“Sasha, you’re always late on rent. Anyway, make sure to bring the rest when you get paid and put some clothes on. Jeez!” She turned away and went back into her room.
“Thank you!” I called after her. She closed her door and leaned against it. “Dammit.” I had not intended that money for the bus ride at all. I was saving my work tips to send home to my mother in Mexico. Things were tight back home, and I knew my uncle wasn’t working anymore, with his broken back. My mother had to care for him and my younger brother, Emilio. I sank to the floor slowly, resting my head on my folded knees. I was cold and beginning to feel hunger pangs but mostly tired; tired by how hardship chased me down every street, no matter how swiftly I tried to outrun it. I had tried so hard to let go of the past, but days like this always drew me back.
I thought about my brother’s face. We were born three years apart, and we spent our childhood being passed from orphanages to shelters because our mom, an illegal immigrant who’d come to New York to work as a maid, had been found out and deported back to Mexico. Sometimes Emilio and I were separated for months and months. I’d spend my time worrying if he was with a good family or being properly fed. Other times we would run away to find each other and beg some seemingly good people to take us in. I hoped the money I was sending back helped him with his business venture; this time he’d promised me he’d do well. I hoped.
Chapter 2
Prince Walker
“Jane,” I said, jarring my personal assistant from her ogling, “did you need something?”
“Hmm? Ah, yes, I’m sorry. Your father is on line two.” She remained motionless for another minute. She was staring at me. I was used to these stares from women. That didn’t make it less annoying. I aimed a hard look at her. Her cheeks turned pink as her hazel eyes met mine. She glanced away.
She was clutching a copy of the latest issue ofGQin front of her. There was a feature in it about my meteoric rise to success. At 29, there weren’t many men in New York who’d accumulated the wealth I had. It had earned me a Forbes listing, as well as a slot at the top of several eligible bachelor lists.
The latter was half the reason Jane was eyeing me now. The woman had harbored a crush on me since she’d first started working for Cedar Inc, my father’s multi-national business empire. When I’d taken over the reins and brought her in as my Personal Assistant, she must have thought she’d won the lottery. I had no doubt she’d already made a copy of the magazine feature to show off to her friends.
The article was of little interest to me. By now I was used to having my name splashed across headlines. Aside from the details of my love life, business reporters loved to speculate about the new strides I’d been making in the technology field.
Although Cedar Inc had started out in real estate, I’d transitioned the business into artificial intelligence. I’d designed some clever agency apps and incorporated them into the backend of our sales sites. It was a great learning curve for me. Within a matter of years, we’d started creating similar systems for other companies. Then the intelligence agencies caught on. That’s when the real money had begun to roll in.
“Jane, is there anything else?” I snapped, rising to my feet and smoothing a hand over my immaculate hair. Jane wasn’t short by any stretch of the imagination, but at 6’3” I towered over her. She clutched a hand to the top of her crisp white shirt and stared up at me.
“Uh… Oh, no there isn’t. I- I’ll leave you to it,” she stammered, tugging at the hem of her short black skirt. It was too short, quite frankly. I glanced away as she turned toward the door. No sense in encouraging her.
She left my office with a graceful sashay of her hips. I finally risked an appraising glance. Having worked for a lot of important men in the corporate world, Jane wasn’t wide-eyed or naïve anymore. She knew the vices that men who were rich and powerful indulged in. Yet she let herself develop feelings for me. Jane knew I would never return her affections. I never mixed business with pleasure.
But I loved to reward discretion and loyalty, and she was amazing at her job. She handled both my business and private affairs with no judgment. She had never let jealousy get in the way of fulfilling her duties. If anything, it made her more loyal.
As she left, I snatched up the phone.
“So, what’s all this bullshit?” my old man’s gritty voice ground out across the line. “You thinking of becoming a supermodel or something?” The words were couched as a joke. However, I knew they were designed to rankle. My father had never taken me seriously. Not even when I’d graduated from MIT summa cum laude and won a spate of science prizes.
It seemed nothing I did would please my old man. I had sent a copy of my GQ interview to his office that morning. I’d hoped to score points for getting into the news for something unrelated to my usual escapades. But Drew Walker had brushed it aside like it was immaterial. Since childhood, I’d wanted more than anything to make my father proud. I had grown up in the large shadow my father cast, struggling for scraps of his approval. For a long time, I had been the perfect son, working hard and graduating top of my class. Although Dad would have preferred me to study business, I eventually saw information technology was where I shone.
“I thought you’d get a kick out of it, Dad,” I replied. “It’s about the company.”
“It’s about you being an asshole again,” he returned.Dick.The entire article was focused on the business.
“It’s great PR,” I said. “Good for Cedar.”
“Bah! Good for helping you get your rocks off, more like,” he grumbled. “I noticed you changed your outfit for every picture. What’s that about?”
I rolled my eyes. “Nothing to do with me,” I assured him. “They had an art director calling the shots. I didn’t ask for any of that.” I looked down at the magazine on my desk. I guessed that was what annoyed him most. I looked damn good.
From the cover, my image stared back at me. Green eyes intense. Thick black hair artfully styled to leave a wave curled over my forehead. The make-up artist had cooed about my strong jawline and cheekbones. She’d cooed even more as she’d smoothed the Hugo Boss shirt over my broad shoulders. And then again when she’d unbuttoned it before I’d fucked her hard against the wall of the dressing room after the shoot. Women loved me. So what if it bothered him? I couldn’t help it if I looked this way.
“Yeah, well, maybe it could be a good thing,” he mused now. “You might get yourself someone to tie you down at last. God knows your bedroom must have a revolving door in it by now.”
My father’s most recent grievance was my refusal to get married. This irked me to no end. Why opt for something as final as marriage? It was not that I did not like women. I loved the conquest of pursuing them. I enjoyed the chase. Knew I could have anyone I wanted. So I appreciated the ones who made me work hard for it. I was not ready to give up that freedom.
“We’ve already discussed that, Dad,” I said, trying to keep the impatience from my tone. “I’m not ready yet.”
“I doubt you’re ever going to think you’re ready, boy,” he snapped. “Marriage is not about being ready. It’s about thinking with your big head and not your little one for a change.”
“And what about love?” I pressed. I did it to taunt him.
“Fuck love!” he bit back. “It’s a complication. You need a wife. Someone who’ll give you respectability.”
