Beck
The door to my office swings open, slamming against the wall with the force of the motion. My father stands in the doorway, and I inwardly sigh. What does he want now? My frazzled assistant looks over his shoulder at me, mouthing “sorry.” Lulu—unfortunate name—is far too sensitive to work in the cutthroat environment that is Colbert Aerospace, and I should probably fire her. But her ditzy personality brightens up an otherwise dull day, and I can’t bear to let her go. She’s been with me from day one—after I finished my MBA and was forced into the family business.
It’s been a baptism of fire for both of us, but we’re in it together until the bitter end.
“Greyson.” Carlton Colbert, my father and the CEO of the second-largest aerospace company in the US, stalks into the room, slamming the door behind him with the same velocity he used for entering. Father always likes to make an entrance, and God forbid he’s not the center of attention. He likes to throw his weight around and ensure everyone knows what a powerful man he is.
Pompous asshole.
“Father,” I drawl, tapping my pen on top of my desk as I narrow my eyes and contemplate what he wants. I don’t rise to greet him on purpose, because I know how much it riles him up.
Lines crinkle at the corner of his brown eyes, and I hate that I see the same eyes staring back at me when I look in the mirror. Sarah and Esther inherited Mom’s hazel eyes and dark-blonde hair, while I resemble the man standing in front of me. In physical appearance only. When it comes to our personalities, we are like night and day.
Dad looks good for fifty. He works out regularly and takes care of himself. Scant silvery strands have only begun appearing in his dark-brown hair, and his physique is impressive clothed in a navy Prada suit with a navy-and-silver tie. His six-foot-two-inch frame is a couple inches shorter than my taller, broader body, and I know it bugs him. He likes to be greater than me in every conceivable way. He never wants me to forget my place.
With a scowl, he takes the seat in front of my desk, drilling a hole in my skull as we engage in our usual silent standoff.
I inherited my dad’s stubborn streak too. It’s the only personality trait we share.
After a few minutes of silence, he clears his throat and eyeballs me. “Are you sure you aren’t aware of the circumstances with Brielle?”
“Yes. I already told you,” I lie, keeping my poker face firmly planted on my features.
He claws a hand through his thick hair. “This is a mess.”
I say nothing, waiting him out, and he doesn’t disappoint.
“We need this merger with Cartwright Software Services to go through.”
“I’m aware.”
After all, it’s why he blackmailed me into dating Brielle, the only daughter of David Cartwright, CEO and owner of a tech company that supplies technology used in commercial, military, and space programs.
David and Dad have been business partners for years. The merger was Dad’s idea because he’s obsessed with making Colbert Aerospace the largest aerospace employer in the US. With a projected combined worldwide employee headcount of one hundred and ninety thousand, Colbert Cartwright Aerospace and Technological Services would usurp Boeing as the largest employer in this space, but we’d still lag behind them in overall rankings. Something my father, no doubt, plans to rectify in the future.
“We are so close to finalizing the deal, and now this drama with Brielle has thrown a wrench in the works.”
“She’s in a coma,” I say. “It hardly qualifies as drama.”
I can’t say I’m surprised at his attitude. Dad lives and breathes work. It’s all he cares about. Except maybe for Sarah. If he’s capable of caring about anything besides his multibillion-dollar business, it would be my twenty-three-year-old sister. She shares the same all-consuming, hardheaded, no-nonsense, rule-the-world attitude he displays.
Sarah is the heir he wishes he had in me.
Unlike him, Sarah is also compassionate and self-deprecating. She’s ambitious and champing at the bit to finish her Harvard MBA so she can join the business, but she’s way more self-aware than father, and she cares about people. She wants to make her mark through hard work and intelligence, rather than political backstabbing and trampling over the very people who put you where you are.
Sarah will make a great future CEO. We just need to convince the misogynistic fool sitting in front of me. He might care for her more than Esther and me, but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to let a woman sit at the helm of the company founded by his great-grandfather in 1930.
“Everything about Brielle Cartwright spelled drama,” he scoffs, flicking a piece of lint from the sleeve of his jacket.
“Yet you wanted me to marry her.”
“Don’t be facetious, Greyson.” My father is the only one who insists on calling me by my first name. I was named after the founding CEO of this company, and Dad likes to remind me regularly how I sully the name. It’s a constant knife plunging into my back. A permanent reminder that I’m an abject failure compared to our ancestor. “You know the nature of the agreement.”
Only he could refer to emotional and financial blackmail as anagreement.
“Arranged marriages are the best way to ensure a long-lasting business partnership,” he continues, telling me something I’ve heard a hundred times before. He loves the sound of his own voice. “I already told you I didn’t care what you did as long as you got her up that aisle and knocked her up a few times. You could fuck half of Seattle after the wedding, and I wouldn’t have cared if you were discreet and didn’t piss David off.”
I told him I never wanted to marry, and I would never disrespect any woman by marrying her and then routinely cheating the way he did when he was married to my mother.
