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“He's going to pull your ass out of the fire and all he wants is to get married sight unseen to a woman he's never met before?” I asked him. Saying it out loud somehow made it sound even worse than it was.
A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “Well, that, ninety-five percent of the profits, directional control of the venture—”
I held up a hand. “Stop. I don't care.” I reached out and gave the contract a tentative nudge, wondering if it were rigged to explode. It probably was, in a way. I was going to have to find a good lawyer. And not just a good lawyer, but a lawyer a lawyer unscrupulous enough to take part in essentially selling me off to be married like a piece of property.
Haha. Good one. I could just run down to the state bar office and throw a rock, probably.
I took a deep breath. The contract in front of me gave me the impression of a great weight, as though it had it's own gravitational pull, one strong enough to derail my entire life.
“What does mom think about this?” I asked quietly.
My father looked down at his hands. He fiddled with his fingers, pulling and kneading.
“She doesn't know, does she?” I knew it. And she hadn't told me when I'd talked with her two days ago because she didn't want me to worry.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“He wants to meet with you first,” my father said. “He said you should drop by any time you like. His door is always open to you. He wants to make sure you will... meet his needs in a wife.”
Meet his needs? Christ, that sounded ominous. A cold fist closed around my stomach and squeezed.
“This is completely ridiculous,” I said. “You know that, right?”
My father didn't answer.
I picked up the contract and stuffed it into my messenger bag. “I'll go talk to him,” I said. And give him a piece of my mind while I'm at it.
The look of naked relief on my father's face made me want to punch him. He'd destroyed my mother's life without a thought, and now he wanted me to destroy my own by letting him use me as a pawn.
Well. I loved my mother, but I wasn't her. I stood up and walked out of the coffee shop, not even saying goodbye to my father. I was the master of my own fate. I wouldn't let some man control me, and if Anton Waters thought he could buy someone's hand in marriage in this day and age, he had another think coming.
*
Empire Capital, like most of its sister companies—each fairly interchangeable and all with thrusting, dominating names clearly compensating for something—stood on Wall Street. It looked like a mausoleum on the outside, so I was surprised when I entered the mezzanine to find the insides gutted and remodeled in an ultra-nouveau post-modern style. On the one hand, I could appreciate the fine, smooth lines of a well-designed space, but it made me angry that someone had been paid handsomely to minimize the character of the building while I, struggling alone in my art studio, strove to put character into the world. It was clinical. And also I liked old buildings.
Anton Waters, I decided then and there, was a jerk.
I strode up to the front desk, sleek and cleverly fashioned and utterly alone in the center of the dark gray slate floor. The receptionist behind it tapped away on a thin white keyboard and stared at a thin white monitor. She wore the tiniest of bluetooth headsets. Also white. Naturally.
She didn't even look up at me for a full minute. It figured. I was dressed like... well, like a boho hobo who had just crawled out of her weed den. Streaks of dried clay marred my work clothes, cracking and crumbling. Even as I stood there, not moving, tiny flecks flaked away and floated to the immaculate floor.
Good. I wasn't going to be the perfect little wife Mr. Waters probably wanted, and I was happy to show it in whatever way I could.
Finally the receptionist deigned to glance at me. Her perfect nose wrinkled. The clothes she wore probably would have paid for a month's rent.
“May I help you?” she said.
This was going to be fun. “Yeah,” I said. “I'm here to speak to Anton Waters. He's expecting me,” I added, hoping this would help my case. It didn't.
She blinked politely, and I felt a tiny bit bad. She probably thought I was a crazy person who had refused to take her meds. I kept a close eye on her hands in case she had a secret panic button concealed under the lip of her desk. “Is he?” she said. “May I ask who is calling?”
“Felicia Dare.”
At the sound of my name her entire demeanor changed.
“Oh!” Her pretty eyes grew wide. “Of course, Ms. Dare. I'll call up and let them know you're here.”
