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K.A. Linde
Truth
Anything to make you smile
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
I never want to hear you say
That you'd be better off or you liked it that way
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
-Band of Horses "No One's Gonna Love You"
* * *
Chapter 21: Present
"Now you all know my dear brother," Bekah said a little too cheerfully. "He's been off running his own business and being a star. But we're thrilled to announce that he is finally coming home and taking on as the position as vice president for Bridges Enterprise's newest company." After a short pause, she continued, "I'm pleased to announce along with this new development that the new wing of the company is going to be a full-time medical wing, and to head up our medical wing with my brother is none other than our own Parker Mackenson. Parker come up here!" Bekah shrieked excitedly.
Lexi sat completely still. She wasn't even sure if she was breathing properly. She watched as Parker eased out of her own chair hesitantly. She glanced in Lexi's direction and gave her a sympathetic look. Lexi didn't even know what that could mean. Clearly they had been planning this whole thing from the beginning. How could Parker feel any sympathy for what she had done?
A round of applause followed the newest development for Bridges Enterprise. Lexi had always thought that Ramsey had no desire to be affiliated with the company that his father ran. He had always made it clear that what he wanted in life didn't have to come from the wealth that he had grown up in. The reason that he owned the strip clubs and the night clubs and the bars, the reason that he stayed out late at work every night, the reason that he put so much effort into doing something completely against his upbringing was because he never wanted to be a part of his family's lifestyle.
He was his own man. He had his own dreams and aspirations. He may look the picture perfect boy that she had met a year ago at the Country Club, but he was so much more. He was defiant. He was strong willed and hard working. He didn't need them. And that's what really ate them up. Ramsey did fine all on his own. He made a living. He owned his own townhouse. He outright owned his own beach house and the cars and all the glitz. This was all his in his own right. His family couldn't hold it over his head that they were supporting him. They couldn't make him feel bad for giving him a job and owing his livelihood to them. He was a Bridges man at heart, but he had never been able to be controlled by them. Their money, their prestige it wasn't him.
He had scorned every push and shove from them to join the company. He had a trust fund with so many digits that it made Lexi's head spin, and yet he hadn't used it! He chose to do his own thing and to start his own business. And yet, here he was standing in front of his bitch sister as she proudly announced the prodigal son's return to their empire.
This couldn't be his decision. This was not Ramsey, not the Ramsey she knew at least. He couldn't have changed this much in one short month. She still thought she knew who he was…or at least the man that she had gotten to know in the last year. This must have been going on for much longer than this. No way would their father have allowed Bekah to make such a momentous announcement if things hadn't been in some form of finalization.
How had the news media not latched onto this yet? It really must have been brand new. Otherwise this would have been all over the news. She would have already heard about it. The Bridges name was just as commonplace in New York as in Atlanta especially if you were listening for it. She certainly would have seen a copy of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times with a spread about the Atlanta native family broadening its horizons. Yet this was happening, and she was sure that it would be discussed on the news networks in the not too distant future.
If this was happening, then how had Ramsey gotten involved? What was he going to do with the clubs? She never really approved of the clubs, but right now everything, anything was looking better than working side by side with his repugnant family and…that woman.
That thought really made her eyes narrow. Who had put this thought into his head? There was no way that his father had actually worn him down. Ramsey had been arguing his case against his father for fifteen years. Nothing could break him in that cause. He and his father simply butted heads. They were too different and also too similar in so many ways: stubborn, strong, unyielding. He would never give in if he thought that it was what his father wanted. That would be the last thing he would want to do. Defiance kept him strong in a way. Lexi knew it even if he couldn't openly admit it to himself. Being the one who broke away from his family gave him power that he had never been able to have when he was under their regiment.
Bekah maybe? She couldn't see him giving into her either. He loved his sister. That much was obvious. They were two peas in a pod. They had grown up close and after everything with Parker, they had only stayed that way. But even her eternal nagging wouldn't be enough to bring him back.
He knew everything she had put Lexi through. He knew the terrible things she had said to her. He knew what a conniving, manipulative bitch his sister had turned out to be. Even if he loved her like a good brother always would, he would never put up with her ruining his life. She had a grip on him that would never loosen due to a childhood bond no one would ever fully understand, but he was still smarter than that. He saw her for what she had become just as much as the younger sister he doted on and cared for.
That left the woman who had just made her way to stand loving next to him. She watched Parker fidget in the onslaught of attention directed her way. Her smile didn't exactly reach her eyes, and she kept glancing in Ramsey's direction uncertainly. Lexi didn't know what they were saying to each other in that look, but she hated that they had the capability to talk to each other without uttering a word. She was jealous of it. She could admit that. Even after everything…everything she was still jealous of that fact. Despite his lies Lexi didn't want to see him with her. She didn't even want to think about it. Thinking about Parker made her chest pinch at how easily everything had crumbled with the introduction of that woman.
Had she put him up to this? Had Parker been the cornerstone to this whole project? She was fresh out of med school, just finished up her residency and she thought that she could run a hospital? Lexi wanted to laugh at that. The girl was smart, but she wasn't a genius. She couldn't run a hospital alone.
