AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chase
Ileanedbackwith my feet up on the large boardroom table, waiting for my father to arrive. It had been another late night, hanging with my pals, drowning in shots and talking about the big things in life: sports, movies, women, current affairs, women, music, women, and so on.
My head throbbed. I looked down at my watch, wondering if it was too early for a hit of something to take off the edge. I knew what was about to follow—a lecture from my dad, who’d just entered, talking on his cell.
He ended the call, headed over to the crystal decanter, and poured whisky into two glasses. That man could read me like a book. That was a double-edged sword—good for sharing shots of single malt, but bad for everything else.
He set down my crystal tumbler, which glistened in the sunlight spilling through the wall of windows looking out to other walls of windows reflecting fragments of blue sky and spiky towers.
“Normally, I’m the one waiting. This is a good sign, Chase,” he said, sitting down.
I removed my feet from the table and took to my drink like a thirsty camel.
“So, you needed to speak to me about something?” I asked.
He stood up and headed to the window—a bad sign.
“I’ve been speaking to your mother and have decided it’s time we retired. I want to take that trip to Europe. Your mother wants to hang out in Milan with her family.” He turned to look at me. His tired eyes spoke of a man who’d worked day and night chasing big deals, emulating my workaholic grandfather.
“I don’t want to sell. You know me. I’m a man of tradition. Your grandfather would never forgive me. So I want you to take over.”
I sat up. My spine creaked. I’d just aged ten years.
He studied me closely. “You have to stop partying, and you have to settle down. It’s either that or I’ll cut you off.”
“Okay.” I gulped. “So you want me to take over the company. I can do that.”
“More than that. I want you married and settled. All this partying and the endless stream of women has to stop. I’ve never seen you with the same girl twice. God dammit. I don’t want you to become my brother, James. Look at what happened to him.”
My womanizing uncle James had married so often he was bankrupt by the time he was forty. And I sure as hell didn’t want to become him either. To avoid uttering that spine-chilling word “alimony,” I’d decided never to marry. That solved that little problem.
Okay, so he wanted to see me with a girl. Ivy fit that profile well. At least she wasn’t trying to marry me. But she wasn’t returning my calls, which I found rather mystifying.
I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong. Maybe she resented my asking her to remove her panties at that burlesque bar we’d stumbled into the other night. But the playful sparkle in her eyes at the time contradicted that. And she hadn’t seemed to mind when my hand crept under her dress.
Try as I might, I’d always found women difficult to read.
“I’ve got a girl I’ve been seeing for a while.”
A while? Two months? A record, nevertheless.
“Then bring her to your mother’s charity function on Saturday so we can meet her. Hunter’s married, and little Dylan’s showing signs of a true Elliot.”
“How can you see that? He’s a crawling poop machine.”
He rolled his tired-looking eyes.
My dad, like most workaholics, assumed everyone could do with four hours of sleep every night. I had no idea how he would retire.
Spooning into soft, feminine curves was the only thing that ate into my beauty sleep.
“You’ve changed your tune, Dad. You hated that Hunter left the firm and is running a bookshop, being all hipster in Brooklyn.”
“At least he hasn’t grown a beard and started wearing mismatching socks.” He pulled a cynical smirk. “But you’re right—he’s the bright one. I had high hopes for him. If he’d stayed on, I wouldn’t have put so much pressure on you. I would have let you party yourself to an early grave.”
Ouch.I wasn’t that bad, was I?
“You have little faith in me, Dad. I’m creative. I got a high distinction for drawing. Remember that?” I asked, resentment gripping at my chest. I hated being seen as the loser of the family. And I hated being compared to my twin.
