Aspen

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

ASPEN

“A re you kidding me?”

The office door hit the wall and swung back closed with a slam, almost drowning out my question. But my anger was louder, bolstering the question across the room to my father’s feet.

“Good afternoon, Aspen,” he calmly greeted with a heavy sigh that I swear they taught all fathers on day one.

Congrats! Here’s your baby girl and here is how you sigh with exhausted patience every time she acts how you don’t want her to.

He could sigh all he wanted. My anger was justified by the bullshit I just heard.

I stomped across the imported rug to where he stood beside his desk, almost meeting him eye to eye in my pumps.

“No. Not good afternoon. It’s actually a shit afternoon. Especially when I’m minding my business, getting my coffee, and find out from overhearing an intern that my father is selling my company.”

His lips flattened—the only reaction to my accusation. “You know you shouldn’t be having coffee so late in the day.”

“Are you shitting me right now?” Shock mixed with anger peeled my eyes so wide I expected them to pop out of my skull.

Along came another sigh. This time with my name trailing behind. “Aspen…”

Before he could say more, a deep voice cut in behind me. “Is it your company, though?”

I’d stormed in, so full of rage, I hadn’t considered someone else might be in the office. Not that I gave a shit because my discovery took precedence and whoever decided it was a good idea to butt into my conversation could fuck right off.

Slowly, I peered over my shoulder with a curled lip, my eyes narrowing to glare daggers at the voice I didn’t recognize.

Even with the sun shining through the wall of windows lining my father’s office, the man lurked in shadow. Like the sun shriveled up and ran away before it got too close to him. He sat back on the leather couch, one leg casually crossed over his knee, his strong thighs splayed wide. My eyes lingered over how they strained against his black slacks, spiking my irritation.

This man lounged as if he owned the place with his hand resting along the arm of the couch, tapping long fingers as if I had interrupted him .

Which I probably had, but I didn’t care. I was playing the daughter card and Mr. Dark and Dangerous could suck it.

And what had he asked? Was it really my company?

I recalled his tone, and any twinges over his muscular thighs and long fingers burned up in the resurrecting flames of anger. “Excuse me?”

His fingers stopped. “I asked if it was your company,” he repeated. “Or is it your father’s company that you wish to own someday?”

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The move brought him out of the shadows, revealing sharp features and eyes that still lacked any light. The alluring black depths attempted to lure me in—to ignore his question. But the words wrapped around my throat and yanked me back to reality.

The reality of another person who dismissed me with some shallow stereotype. The reality that this man probably leveled men and women with that dark stare and expected them to crumble at his feet.

I turned, pulled my shoulders back, and slipped into the cold bitch that got me as far as I was. This man had no idea what he was talking about. He may think he was correct in assuming Quinn Music Group only belonged to my father, but I’d devoted every part of myself to helping him build the company bigger and better. I’d happily done it because I knew one day it would be mine. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Aspen. Language.” My father’s reprimand failed to penetrate the bubble growing around me and this man and the challenge building between us.

His lips twitched with the faintest smirk. “I’m the man who’s buying your father’s company.”

Darkness crept around the edges of my vision, as if the sun sensed an impending explosion and curled away. His darkness joined in, stretching across the space between us, curling around my chest and squeezing.

Tighter. Tighter.

Too tight.

Control, a familiar whisper reminded. Don’t be what they expect. But the emotion had swelled too fast, tearing me too far away to hear it. I needed release.

I didn’t know what would tumble from my lips, but I was beyond caring. I took two steps and opened my mouth, ready to crush him with a darkness of my own.

Knock, knock.

Knuckles against the door pierced the bubble.

“Come in,” my father called, relief turning his words to a plea.

Tanya cracked the door open, briefly scanned the room with worried eyes before landing on my father. “Mr. Quinn, the delivery service is here. You mentioned you wanted to talk with them, so I have him waiting in the lounge.”

“Ah. Yes. I’ll be right out.” My father walked past and paused to rest a hand on my arm. “Aspen, why don’t you head back to your office, and I’ll swing by in a bit.”

“Absolutely not,” I rejected, keeping my eyes glued on the dark douche-canoe in the corner.

Another sigh—this time mixed with a grumble. “Fine. Just behave and don’t let your mouth get the best of you,” he warned, knowing my temper well. “I’ll be right back, Mr. Daire.”

