AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One- Emma
“Stay close to me. Don’t leave my side. Allow me to do the talking, just smile and nod along,” my father tells me as he turns off the main road and onto a discreet side road. The trees make it nearly invisible if you don’t know what you’re looking for. I probably would have driven past it two or three times if I was the one behind the wheel.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes at my father. He’ll ground me for a week despite the fact I’m eighteen. He's a big fan of the idea that children should be seen and not heard. It's useless to try and remind him I'm no longer a child. A technicality in his eyes. I'll be a child until I've successfully graduated from law school and follow in his steps to be a lawyer. Until then, all behavior not to his standards will be seen as adolescent impropriety. His words, not mine.
“Don’t worry Dad, I doubt there will be anyone there I want to talk to anyways,” I tell him.
A few months back, an invitation showed up in the mail. Not unusual, my father is often invited to his client's events. This one had both of our names written on it in beautiful calligraphy, and it nearly sent my father into a panic attack. I volunteered to stay home, but he told me his client insisted I come.
His client wants to meet his family, and I'm the only family that my father has left.
Every decision that had to be made, he fretted over. It’s a black-tie event, more formal than anything I’ve ever attended. We about ran the poor store attendant ragged while picking out my dress. My father wanted to be sure I would blend into a crowd and be nothing worth taking a second glance at. His demands had almost offended me had I not seen the worry on his face.
Originally, he vetoed every dress that looked halfway decent on me. It took both the store attendant and me to reason with him I would garner as much attention if I looked bad as I would in a standout dress. A clown would draw more eyes than a queen if they were both in the same area. Afterward, he allowed the store attendant to pull dresses other than the awful pastel frocks he had been insisting on seeing me in. Anything pastel is not my friend.
Being a red-head has its perks. Color selection is not one of them.
The dress I’m wearing is expensive. Dark green silk fabric covers me from head to toe. A floor-length gown with long, fitted sleeves, the only hint of skin comes from the plunging neckline. My father tried to convince me to have it altered, but even with the open front, there's nothing inappropriate to show. At 18 years old, I feel like I’m still waiting for the puberty my friends experienced. They got boobs and curves. I got acne and an awkward amount of height.
“You're going to end up paying the dentist a fortune to fix your teeth after this wedding,” I tease him. His nerves have him grinding his molars, a habit that already cost him a pretty penny.
With the reminder, he forces his jaw to relax. He takes deep breaths until his whole body softens, the anxiety rolling off him in waves. He turns to me, his brown eyes soft, and I find my annoyance melting away. The look reminds me it’s the two of us against the world. It’s been that way ever since my mother died.
Things will change soon. After the wedding, when I get my even-tempered father back, we’re packing my bags for university. I’ll be moving to a new state and into a dorm room. I’m going to be at a new school. A prestigious university, and one that has boys. After so many years of attending an all-girls Catholic school, being around boys is both exciting and intimidating. If the wedding has been good for anything, it has been taking my father’s mind off my impending departure.
His entire attitude about me going away to Brown has been odd. He’s never let me spend the night at someone else’s house, only my aunt’s in Colorado when we go to visit her, yet he almost seems eager to send me off to university. I chalk it up to him being proud of me for getting into a great university. Part of me hopes that this is a sign that he's starting to see me as an adult, someone who can
“I promise, I haven’t forgotten the rules since the last time you reminded me about them,” I tell him. Taking care to make sure that my tone doesn't come off as sarcastic, not that it normally would. With every day the wedding has grown closer, I've felt like I've needed to step more lightly. With the wedding day finally here, it feels less like walking over eggshells and more like walking over shards of glass.
He tersely nods his head. While his jaw doesn’t lock up when he turns us down a private road, I can see beads of sweat form on his forehead. We’re on the rich side of town. And while Dad does well, I know the families that live over here have money that can only come with generations of wealth accumulation. Celebrities who are the result of nepotism, third generation CEOs. The kind of wealth that transcends a single lifetime.
The client must be an important one, and by important I mean well-paying. My father has a will of steel, and it takes more than just a push to get him to bend to others.
From the little information I’ve gathered about the wedding, it’s for his client’s nephew but as the head of the family, the client is the one hosting it. Another thing that indicates old-school money, heads of families don't exist for the rest of us
I don’t see any houses as we pull down the road. I don't see any signs of life until a gate appears. There’s a man posted there. In a brief glance, I’m able to count three separate guns on him. Not your average mall cop. He has the firepower to take out a cop bar, and he doesn’t look like he needs it. With an intimidating amount of muscle and a scowl, he looks like he could make it through half an army single-handedly before bothering to break out into a sweat.
“What kind of wedding needs armed security guards?”
“Emma,” my father hisses. His voice is low in warning, his eyes cutting me like a knife.
I keep my mouth shut as he rolls down his window. He hands the invitation over to the guard who insists on seeing our IDs to match the names. He scrutinizes them before grunting his approval and waving us through the gates.
My father is a corporate lawyer. Once, I asked him what a corporate lawyer does, since they aren’t the kind that get TV shows. If I’m going to follow in his footsteps like he insists, I have to understand what he does. He made his job sound rather boring like he spends most of his days folded over a desk looking at contracts for businesses. I never gave much thought to what clients my father takes on, but I certainly wouldn’t have thought they would be the kind that need armed guards for a wedding.
The further we get into the property, the more his list of rules makes sense.
The security at the gate was only the beginning. There are more guards the deeper we get onto the property, and there are cameras hidden among the trees. Every move is being watched.
Don’t move, blink, or breathe without Father’s permission. Remain by his side. And absolutely no alcohol or dancing.
It’s going to be the most boring party I’ve ever been to, but I can survive a few hours. As soon as he’s sure we aren’t making a faux pas, my father is going to drag us out of there.
The road is never-ending. It twists and turns through the tall trees with no clear destination in sight. It takes a ridiculous amount of time for the mansion where the wedding is being hosted, Father’s client’s mansion, to become visible above the treeline.
Except mansion might be too loose of a descriptor. The towering building in front of us puts some of the finest hotels to shame. If royalty live in the state of New York, this would be their palace.
I glance at my father out the side of my eye. What clients has he been taking on that make this kind of money? Who needs armed security?
