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I want you to understand just one thing.
There is no way in hell I'm letting my company go the way of what she did to her father's company.
None.
"If you really want to have a say as to whether or not I set any policy here, Mason, then you'll do what I say," Lorna says and I see her fangs come out. "Because otherwise I'll go to the Board and tell them that when I tried to help with this proposal you shot me down. Maybe even made a pass at me. And then you'll really be unfit to lead."
I just stare at her. I'm not fucking surprised at this.
"Fine," I tell her. "You fucking win. We'll do it your way."
Lorna smiles. "There's one last condition that isn't on the contractual paperwork yet, dear," she tells me and I see her eyes twinkle evilly as I look at her.
"What's that?" I ask, wondering if this is what it was all leading up to.
"Sure, my profile will be high enough to get appointed to the Chief Counsel position," she says to me. "But I want just one more title in addition to that."
"What title do you want?" I ask her, rolling my eyes. "Last I checked, Wall Street banks didn't have a title for Chief Bitch Officer."
Lorna smiles at me sweetly and gets up off her chair, walking toward me. "No, silly, that's not the title I want," she says as she walks around my desk to stand inches in front of me. "I want my other title to be Mrs. Mason Kane."
Holy fucking shit.
She can't be serious.
But her eyes tell me she's deadly fucking serious.
"That's right Mason," she says to me. "In order for me to rescue you out of your latest trouble, I'm going to have to be your wife."
Fuck my life.
Actually, Lorna is already doing that. She's fucking me up the ass with a barbed wire dildo.
And there's nothing I can do about it right now.
5
Becca
Ok, listen. I realize that I shouldn't complain about my childhood. On the surface, I had everything—nice gated condo, new luxury cars, a butler, gourmet meals, piano lessons, private school, a math tutor—typical things that kids take for granted when they grow up with money. But before you get all judgmental and think I'm just another spoiled-rotten 21-year-old, you should know that I didn't have it all. There were voids.
I didn't grow up with a father, and my mother, well… let’s just say that she went through men faster than kids go through a bag of Halloween candy. She was actually my stepmother because my biological mother died in childbirth. And then my Dad married her before he apparently left. That left Lorna taking care of me and she had a new flavor of man every year, and sometimes even quicker than that—I think the record was two weeks, and believe me, there have been more flavors than I can count. I stopped keeping score.
She fucked them over each and every time.
Like Duke, a master dive instructor from Fiji—or was it Tahiti?—whose skin felt almost leathery from being in saltwater a good majority of his life. Mom managed to pick him up on one of her so-called "work" events although I doubt much work was happening, and while I admit he wasn't terribly bad on the eyes, his personality was lacking—maybe all that saltwater pickled his brain—and it quickly became apparent that he couldn't handle the pace of city life.
Then there was Ben, the epitome of big city living. He was a Wall Street guy with a penchant for talking above everyone in a room—literally, his voice drowned out anything around it as if he was perpetually screaming. He could never get off of his phone either.
I swear, we'd be eating and he'd take the call with a mouth full of food. He'd be talking and I'd watch in disgust as bits of ravioli, or buttery flakes of crab leg meat—or whatever it was that we were eating—dangled from his lips. He's the kind of guy you'd find "manspreading" on a crowded subway, where men feel like they can spread their legs wide open and take two seats instead of one. Like they were born to do it. What did mom ever see in that guy? What did she see in any of them really?
They were like playthings for her. For her, the thrill was in the hunt, and once she had them … and got what she needed from them … I'd watch as that spark slowly faded from her eyes. It was all so predictable. Needless to say, she got bored easily. You could always tell when she started to get bored with a guy—her heels got flatter and the hemline of her dresses grew longer.
I guess none of that matters, except to say that when it comes to my mom, I've always felt invisible. She was too busy chasing men to do the things that normal mothers do, like go to their kids' school functions, or pack a lunch with one of those cute little hand-written notes on a napkin that say something like, "Have a great day, sweetie, Love, Mom."
Honestly, that's the last thing my mom would ever do. But whatever, I'm sure you're bored to tears hearing about all of this, so I'll spare you.
I walk up the steps leading to my mother's townhouse. The front door is red—the "perfect accent" she calls it. I fumble through the pockets of my purse and realize that I must've left my keys back at the office by mistake, so I take a deep breath and I knock.
