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“Thanks,” he muttered, putting on a brave face. The whole way up to the thirty-seventh floor he repeated his mantra.Happy thoughts. Calm thoughts. Water off a duck’s back. Don’t let him get to you. Happy thoughts. Cassidy… and Phoenix.He could imagine the two of them together—him all dark and mysterious and her all light and fire. Jake pressed down on his still half-hard dick and gritted his teeth. Damn, they’d be beautiful together.
The lift opened, and a lavish reception area greeted him. Grey marble and white leather. Clinical and cold, but the interior designer had labelled it sleek, minimalist, and professional. Carol, the receptionist, and her two junior staff had been chosen for their model-like looks, but Carol was one of the most intelligent and warm people he’d ever met. “Good morning, Jacob. Your father is expecting you.”
“He’s in?” Jacob squeaked, his gut sinking, the hope that he’d miss his father fleeing. It wasn’t his day. At least he had a few minutes to brace himself for the teardown. Carol nodded sympathetically and motioned him through to the private elevators that serviced the ten floors the law firm occupied. His father and the other executive partners were on the penthouse level, sipping the finest whiskey from crystal tumblers while their minions worked eighty-hour weeks. He closed his eyes, eminently grateful for flunking out of law school and missing this as his fate.
Tayla, his father’s latest assistant, greeted him as he passed through security into the executive suites. He knew the drill. Wait until she’d knocked on the double doors and announced his entry before he crossed the threshold. His father gruffly uttered, “Enter,” and Jacob shook his hands out, trying to unclench. His stomach churned, and he was twelve again, trying to hide from the cold man who lorded over him.
But it was too late to escape. His father knew he was there, and leaving would be one more thing to add to an already too long list of failures on Jake’s part.
He straightened his spine like he’d been taught, pulled his shoulders back and held his head high, faking the confidence to walk through those doors as he threw himself to the wolves.
The quiet on the executive level, particularly inside the offices, was always jarring. No phones rang—they were all silent buzzes—and everyone spoke in a whisper. The sounds didn’t penetrate the dark timber panelling on the walls. The oppressive silence contrasted starkly with the sun-drenched vista that opened before him when he faced the wall of windows. Sydney Harbour in all its glory was spectacular. Jake appreciated the city for a moment before casting his eyes toward his father.
The broad desk, stained in black, was centred along the short wall of the gargantuan room. It was bare, aside from a curved screen monitor, a telephone, and three precisely lined-up pens. Sitting back, reading a stapled set of papers, his father didn’t spare him a glance. Invisible as always, unless he was being scolded.
Hidden behind the polished panelling was the door to a private bathroom and walk-in change room. Even excluding those rooms, this office was twice as large as Jake’s studio apartment. He moved straight over to the white circular couch and silently placed the envelope on the table. He forced himself to look away from his father and concentrate on the view. Jake knew the other man’s expectations—wait for an invitation to sit, don’t speak first, anticipate what was needed, and deliver it before being asked. Jake recognized the psychological ploy for what it was. Even with his son—perhaps especially with Jake—he employed the technique, keeping everyone waiting until his father was good and ready. It silently set the expectation that things happened when Maxwell Denyer agreed and not before. But Jake hated it. He hated the power imbalance that his father never failed to remind him of and despised how his father weaponised it against him. He never expected special treatment—Jake would be sorely disappointed if he did—but he wished his father didn’t make him feel so small.
“You have the papers?” Jake startled, focussing so hard on the view that he hadn’t seen his father turn his attention to him.
“Yes.” He picked up the envelope. “I checked that the tenant signed the correct version. They’re ready for your signature.”
“Good. Leave it there. I’ll have my associate check it.” Jake was used to his word not being enough; his father didn’t trust him. He never had. The man stood and swaggered over to the couch, sitting with his leg crossed and his arm along the back. It was a deceptively casual pose, one Jake had seen many times before when his father was about to attack. But if his father could play the game, so could Jake. He mirrored the other man’s stance, praying that his father couldn’t see his hands shaking.
“I can have it collected when you’ve signed it.”
His father barely spared him a nod. The man was in his fifties and just as good-looking as he was when he was thirty, but in Jake’s mind, he would always be ugly. His blond hair was streaked with grey now, and apart from the beginnings of a few wrinkles on his face, they were the only signs of his age. He knew what he’d look like as an older man, but Jake hoped that the differences between them would be as significant as the similarities. Where his father’s lines were from frowning, Jake hoped his were laugh lines. The grey at his father’s temples was from stress—no doubt keeping track of all the favours he was owed by his powerful clients. Jake wanted his grey to be from a full life lived, filled with family and friends rather than broken marriages and a child who’d almost rather be anywhere else than with the man who’d raised him after he’d pushed his third wife out of their lives.
