I’m as bad as Harwood says I am: fixated on her in an unhealthy and immature way.
Harwood.That’s what I need. Maybe my therapist can fix me.Lowisn’t a strong enough word to describe my mood the past few days. I’m itching to speak with him, but he’s with family in Nigeria for the rest of the week.
Snapping myself out of my thoughts, I dismiss Jacqueline and buzz in Mike and Luis, two other execs who help me run the company. The media can give me as much praise as they like, but half of the decisions I’ve claimed credit for in the past weeks were based on their advice.
Once I’ve finished phase one of my Green plan—steady the ship—I’ll move on to phase two—find a replacement CEO. I’m not stupid. I know a twenty-three-year-old with no passion or drive for the company is not the best fit. These two are the best options I have at the moment. I just can’t trust them fully. I need tomake sure I’m not putting Green into the hands of someone like my father.
In the meantime, the pay isn’t so bad. I’ve hired a chef for weekdays, a security team, and another nanny, as well as secured the best care for my mother. I paid a ludicrous amount of money to buy the Land Rover I rented over the holidays to visit Ophelia and have it shipped here—letting it stay at the rental office felt like a crime. Now it sits in the underground garage like a priceless artifact, a museum of my time with her. Sometimes I sit in it just to try to catch her cinnamon scent.
It’s probably fair to say I’m not taking the breakup well.
IT’S GETTING DARKby the time I pull into the garage of our brownstone, flanked by a black security vehicle. I swing into the empty space between the Official Land Rover Ophelia Winters Museum (trademark pending) and the white Audi I bought Fleur for her seventeenth birthday last week.
I step out of the car, giving it a once-over for any trackers. I’m not sure where my father is, and I’m not sure whether he’s feeling immense pride that I’ve protected his precious company from complete collapse, or murderous rage that I’ve taken his job because my girlfriend gave him the biggest metaphorical middle finger in history. Somehow I strongly doubt it’s the former.
I take the elevator into the house, unlocking the door to the main foyer. My little sister, Josie, barrels toward me in a Batman costume, cape flying behind her. “Alex is home!” she shrieks, at a pitch only a sugar-fueled seven-year-old can.
Slamming into me, her arms wrap around my waist. She lets outa dramaticugh, mumbling something about how much she missed me, how the twelve hours since we last spoke has been the longest amount of time in history,ever. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t warm my chestjusta little. “Taking the night off from fighting crime?”
She swishes her cape. “Yep. I’m on vacation. Did you have a nice day?”
“Niceis certainly one word for it.” I place a gentle hand on her upper back and guide her into the kitchen, where my other sisters, Mia, Evie, Éléanor, and Charlotte, are arguing over how big to roll out the dough for their cookies. My eldest sister’s absence is not surprising; Fleur hasn’t handled any of this well, nor should she have to.
I hate how much they’ve all been through. Hate that the article going live was a grenade in their lives and that the pieces will never return to the way they were before.
I swipe the bowl of cookie dough from the marble counter. They’ve managed to use every pot, pan, and utensil in the kitchen, which is impressive. “Oh, nice of you guys to make me cookies.”
“They’re for my class tomorrow!” Charlotte protests, trying to grab it back.
I steal a bit of the dough.Man, it’s good. It tastes like vanilla. It tastes like my childhood, when my dad still loved my mom and my mom still loved herself.
“How was school?” I ask, setting the bowl back down and opening the fridge for an alcohol-free beer. Five different answers fire back at me as the chef pops his head around the door of the back kitchen.
“Good evening, sir. Chicken pie okay?”
I pop the lid off the bottle. “More than okay. Thank you.”
Having someone cook is a godsend. Without the staff, we’d be a box-mac-and-cheese-fueled mess.
I pick at the label on the bottle, a sinking sensation somewhere in my chest.
Who’ll cook for Ophelia when she has to go back to her parents’ house over the Easter break? The woman won’t even chop an onion.
Staring at six overflowing shelves of fresh produce and home-cooked meals with my sisters’ arguments a familiar soundtrack behind me, I’m struck again by the privilege of it all. I push the fridge door shut, but the rush of cold air that follows has nothing on the chill that hit me when I stepped inside Ophelia’s house at Christmas.
I can’t rid that day from my mind: the silence in her house, the emptiness, the ocean of resentment she crossed just to let me into her life andoh God, I’ve messed up so badly.
I think I’ve broken us beyond repair.
I sit down at the kitchen island, watching the five of them cut the dough into erratically sized circles. I’ve lived in an all-female household for long enough to know that when they’re quiet, it means I’ve interrupted something.
“All right,” I drawl, taking a swig from the bottle, “who has a homecoming date?”
Silence.
“Fleur has a new boyfriend,” blurts Mia, eventually. The others glare at her.
Remain calm, Alex. Act rationally.
