’d both felt that music.

We walk around for a while, and it’s like there’s a magnet pulling us together. Marcus keeps ending up ahead while we both trail back, and there are a few times when, weaving around in-progress construction, we actually collide. I wonder if I’m making it happen on purpose. I look over at Brandon and wonder if he is. If I was wrong. If he’s not ashamed of what we did. If maybe he wants more.

I think of our dinner discussion. Our sprawling talk as we prowled Old Town’s streets. Our soft words spoken in the club, before and after the performance. Even our conversation back when we first walked the new land, and how I brought us to the creek.

Nobody really understands what it’s like to lose a parent. But even then, my heart wanted to trust him, because he did know. And more.

I look at his face. I remember all Bridget told me because I’ve been playing it over and over in my head. And every time I tried to hate Brandon for what happened and the way he acted, I can never quite believe it. Because I was there too. And because I like Bridget a lot, and she loves this man with all her heart. He’s her rock, and she’s his. I’ve never had anything like that. I never had a sibling, and my friends always stayed at arm’s length. Mom and I were close. Dad and I – maybe because of what happened with Mom and how that broken bond made me feel – were always more distant. I wouldn’t let him as close to me.

Looking at Brandon, I remember what Bridget told me about his face in particular. About his beard. About the story behind all that happened.

And I can’t hate him. I can’t let him hate me. I can’t believe he’d hate me.

As we’re crossing beside an open foundation, my heel catches, and I totter. I’m far from falling in, but Brandon doesn’t watch me wobble. He doesn’t offer me a hand. Instead, he takes me around the waist as if he’s sure I’m about to plummet to my death. It’s not until afterward when he seems embarrassed, as if he should’ve known better.

I watch his profile and try to see what Bridget told me was there in her early morning whisper – a story written in flesh.

He sees me looking and turns, but this time his eyes are softer. We break the gaze a second after it forms, but that was long enough.

We’re back at the car.

“I guess we’d better get to the office. I have a 1:30 I’m about to be late for.” Marcus nods toward me. “Did you see all you needed to?”

Instead of answering, I look at Brandon as if he holds the answer.

“That’s everything, right, Brandon?” Marcus asks.

Brandon looks at me. There’s a moment that Marcus probably sees as the passage of seconds, but to me it feels like a thousand years. I can’t read his expression and don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if he’s judging me or desiring me or loathing me. I don’t know if he wants me or hates me. If he blames me. If I’m his enemy after so recently being his friend and lover.

The gaze lasts another long beat, Brandon’s expression unreadable.

And then he says to Marcus, “Actually, if Miss James has the time to see the south quarter now, I’d like her to stay.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Brandon

MARCUS LEAVES, AND I FIND myself facing Riley in the little dooryard ahead of the office trailer. I’m immediately sure I’ve read her wrong.

This, in itself, bothers me. It’s not hard for me to read women. Ever since high school, I’ve never struck out much. Bridget says it’s because I radiate confidence, which is odd because there’s so much I’m not confident about. But either way, I can tell which girls will be receptive if I say the right thing – and honestly, if they’re already into me, there’s little I can do, practically speaking, to mess things up. The decision is made. I just need to seal the deal.

But Riley? I can’t read her.

Or rather, she’s giving me something different to read.

Other girls give me fantasy, and Riley is giving me literature.

Other girls give me English language books, and she’s asking me to read in Russian.

It’s foreign. It’s different. This isn’t a bar, and we’re not trading glances down a long expanse of oak or walnut. Her unspoken question isn’t whether or not I’d like to take her to bed. My unspoken question isn’t whether she’d go if I asked.

This is something different, and as Marcus raises dust to leave us alone, I can feel the eyes of my crew upon us.

They’re going to start laughing, I know it.

I had friends who weren’t good with women. They asked me for tips, and I never knew what to say. You just talk to them. If you’re both into each other, you seal the deal. 

But this, here? This must be how my awkward friends felt.

