Tessa Ever After (8 page)

The last thing I need right now is a complication like Jason. And that’s exactly what he’d be: a complication of the greatest proportion.

I have enough of those to last me a lifetime.

jason

Tess is deep in thought when I set my tray on the table across from her. Her eyes snap up to mine, and I have to remind myself that this isn’t a big deal. We’re friends. Friends get lunch together all the time. They hang out and talk and eat together, and it’s no big deal. I’d do it with Cade or Adam without a second thought.

Except if I grabbed lunch with either of those two, I definitely wouldn’t feel a twitch in my jeans when they pursed their lips around a straw and sucked . . .

Clearing my throat, I avert my eyes and take a seat, occupying myself with sorting out my lunch. Dessert isn’t really my thing—unless it’s whipped cream licked off the smooth stomach of a willing partner—so I had no idea what to get. I just ordered something different than what Tess had that I thought she might like.

“Ohhh, you got the crème brûlée. That’s another good one, but I don’t ever get it because I love this too much.” She holds up a bite before she puts it in her mouth, and then her lips wrap around the fork, her eyes flutter closed, and she lets out the softest hum in her throat, and
Jesus fucking Christ
, I’m hard as a rock in two-point-three seconds.

“So good.” She opens her eyes and looks at me, her eyebrows rising when she notices me staring. “Did I get it all over my face?” Grabbing a napkin, she brings it up and wipes the corners of her mouth, and I almost laugh at what she’d do if I fessed up to what I was actually so focused on. She’d be mortified and maybe a little offended. Ever since that crush she used to have on me when she was fourteen faded away, she hasn’t looked at me with any sort of interest.

Waving her off, I pick up the sandwich I ordered and say, “No, I was just zoning out, thinking about classes and shit.”

She hums, taking another bite. “How’s that going, anyway? Did you decide what you’re going to do about your parents?”

And maybe I should have told her I was picturing my dick in her mouth instead of that fork because then we wouldn’t be talking about the rock and hard place I’m stuck between, and the inevitable future I don’t want any part of.

I take a huge bite so I don’t have to say much and offer a shrug and a mumbled, “What’s there to do? No changing their minds.”

She stares at me, her eyes narrowing. “You know, for someone who’s so stubborn, you sure are bending over for them without much of a fight.”

“What kind of fight should I give, Tess? The kind that gets me permanently kicked out of my family?”

She shakes her head and says softly, “They wouldn’t do that.”

“They would, and we both know it. The only reason they bent on me going to art school in the first place was because my grandpa paid the first year against their wishes. After he died, they didn’t think it’d look good to have me transfer schools. Again. They only placated me because in the end, they were getting their way—having me at the head of the company. And
that’s
something they won’t bend on. Having no son is better than having a disappointment of one who can’t get a good job—at least in their eyes—to save his life.” I grab a couple chips and shrug, affecting nonchalance, though I feel anything but. I put on a good front, but the truth is, I’m still hoping some sort of promise will shine through from my parents, giving me a glimpse of what it was like before my grandpa died. I’m not sure I’m ready to just throw that away, even if they are.

We’re both quiet as we eat, and I never noticed before how comfortable it’s always been between the two of us. Even before this attraction on my end started, we’d always been able to just hang out—talking or not talking. I’ve gone out with more girls than I can count, and while they’ve always scratched an itch, it’s never been as
easy
as it is with Tessa.

When she’s nearly done with her salad, she says, “If you don’t want to be the CEO or president or whatever your dad wants you to be, just tell them. Talk to them. They might surprise you.”

“They’re not going to surprise me, Tess. You know how I know that? Because it’s going to be sophomore year in high school all over again, when I wanted to get involved in the web design club and they wouldn’t sign off on the papers. They made me run for student council instead.”

Her eyes grow wide and she stops picking at her salad as she looks up at me. “I thought that was your idea. You made it seem like you loved it.”

“Yeah, like sixteen-year-old me is going to fess up to my parents pulling all the strings behind the curtain? Of course I acted like I loved it.”

“Well, that was a long time ago. Maybe their reaction would be different now.”

But based on my father’s words during his ultimatum, on how he feels about the “arts and crafts” school I go to, I know that’s a futile hope. My future’s already been mapped out for me, whether I like it or not. And no amount of negotiating will get me a different outcome.

SEVEN

jason

Even though I know how the conversation will go before I show up, I still try. Tessa’s words have stayed with me since our lunch yesterday, and I can’t get them out of my head.

Which is how I find myself at my dad’s ostentatious building, walking down the halls to stares and stiff smiles as I make my way toward his corner office.

“Hi, Jason,” the receptionist says with a smile. She’s blond, late twenties, if I had to guess, and probably one of the reasons my father spends a lot of his evenings here instead of at home. “Your dad doesn’t have anything on his schedule right now. Let me just buzz him and make sure he’s free.”

“Thanks.”

As she picks up the phone and calls him, I stand with my hand in the front pocket of my jeans, looking around the space at all the trimmings that are unnecessary. Just like in my parents’
house. God forbid there’s no outward show of their wealth. Can’t have people thinking they’re not raking in buckets of money.

Pulling me out of my thoughts, she says, “You can go ahead and go in,” and gestures me down the hall toward the closed door of my dad’s office.

