Ellery
“What the hell is this?”my father asked from behind me.
I turned to look at the phone he was holding. “Looks to be a photo of me,” I said.
Examining it further, it looked to be a photo of me with Veronica. It was fairly blurry, but it was obvious where my hands were headed.
“Not a very good one either,” I commented. “Totally missed my good side.”
My father slammed his phone down, probably shattering the screen. “Is this a joke to you?”
His face was nothing like mine. I’d always been told I looked like my mother, and I was happy for it. His face was red, and it usually was when we were talking. His cheeks were round and his brown hair now gray.
“What’s the big deal? We’re both adults?” And Veronica was more of a friend than anything. Just one I hooked up with on occasion, usually after we’d had too much to drink.
“The big deal is Rick is our lawyer, someone we don’t want to upset. You were supposed to be there to meet our contacts, not fool around with his daughter.”
He’d be really pissed if he knew I’d fooled around with more than one of them, but I’d save that tidbit for myself.
“I’m sorry, okay? But you sent me to that lame banquet, and we decided to leave for the afterparty early.”
I wasn’t sure why he still sent me to those things. I wasn’t any good at it. Samuel or Arthur would have been much better suited to go, but apparently they were busy with other obligations.
Which didn’t feel like my problem.
I didn’t want to be a part of the family business to begin with. Sure, the money was nice, but I wasn’t cut out for this. Meetings and schedules were never something I had an easy time adhering to, especially not when it was something I had no interest in doing.
Before this, I let my whims take me where they may. I acted in my teens, then had a brief stint with modeling in my early twenties. Somewhere in between, I even toured with a band, though I was mostly there for my looks. But when I decided I didn’t want to model anymore, my parents told me I couldn’t just do nothing, so I decided to start working for Corecords, the family business.
They specialized in client facing consulting, so the entire place ran on meetings. My existence was only for show most of the time. I wasn’t given priority clients or anything important.
It was fair, though. I couldn’t remember meetings, despite my assistant’s constant reminders, and I missed important deadlines, even though I had them marked on my calendar because I could never properly estimate how long something would take me.
It didn’t matter, though. They all knew I was this way, which was why I was here, essentially shuffling papers from one desk toanother, only attending events no one else could. Plus, I was way more charismatic than all of them. Not to mention attractive.
There were worse curses, I supposed.
The room shook as my father’s fist came down hard on the desk. “I’m done playing games with you, boy. You're twenty eight years old. This was cute when you were in college, but it’s the real world now. You need to get your shit together.”
I scoffed. I didn’t need to have my shit together. I was the youngest, meaning I had no expectation to take over the company, that was left to Arthur. My only expectation was to get married to someone of a similar status one day, and Samuel was newly married, so I had a few more years before the magnifying glass for that was truly on me. I was enjoying my life and all the benefits that came with it.
“That’s it. You’re going to the Baker’s charity ball next week.”
I stood. “Samuel was supposed to go to that,” I said. “And the Bakers' parties are always the worst.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “You’re going now. I need you to go to a single event and act like an adult. Show face for your family. Your time traipsing around as a model is over. You work for the family, you represent this family. And if you don’t start doing a proper job of it, you will be cut off. No more expensive trips, no more credit cards, no more penthouse. I will throw you out on your ass.”
“Fine, whatever.”
He stormed from my office, slamming the door so hard the frames shook on the walls.
I threw my feet up on my desk and grabbed the puzzle cube sitting there. I shuffled it around before beginning to set it right again.
My father couldn’t be serious. He’d stomped in my office and yelled at me before–often actually, but something about this feltdifferent. Though I didn’t like bending to his will, I did enjoy my life, and had no plans on changing it.
Someone knocked on my door and I sighed, recognizing the light tap of my secretary. I wasn’t in the mood for visitors, but I was still technically at work.
“Come in,” I said.