Jake dropped his ankle and made to stand. “Well—”
“You’re dating a woman from CIR.” His father eyed him up and down as Jake eased himself back onto the couch.Close to freedom, but no dice.Jake didn’t know what his father wanted to hear, but he didn’t flinch at the implication he knew what Jake had been up to. That was nothing new. In fact, with his father’s connections, it was pretty typical.
“No, not dating. We met at a function at the university and decided to get some dinner together. Not much more to tell.” There was, but… Jake swallowed, hoping his explanation sufficed. The last thing he needed in his tricky relationship with Cassidy was his father’s interference.
“And yet you left in the middle of a business meeting to chase after her. Hardly professional.” Jake’s brows furrowed, trying to recall when he’d been in a meeting with Cassidy… the morning before their hook up. He shook his head, and his father raised an eyebrow, challenging him. Daring Jake to call him a liar.
“The meeting was over. It doesn’t matter anyway. We won the sole agency for that building.” As soon as he’d said the words, Jake knew he’d misspoken.
“The only reason you have that listing at all is Charles’s quick thinking. Your lack of professionalism cost the agency dearly. His partners wanted your head, but Charles acted to save your career, jeopardizing his own relationship with them—” Jake opened his mouth to interrupt, to explain what really happened, but the glare he received in return made him close it again. Gone was the casual pose now. His father pointed at him, disgust in the curl of his lip. “I put you with Charles because he has experience in this game and can teach you a lesson or two. But if you’re too busy chasing tail, you’ll never learn. You’re old enough to know better, and acting out like a spoilt teenager isn’t impressing anyone.” He shook his head. “You’re a disappointment, Jacob. You’re too soft, too impulsive like your mother. I’ve tried to drill it out of you, but I should have known her genetics would ruin you—”
“Father—”
“No, Jacob, it’s your turn to listen, not talk.” His voice boomed through the room, and Jake flinched. Anger radiated from his father, and the man’s ice-blue eyes flashed daggers. “Leaving early and getting in late, walking out of meetings to chase a woman… it’s pathetic. I shouldn’t have to constantly monitor everything you do so I know when I have to clean up your mess. Your career is on shaky ground. Fail again and Charles certainly won’t stand up for you a second time. Neither will I. Grow up, or you’ll find yourself cut off. Understood?” The hard set to his jaw brooked no room for dispute. It wasn’t even worthwhile pointing out that his allowance had ended the moment he’d flunked out of law school. Jake had been paying his own way for years, but reminding his father of that would only serve to enrage him further.
It also wasn’t worthwhile trying to explain that he’d been at a series of breakfast meetings, courting a new client. He hadn’t put anything in his calendar because they didn’t like Charles. They didn’t want his boss involved in the deal. Neither did Jake. He’d wanted to sign these clients to the agency on his own steam, if for no reason than to prove to himself that he could.
The only thing that seemed to set his father off in a rage more than Jake’s screw-ups was the mention of his mother. More than anything, Jake wanted to defend her, because even though he hadn’t seen her in over a decade, she’d left Jake in no doubt how much she’d loved him. It was solely his father’s doing that his mum had been forced out of Jake’s life—he’d stacked the system against her, using every contact he had to present a case that she couldn’t win in front of a judge his father golfed with weekly.
Jake blinked back the irrational tears that threatened to fall, and he clenched his jaw. He nodded, his movements jerky as he fought the confusing instinct to either curl into himself or lash out. Either one would only prove his father’s point, and displaying a hint of weakness to the man was like opening a vein in shark-infested waters.
“Good. I have a meeting. See yourself out.”
Jake couldn’t get out of there fast enough, practically tripping over himself to leave. He forced his legs to move slower and took a breath before exiting the room. He was careful to shut the door with barely a snick, despite wanting to kick it closed after giving his father a double salute. Anything louder than a click and his father would dress Jake down in front of the entire executive staff. His confidence couldn’t take that kind of battering twice in one day.
Jake’s hands shook as he pressed the button on the lift. The doors slid open a moment later. But it wasn’t his day. His father’s lacky—his driver, security, henchman, whatever the man’s job description was—walked out, coming face to face with Jake. The man didn’t budge, blocking the entrance to the lift with his broad shoulders. He was taller than Jake too, standing at close to seven feet.
Jake didn’t engage. He couldn’t. He simply stepped aside and waited for the man to pass, but he couldn’t help his flinch when the man growled, “Pussy,” in his ear. Jake stepped into the lift, his movements slow despite his galloping heart. He pressed the button to close the doors, praying that the man didn’t follow him in. Keeping his head down as he exited the building, Jake tried to regulate his breathing and slow his heart rate down. Every step he took away from his caustic father loosened the hold of the claws he’d dug in, but Jake still ached. A heaviness weighed him down. The knowledge he was a disappointment, a failure, and someone his only family could never be proud of, was like an arrow to his heart.
*****