I’m sure I’ve done something stupid. I thought she was saying one thing, but now I’m certain she’s saying the other. There are fluttering nerves in my gut, but it’s more than just my job or promotion I’m fearing for. This is more primal. I’m sure all of these people around me – folks who would have me believe are simply nailing boards, placing siding, and running gutters – are actually peering at me every time I look away, gibbering.

Look at that fool. He thinks the girl wants to talk to him, and he’s about to do something stupid.

I look to Riley, careful not to look too hard. What happened between us – and by what happened I mean the night as well as the sex that capped it – was a drunken indiscretion. Never mind that we didn’t drink all that much or that the night was plenty long for those drinks to boil away and leave our heads clear. It was like that day at the creek. Riley showed something she shouldn’t have, and I was supposed to know enough to look away without taking advantage.

I don’t know why she makes me so nervous. I’ve been on a hundred dates, with or without the actual date. I’ve had many female coworkers, many attractive. I’ve even slept with a few.

But this is different.

I watch her, trying to find the line. I’ve acted. I’ve put myself out there. I asked her to stay, having (apparently wrongly) assumed she wanted to. Which would be nice if it were true because that would let us put the other night behind us. I need her not to give me up, and I’d bet she doesn’t want her father knowing she gave it to one of his grunts.

That’s all I want. To talk.

I think.

But she just stands there, dressed to the nines, covered with a lot of fabric as if she’s working hard not to be sexy. Her hair is up somehow, but not in a girlish ponytail. She’s not fooling me, but it looks like she’s trying to fool someone.

This is not a woman who wants me to touch her. I read those signals wrong, too.

And she’s not a woman who wants to talk about the … well, the thing that I assume we’re both supposed to understand never happened. I was stupid to think she’d want to discuss it. You don’t talk about things like that. You keep on keeping on, averting your eyes.

Now we’re stuck. Because I insisted she stay.

I look at Riley for a sign that I’m wrong (about being wrong; I can barely keep things straight), but she won’t return my gaze.

So I do the only thing that comes to me – show her the south quarter. But first, I have to decide what “south quarter” means because that’s not a term we use, and it’s not something we’ve designated.

“Hang on. I just need to get some paperwork.” I say it professionally. The way I’d say it to someone I’d never met. Maybe a banker, or an IRS agent.

I pace up the short flight of temporary metal stairs and begin to rummage pointlessly through the papers on my desk. I gave Marcus everything I’d prepared, so now I’m going to have to grab something random and pretend she doesn’t ask to see it and know I’m bluffing.

The door closes behind me.

I turn to see Riley with her back to the door. The blinds are drawn because I’ve only got a window AC, and it gets hot if I keep them open, so after being out in the bright sun, this feels claustrophobic, like a cave.

“We should talk,” she says.

“Just let me get these papers.”

“Not about the south quarter. Not about Stonegate Bridge.”

I turn back halfway. She’s still at the door. She looks scared, but I feel even more afraid than she looks.

She’s going to drop the hammer. She’s going to take away the chance of promotion that Marcus so recently dangled, now that he’s out of the picture and she can speak straight. I hauled ass out of that corn shack’s dirt lot without a goodbye, and after I’d recovered from the alarm of trying and failing to make my meeting, I’d thought about that. I treated her like a one-night stand. Because that’s what it was. And I’d convinced myself she understood that: We both scratched our itches, no need for more. But I’d wondered if she felt used, and now I’m looking at proof.

“What about then?” I say, pretending like a coward.

“About the other night.”

“It was a mistake,” I blurt.

Riley sighs. She sits in the chair that foremen usually sit in. She crosses her legs, probably trying to seem in charge, but I can see her age through her ruse. She’s a girl in woman’s clothing. A kid playing dress-up. Something about the thought breaks my heart because I can almost see her as she once was. I can see below her skin. I know how part of her must feel all the time because as much as she had growing up, she and I share something. A pain that most can’t know.

“Is that all it was?”

I sigh. I don’t know what answer she wants me to give.

“My father said you stuck up for me.”

My eyes narrow. That’s absolutely not what I expected her to say.

“I did?”