Mr. Daire nodded toward my father before returning his gaze to mine at the click of the door. While mine held the rage of a thousand suns, his was…empty. It matched his relaxed posture, like we were acquaintances meeting for coffee and not in a verbal stand-off over my company.

“Don’t let Daddy’s warning stop you. I would love to see your mouth get the best of something , princess,” he said, his blank stare turning suggestive.

No . Not said… taunted .

While I prepared to use my words to kill him with a thousand cuts, he used his in a way I hadn’t seen coming. He used them to throw me off balance.

He wanted to gain the upper hand while I flailed and lashed out.

He expected me to react.

Well, he could keep on wanting, because nothing beat my temper into submission like proving someone’s expectations wrong. Using every ounce of patience I had, I shoved down the words begging to spew from my tongue. With a deep breath, I returned his crooked smirk with a disgusted curl of my lips.

“I don’t know what kind of businessman you are, but if you think you can pull some chauvinistic shit in this office, you’ll be sorely mistaken. And by sorely, I mean I will twist your balls in a knot if you come at me or anyone with that sexual harassment.”

Instead of looking away with guilt, his smirk grew into a smile. He stood, taking his time to straighten his suit jacket and refasten the button before approaching one slow step after another until less than two feet separated us. If I thought he was imposing and dark from the corner, it was nothing compared to the way he blacked out the sun with his height.

“Careful with your promises, princess. You have no idea how rough I like it.”

“You can stop with the princess shit,” I snapped in an attempt to lash out, but his confession and nearness swayed my resolve.

“Tsk, tsk. Such a potty mouth for the little girl who expects everything from the father who made it all.”

“Excuse me?” It was one thing to assume people thought the worst of you and another entirely to have it said to your face.

“I’ve bought many companies and seen many girls just like you, wanting what someone else made. Not because they earned it, but because they think they’re entitled to it. And I’ll let you in on a little truth…” he paused, walking around me as if I wasn’t worth his time. His shadow loomed over me, and his heated breath brushed my ear. “You’re not entitled to anything. Princess .”

I whirled around to find his face inches from mine. Between his gloating eyes and the nickname hitting a nerve I didn’t know existed, I decided to say fuck it to control. “You arrogant mother fu?—”

The door opened.

Upon my dad’s entrance, Mr. Dark-Douchy-Daire dropped all pretense of name calling, stepped back, and welcomed my dad with a smile.

Glancing at my scowl, my dad focused his attention on the schmoozy smile and ran with that over asking what was wrong. “I’m glad to see you two talking,” he said with forced brightness.

“Of course. Aspen has been quite informative.”

Aspen. I hated the way my name looked on his mouth. The way the perfect curve of his lips collided over the p. I hated the way he made my name sound like heaven and hell. I hate that I noticed.

“Good.” My father did a good job of attempting to mask his doubt as he rounded the desk. “Why don’t we all take a seat and talk?”

I planted both feet and crossed my arms. “I’ll stand.”

He sat with another sigh. “Very well.”

Three within an hour had to be a record I hadn’t reached since high school. Guilt tried to prick its way through my armor. My father was older and had enough stress without me piling my temper on top of it, but he had always been the one person I didn’t have to pretend around, and it allowed my anger to consume too much space to let any other emotions in.

“Actually, Hank,” Mr. Douche and Schmooze said. “I’m going to grab a coffee.”

“We can have someone bring it in?”

Mr. Daire flicked his gaze to me with a dark brow raised, as if suggesting I would be the one to fetch him a drink.

I glared harder.

“Thank you, but I can get it,” he said. “Please, feel free to continue talking. I should be right back.”

Already dismissing him, I whirled back to my father. He rubbed at the deep grooves between his brows and took a deep breath, waiting until the door closed to speak.

“Aspen, I’m old and tired.”

“You’re hardly old,” I objected, despite knowing the truth behind his words. He met my mother after his first marriage and was in his fifties when they finally had me. He was past retirement age, but I still couldn’t see him as old. “You golfed eighteen and went on an adventure hike last week.”

“And I want to do more of that, but I can’t when I’m tied to this chair eighty hours a week.”

I dropped my arms and stepped to his desk. “Then let me be tied to the chair.”

