She took another sip and then stood up. “I’d better grab some more gigs,” she said. “Time is money.”
Makela smiled. “And we all know you work hard for that money girl.”
Jayda didn’t return the smile. “See you later.” And she was off too.
Makela’s smile left as soon as Jayda left. Then she pulled out her phone and text Kenny.
Dump her ass tonight, Kenny. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Tonight!
And then she sat her phone on the table, picked up her glass of wine, crossed her legs, and smiled again. Enough with that bitch. It was her turn now.
CHAPTER TWO
Harrison Bainbridge the Fourth stood at the mirror tying his tie the way he’d been tying it for what felt like all of his forty-one years on earth. It felt so ritualistic that he wanted to sling that tie from around his neck and toss it. But he was a creature of habit. Routine, he felt, kept his life uncomplicated. He kept on tying.
His house manager, Allan Durbee, entered his bedroom and stood at the opened doors of his dressing room. “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening.”
“Mr. Davenshaw has arrived. He is in the parlor, sir.”
Carter Davenshaw. The chief financial officer of Bainbridge Capital Trust, Harrison’s corporation. A man he’d known since their boarding-school days at Eton when their rich parents preferred to ship them off to England rather than raise them themselves. Whenever Carter asked to come over after hours, Harrison knew it was going to be bad news.
Bad news. Another routine in his life he could do without. “Thank you, Allan.”
Samual nodded, backed out of the dressing room, and left.
As soon as he did, Harrison stood still, leaned his head back, and then moved it around to get those stress kinks out. But it didn’t work. It never did. No more than those sedatives his doctors kept prescribing him to get through the night. He still had a low-level headache. But he kept on doing those stress-relief exercises, and taking those sedatives, all the same. Acreature of habit, he was. But he knew that wasn’t a good thing either.
He took one final look at himself in the mirror. He was a big guy with a body that was more muscular than slender. And just under six feet tall. And supposedly handsome by most standards, although he didn’t see it. And rich. What would he do without money? It was all he had.
He grabbed his wallet and his phone and headed out of his bedroom, down two corridors to the landing, and then all but ran down the spiral staircase of his ten-thousand-square-feet Manhattan penthouse. He purchased it nearly a decade ago for a quarter of a billion dollars, and he purchased it for one main reason: it was close to BCT. It kept him near his money-maker.
He stood at his parlor doors for several seconds. The corridor was empty of any of his enormous household staff, which he appreciated, but it didn’t stop his sense of dread. His sense, like every day lately, that life was nothing more than a series of movements. Of getting from point A to point B. Of going through the motions of life rather than living it. And it was his own damn fault.
He exhaled, put on that charming smile he was known for, and flung open the parlor’s double doors.
“Hello Carter,” he said as he closed the doors. He began extending his hand to his CFO as he made his way across the room. “So good to see you again.”
“Liar,” Carter said with a smile of his own as the two men shook hands. “But I’ll take it.” Carter was shorter than Harrison and was more slender than muscular. He had thinning brownish-blonde hair, a thin beard, and horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a nerd. Most in their circle believed he made his way through Princeton because of his towering intellect and helped Harrison to get through too, but both men knew it was the other way around.
“Have a seat,” Harrison said. “Would you care for something to drink?”
“No drinks for me.” Carter sat down. “The night is still young and I’m still on the clock.”
“Like hell you are,” Harrison said with a grin as he unbuttoned his suit coat and sat down too. “You probably stopped by a bar on your way over.”
Carter laughed. “So it goes,” he said.
The parlor was an old room filled with colorful French provincial furnishings and lavish wall trimmings. None of it was Harrison’s taste, but to change it would upend the historical reverence he was supposed to have in each and every piece. Since he didn’t care either way, he kept it as it was the day he purchased it.
But he knew Carter didn’t come to his home for the fun of it. “Bottom line?” he asked him.
Carter looked at his boss, whom he viewed as tall and elegant and flawlessly dressed. Always perfectly put together. But after what he’d been through, how could he be? “Your father is retiring.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“And he has made clear that he’ll be turning over complete control of Bainbridge Oil and Gas to either you or Felix.”
