Chapter 1
If only life were brush strokes on a canvas.
Those, I knew.
Those, I understood like an exhale.
However, when it came to the rest of my life, I couldn’t seem to get anything right.
Evidenced by…well, this.
I stared at the mess in the board room, which was now empty of people. Stacks of stapled papers were covered by the coffee that had spilled all over everything, and the room full of prestigious board members had raced out en masse after they were splattered with it too. I rubbed at the paint stain on my wrist, right where the long sleeve almost covered it. My father wanted a business shark for his eldest and only son, someone who would take over Albatross Industries. The communication empire was one that had passed down through our family for generations.
And the Durand family would not tolerate anything less than perfection. Particularly my father.
Clearly, I was excelling.
I heaved a sigh and began to collect the sopping papers off the table. My father had ushered everyone out of the board room, guaranteed to start smoothing ruffled feathers. He’d tried me in role after role in this company, but usually something ended up on fire. And then my mother and father would heave their collective sigh, one filled with a soul-weary disappointment.
Which made it clear that was all I’d ever amount to.
I tossed wads of sopping paper into the nearby trash can, which only held sundry things like toothpicks or tissues. Looked like it’d be pulling double duty today. Shame prickled across my skin, the feeling creeping in like always. When my father came back in, guaranteed I’d be informed I was being transferred out of yet another job in this company.
Who knew where they’d put me next.
The puddle of coffee on the table formed a swirl, and I dipped my finger in it, extending the swirl further, like ink crawling across parchment. I wasn’t accident-prone, per se. More like…absentminded, I guess.
Colors, lines, shapes commanded my focus, but art wasn’t a pursuit for a Durand.
No, board meetings were my future, in some incarnation.
I snapped to attention, realizing I’d been swirling the coffee into patterns on the table. Right. I rushed over to the cabinets and pulled out the paper towels from their hiding spot in the back. Watching them soak up the coffee only marginally distracted me from the fact I’d failed to live up to the Durand name again. I wiped up the rest of the table, needing to atone in some way. I already knew I’d be getting the silent treatment from my family for a spell after this stunt.
That was how it always went. I’d been ignored so much growing up that I sometimes wondered if I had the power to turn invisible.
A cough sounded at the doorway, and I froze.
My father, Angus Durand, stood there, looming like a specter.
His features were firm, proud, forbidding, every bit the figurehead he wanted me to become. And his dark eyes flashed, not with the disappointment I’d expected, but something else. Something that made my stomach churn.
“Elrich, it’s time we had a talk,” Angus stated, his tone like night-chilled granite. I often imagined him like a statue carved from ice, one brought to life. The reality wasn’t far off for him and my mother.
“You’re no longer a fresh teenager,” my father said, resting his fingertips on the surface of the table. He lifted them up and grimaced. Some coffee residue remained.
“It’d be sort of odd if I was,” I commented. “Just hit pause on the whole aging thing.”
My father glowered back. Right, my flippant remarks weren’t welcome here.
“Take a seat,” he said, gesturing to the plethora of empty ones, since the board members had all fled from the great and terrible foe, coffee. “Natalie took everyone to the conference room down the hall, and they’re going to chat amongst themselves for a bit while we recollect.”
My stomach flip-flopped. Twenty-three years, and I still hadn’t managed to find a way to garner my parents’ approval. At this point, the prospect looked grim.
I took the nearest seat, because I had the feeling whatever my father was going to say would knock me square in the sternum. Even though they were all padded leather, top-of-the-line chairs, the cushion beneath me felt like a rock.
Angus Durand didn’t take a seat. No, he stood, looming over me, the way he had my entire life.
“I hoped we could find you a position in Albatross Industries, but I don’t think that’s going to work,” he said, crossing his arms.