I don’t bother to knock before I go inside. He’s sitting behind his desk, the floor-to-ceiling windows providing the backdrop to his stiff shoulders set in his gray suit.

“Jason,” he says, glancing up only long enough to give me an appraising look before he returns his eyes to the paperwork in front of him. “Next time you come here, I’ll expect you to be in something more presentable than jeans and a T-shirt. This isn’t the gym.”

“Nice to see you, too, Dad,” I say as I shut the door behind me, then sprawl out in the chair in front of his desk.

“What can I do for you?” he asks. “I have a meeting in ten minutes.”

“Well, then, I’ll cut right to it. We both know working here isn’t my first choice, but you’ve given me little other options.”

He bristles, his spine straightening as he looks at me with hard eyes. “I think we’ve done a hell of a lot more than give you little other options. We let you go to that damn arts college, despite all the trouble we knew it would cause down the line—down the line being now, when I had to persuade the admissions department to let you into the master of architecture program without so much as a single piece in a portfolio.”

I blow out a humorless laugh at how he’s rewritten history. “You didn’t
let
me go. Grandpa paid for it, and after he died, you only went with it so you could save face in front of your friends. What kind of student transfers schools three times, right? Certainly not a Montgomery.” I close my eyes and take a deep
breath, trying to get my temper under control. I can’t ever have a normal conversation with him. “That’s not why I came to see you. I’m here about what I want to do once I start working here.”

“You’ll be doing what I’m doing. I’ve already laid the groundwork. If you keep on, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Well get to the point already. Seven minutes,” he says as he taps the face of his Rolex.

I swallow, stare right at him, though his attention is focused on the papers in front of him rather than me. “I want to start up the Elise Montgomery Foundation again.”

His pen freezes above the paper he was jotting notes down on, the only outward appearance he gives that he heard me.

Continuing, I say, “I’ll still take my place in your shoes, I’ll do what you want me to do here, run it however, but I want the foundation up and running again. And I want to head it.”

Carefully, calmly, he sets his pen down, then he leans back in his chair, both arms braced on the armrests as he smooths his tie down the front of his shirt while he’s appraising me. “You want to resuscitate a nonprofit company I shut down no more than three years ago.”

“Yes.”

He laughs then, a sound I can’t remember hearing in a long while, and shakes his head. “No.”

Just like that. No. He doesn’t ask me why I want to start it back up, doesn’t let me tell him that doing so would give me a purpose, allow me to swallow all the shit he’s done to this company because it would mean that I’m able to give back in some way. It’d mean that I’d be able to give life to the legacy my grandfather left. The legacy my father shit all over.

He leans forward and rests his forearms on his desk, clasping his hands together as he stares at me. “I know you and your grandfather had grand plans for that. Ever since he started it, that’s all you two would talk about, all you’d spend your time on, even when you were younger. Used to go with him to those build sites and get your hands dirty, doing work we hire people for. You both were weak when it came to doing what needed to be done to get ahead.” Which, to him, means never spending time, much less money, helping those less fortunate than he is. “Unfortunately, you’re the only one bearing the Montgomery name who can step up to lead this firm once I retire. I’m not going to let you come in here and take this company your grandfather built but all but pissed away because of that fucking foundation sucking all the profits, and run it into the ground after I’ve finally made something of it. After it’s finally started to see generous revenue. And the group of partners will see to that. They’d never approve it.” He says it with such a smug satisfaction that I have to clench my hands around the arms of the chair so I don’t do something I’m not sure I’d regret. Like wipe that smug satisfaction off his face. With my fists.

He glances at his watch. “Time’s up. If that’s all . . . ?” He doesn’t wait for me to say anything before he stands and walks over to the door, twisting the handle and pulling it open for me. Body language relaxed, cool smile in place. Showing everyone beyond the closed door just how perfect everything is in our little family of three.

“Thanks for stopping by. See you for dinner next week,” he says loudly enough for the few other employees in the hall to hear. They offer me the same stiff smiles they did before as I make my exit. I give the receptionist a tight smile and nod when she waves and says good-bye, then I’m down the hall and
jamming my finger in the button for the elevator, anxious to get the hell out of here.

I don’t know why I put myself through this. Why I don’t just tell them to fuck off and do what I want to do. Yeah, I’d be out the money they’re shelling out every month for me to live comfortably. I’d have to move somewhere else, figure out a job really damn quick, but I could. If I had to, I could. I’ve interned every summer for the same graphic and web design company, and I have little doubt they’d hire me on. Probably as something lowly, but at least I’d be able to use my web design and interactive media degree. At least I’d be in the field I want to be in. At least I wouldn’t be working for a shady asshole who cares more about money than anything else in the world.

I glance over at the wall next to the elevator, an outdated picture of my grandfather hanging there, his kind eyes seeming to stare right at me. And I know why I don’t just tell them to fuck off and go on with my life. Because despite all the shit they’ve put me through, all the hoops I have to jump through to get even an ounce of approval from them, they’re my family—the only one I’ve got, unfortunately. Grandpa’s words—the ones he’d say frequently—ring in my ears as I step into the elevator and push the button for the lobby.
Family is everything. Don’t ever turn your back on it.