Natalie’s desk phone rings suddenly, startling the both of us. My father’s assistants never last very long and, from thewary expression on Natalie’s face as she reaches the phone, I don’t imagine she’ll be here much longer either.
‘Yes, sir,’ she says softly in the phone once she answers. ‘Of course. Coming, right away.’ She hangs up, stands up so quickly her chair wheels squeak loudly against the floor, and scurries towards my father’s office door. She pauses just long enough to spare me a thin, apologetic smile and then disappears through the frosted glass door.
When she hurriedly opens it, furious-sounding words float out into the lobby before it swings shut. I can’t make out a full sentence, but I know that my father is mid-tirade as per usual. It fills me with a perverse sense of relief to know I’m not the only one capable of eliciting this kind of fury from him and I feel a flash of pity for whichever employee is currently on the receiving end of his fury right now.
The door cracks open again and Natalie reappears, this time clutching a thick stack of papers pressed to her chest. She looks on the verge of bursting into tears and I have no doubt that she inadvertently got caught in my father’s anger while she was in there.
‘Is everything—’ I start, but she just shakes her head and marches towards the exit.
‘Fine,’ she chokes out. ‘He’ll be ready for you shortly. He’s just finishing up a meeting. I need to, to photocopy these.’ She nods to the papers in her arms. ‘I’ll be right back.’
We both ignore that there’s a printer and photocopier wedged behind her desk and that tears have already started to roll down her cheeks. I nod and she practically sprintsout of the lobby, the sound of her choked sob echoing as she disappears.
It’s only once the lobby doors swing shut that I realise Natalie has left the door to my father’s office slightly ajar. It sits open a few inches, just wide enough for my father’s voice to filter through properly this time. It’s low at first, like he’s pacing or speaking turned away from his desk, but then it suddenly comes through more clearly, cutting through the silent lobby like a knife.
‘—don’t care what anyone else thinks, I’ve made my decision,’ my father snaps.
There’s a beat of silence and then—
‘Isn’t last night proof that this isn’t going to plan?’ says a voice through clearly gritted teeth. It takes me half a second to place the voice. Initially, I thought that my father was tearing into a particularly unlucky employee, and I was right. I just hadn’t realised who that employee was.
‘Davies won’t tolerate this kind of bad press,’ Andreas continues. ‘He’ll pull out of the deal.’
My father scoffs. ‘Leave Davies to me.’
‘And Asher?’ Andreas asks.
I lean closer to the door, fighting the urge to just get up and press my ear against it.
‘What about him?’
‘I don’t understand why you chose him for this plan in the first place,’ Andreas says. ‘If you needed someone to cooperate, wouldn’t I—’
‘You and Theodore ask too many questions,’ my fathersays, cutting him off. ‘Asher… He wants my approval more than anything. Always has. If I tell him to jump, he’ll jump. If I tell him to apologise, he’ll apologise. If I tell him to pull himself together and marry the Davies girl, then he’ll damn well do it.’ He snorts. ‘He thinks it’ll make me proud of him.’
My chest aches so keenly, I press a hand to it like maybe I can keep my heart from splitting open down the middle. Suddenly I’m not a grown man, I’m eight years old in an unfamiliar home wondering why my father’s eyes turn cold whenever he looks at me.
‘You think you can control him,’ Andreas says.
‘IknowI can control him,’ my father says, and I can practically hear the sneer in his voice. ‘The Davies deal is crucial, and Asher will get us there.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Completely.’
It doesn’t escape me that Andreas hasn’t defended me. He hasn’t pointed out that maybe I deserve a say in my own life. Hasn’t reminded him that I’m also hisson. Suddenly, Andreas’ earlier brotherly advice that I go ahead with this whole plan and marry Imani makes more sense. He’s been in on it from the get-go.
My father sighs loudly, signalling his deep frustration. ‘He’s been a disappointment for years, Andreas. I know you have a soft spot for the boy, but you know as well as I do – he barely shows any initiative. No vision. No drive. But he wants so dearly for me to pat him on the head and tell himhe’s doing a good job, that’ll he’ll do whatever role I assign him, no questions asked.’
The door to the lobby swings open and Natalie comes hurrying back in.
I straighten up in my seat, hoping that it’s not too obvious that I’ve spent the last few minutes eavesdropping on my father and Andreas. I’m not entirely sure how convincing I am though, because my chest is still tight. Natalie stumbles back to her desk, swiping at her cheeks and trying desperately to look like she hasn’t just been crying in the bathroom, but everything is spinning too fast for me to focus on her.
All I can hear, over and over in my mind, is:
He’ll do whatever role I assign him, no questions asked.
He thinks it’ll make me proud.
