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She hadn’t waited around for him to discard her. She left him and us when I was thirteen. She didn’t even come home for her daughter’s funeral. She is worse than him. He doesn’t know how to be a loving parent. But he’s tried. To be compared to her is an insult.
I look at Duke, expecting to see the same horror on his face. Instead, I find them sharing a smile. They’re in agreement.
“No.” I stand facing him. I hug my laptop to my chest. “I won’t do this.”
“Then, I’ll fire you. And I’ll make sure that no one else will give you a job.”
“Why?” I demand, my voice shrill, but I’m past keeping up appearances.
His eyes narrow in icy rebuke. “Because you tried to go behind my back. You were trying to leave. You’ve forgotten that you only get to move when I tug your strings. Now, go. We have a lot to discuss.”
I drew the short straw when they were giving out families. This man should never have had children. Too bad my mother didn’t have the sense she was born with. Because if she had, she wouldn’t have left us alone with him.
Drew Wolfe isn’t just a cold man. He’s an entire arctic storm system. He’s all freezing rain, gale force wind, razor-sharp ice shards bound together by an unflagging stamina. I should have known he’d never relent. He wants his due, and he doesn’t care his daughter has to give her life for him to have it.
My legs, honed by years of carrying more than their fair share of emotional baggage, hold steady as I make my way out of the room.
“Elisabeth,” my father calls when I grab the door handle.
“Yes?” I don’t turn around. I can’t bear to see that cold nothing on his face.
“You should stop by the powder room, your make-up needs retouching.”
I walk out of his office, the mingled sound of his laughter with Dukes are daggers in my back.
I make it to my office and shut the door behind me. I stand with my back pressed to it, feeling around until I grip the handle so I can lock it.
I walk over to my desk, pull a compact out of my purse and take a good long look at myself. I worked so hard to fill her shoes, I’d sometimes look in the mirror and for a second see her face. It used to be a source of motivation. A reminder I was honoring her memory, doing my duty to my family. Now, all I see is the person who stole all of my dreams.
This morning when I felt so hopeful, so sure, feels like a lifetime ago. The well of despair filled to the brim with all the shit I’ve swallowed trying to atone and emancipate myself at the same time. I was prepared to work for my father’s company for the rest of my career, all I’ve earned was to be able to enjoy the part of my life I didn’t spend at work. I’ve been dreaming about drawing again. I’ve been apartment hunting and window shopping.
I’m well-qualified, I can get a job. Rich said he knew once I was in New York, I’d be snatched up by one of the big management firms. My father can’t blacklist me at every company that has an office in New York City. I need to keep my head in the game. If I let it out, the storm inside of me would destroy everything I’ve worked for.
But I have to release some of this pressure, I gather a wad of paper towels and shove them in my mouth and scream.
My makeshift gag muffles the sound, but the anger fueling it is blistering hot, and when I’m done, I’m exhausted and my throat is raw and my mind is made up.
Pleasing my father was a defensive stance, but I held it for so long I didn’t notice the collar he slipped around my neck until he yanked it.
He was trying to remind me who’s really in charge. But all he did was remind me that I know how to evade that collar. He only thinks he’s my alpha because I let him think it. I’m done.
10
Carter
Not ready
“You want me to call you a car?”
The girl lying naked next to me raises one of her prone hands and lifts the curtain of hair off her face and peers up at me in groggy confusion. “I thought I’d crash. It’s like…6am.”
I stifle an irritated groan when she burrows deeper into her pillow. “I can’t sleep with someone else in my bed.”
I pull the pillow she’s laying on out from under her.
“Hey!” She scrambles up to a sitting position, shoves the long sheet of hair out of her face and glares at me.
“I’ll call you a car. If you want, I’ve got some cash in the drawer by my door. You can take it on your way out. Thanks for a nice night.”