“He said you told him I knew the company better than anyone. That if you didn’t get the vice presidency, he should give it to me.”

“Take it,” I say.

“I don’t want it.”

“It’s your father’s company.”

“And I don’t want pity. I don’t want to get what’s not coming to me.” She gives me a demure little blink, and I wonder if there’s more to that statement than I’m seeing.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“For telling him that. I’m trying to be that person.”

“Be what person?”

“The person I need to be.”

Riley sounds like she’s attended a self-help seminar. I’m not sure where to take this, but I can see she’s not angry. At least not on the surface. Maybe I did read her right. My heart, which continues to thud in my ears and make me dizzy, isn’t positive.

“Okay,” I tell her. “You’re welcome.”

A tiny smile. I can tell how much it’s costing her to break through the harsh facade. “How am I doing?”

“You look very professional.”

Something in the way I say it seems to bother her. She sits up straighter.

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing. I mean that you look professional.”

“Is professional good?”

“Yes. Sure.” I don’t know what to say beyond that. I feel like I’m being tested.

“What happened,” she says. “That can’t happen again.”

“Okay.”

“This company is … ” She sighs. “It’s my legacy, I guess.”

“Of course.”

“But my dad doesn’t believe I can run it. Not really. I think he wants to believe me, but to him, I’m still just his little girl.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious, Brandon.”

“I know you are.” But already my mood is changing. I read her right, all right … but now she’s talking herself into changing her mind. And she’s doing it without my permission. And at my expense. I was right that she didn’t want to deny what happened between us across the board, but wrong in believing she wanted to fully face it. What she wants is to change it. She wants to talk it out so she can convince herself that I’m the bad guy. Or at least the guy. She did nothing to initiate our encounter; that’s what she’s trying to say here. It was all me. Now she’s dressing me down, making sure I understand that I can’t come at her again with a raging erection because she’ll turn it down in a straight faced, disapproving way. Because she’s a businesswoman. Which my testimonial helped her father to believe, after I plowed her in the back of a pickup.

I force my anger down. I’m overreacting. She doesn’t mean that at all.

“I should apologize,” she says.

“Don’t apologize.”

“That first day. By the creek. It wasn’t fair for me to put that on you.”

“You didn’t put anything on me.”

“I might have given you the wrong idea.”

“You didn’t give me any ideas,” I say, now glancing around the office, wanting this to be over. I don’t know why I asked her to stay. I feel stupid. Was I really that dumb and naive? She’s Mason’s daughter. She’s a shark, from blood to cartilage.

“I’d just come home,” she says. “I was missing my friends. That’s all. You know how it is.”

“I don’t know how it is,” I tell her, “seeing as I didn’t go to college.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh. Of course not.”

She looks at me for a few seconds. Then she goes on.

“It wasn’t a good idea, and we both know it, Brandon.”

“Having sex in the back of my truck?”

She seems to blush. “The whole night.”

“I thought it was perfectly professional.”

“This isn’t good for you either.”

I laugh. “It was plenty good for me. And for you, too, judging by the way you – ”

“How would my father react if he knew?”

“Did you tell him?”

“Of course not.”

“Who did you tell?”

“Nobody!”

“Not even Phoebe?”

She looks away.

“I see. So you didn’t tell anyone at all.”

“You told your sister!”

“I needed her to give us a jump! And to give you a ride home so I could make a meeting with your father! One I missed, thanks to you!”

“Thanks to me?” 

“My dick wasn’t in anyone else that night, Riley!”

Her face is more hurt than angry. But then the anger percolates back, and she says, “Yes. You missed the meeting. My father came home plenty pissed. I’ll bet he really gave it to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Enough that it probably seemed like he was going to fire you. Certainly not consider you for the vice presidency. Or did you leave that little chat feeling confident? Shack up with the boss’s daughter, miss a meeting, and still stand on top of the world? That’s how it seemed, right?”

I kind of grunt, unsure where she’s going, the hair on the back of my neck standing tall. “So what?”

“He said you were a drunk. Did you know that’s how he thinks of you?”