“You’re twenty-five, Aspen. You’re amazing at your job, but you still have a lot to learn. And this company is all you’ve ever done. I hate the idea of you tying yourself to this job when you don’t even know if it’s what you really want.”

“Of course, it’s what I want. I’ve wanted this my whole life.”

“You refused to do any athletics in school because you feared the time would interfere with being here, and you turned down every summer camp except the random business camp you managed to dig up.”

“Exactly. I’ve given everything to this.”

“But you have so much more to give in your life.” He softened his tone. All traces of the CEO of Quinn Music Group vanished, leaving behind a dad talking to his daughter. “Your mother wanted you—both of us—to have more in our lives than this company.”

“Don’t bring her into this,” I said, my tone hard.

He shook his head and huffed a laugh. Smiling softly, he opened a drawer on his desk. “I was looking for some old photos last month and found something your mother left for you that must have got lost in the shuffle after her death.”

My chest squeezed, and I pressed my hand to the ache, fingering the gold cross I always wore. Despite my Irish father and Puerto Rican mother, I wasn’t a very religious person, but it was my mother’s necklace, and I never took it off.

He laid a leather-bound journal on his desk, stuffed so full it barely closed. Papers poked out beyond the edges and unknown objects stuffed between the pages created gaps. All of it held shut with a coil of leather wrapping around it.

“I should have given it to you as soon as I found it, but I started going through it and clung to this surprising piece of herself she left behind; her handwriting, her memories, her fun anecdotes.” He laughed, stroking his fingers over the cover before pushing it across the desk to me. “But she didn’t leave it for me. She left it for you.”

I stared at the dark, smooth leather, fearing that the innocuous rectangle held a bomb waiting to detonate.

Blink.

Blink. Blink.

I wanted to snatch it up and run away with it. To go hide and learn all of its secrets. I wanted to shove it back at him and pretend it never existed.

Hating the visible tremble of my hand, I grabbed the book and slowly unwrapped the cord.

Nena.

The first word on the first page ignited a burn in my chest. The familiar swoop of every perfectly formed letter sucked the air from my lungs. I huffed a laugh, remembering her telling me how much she practiced her cursive because she thought it would make up for her imperfect pronunciations.

“I may not be able to say it perfectly in words, but I can put it perfectly on paper.”

I shook off the memory and forced myself to take in the words.

Siempre estás en mi corazón.

The words played in my head, remembering them from every night she said them to me when she tucked me in. God, I missed her. The fire grew beyond an ember, spreading beyond my lungs.

Unable to focus on the details, I flipped the pages, finding faded recipe cards, a CD slid into a pocket taped to a page, photos of her when she was little.

Photos of us.

All surrounded by passages I was too scared to read.

“She must have put it together when she was sick,” he guessed. “Maybe she’d been putting it together longer than that. I’m not sure, but I do know that she wanted you to have it so you could know and be proud of your culture. More than that, she wanted you to have a place to go to when you needed her words, and she couldn’t be there. She wanted to create a place to remind you that you are more than you think you are. She wanted to remind you to not pigeon-hole yourself into one thing without experiencing life and everything it has to offer.”

The fire crept up the back of my throat, and I tried to swallow it down, but the more I saw her smiling face, or her arms wrapped around me, the more the fire grew beyond my control.

I snapped the book closed and wrapped the cord around the casing, again and again, as if each coil added another layer of protection between me and my emotions. I swallowed one more time before meeting my father’s gaze. “Thank you for this, but it doesn’t mean you have to sell the company to a stranger. You don’t have to do this.”

“Aspen…” Sigh number four.

Guilt pressed in harder and almost broke through, but got shoved aside by desperation when I saw his jaw harden.

He’d made up his mind.

Panic gripped my throat. I dropped the pretense of trying to be a mature woman talking to her boss and pressed my palm against the polished wood I’d loved since I was a little girl. I leaned over and talked to him like his daughter.

“Please, Dad. Don’t take this from me.”

He peered across the space, his brilliant green eyes shining with the same look they gave me when he wouldn’t let me go on an unchaperoned trip to the beach when I was sixteen. Apologetic but firm with the knowledge he was doing what was best for me, no matter how much I argued.

But I wasn’t a teen anymore. I didn’t need my dad making decisions he thought were best. I needed him to trust me to live my own life.

“I’m not taking the company from you, Aspen. I’m…pausing it.”

Pausing? Confusion pinched my face. “What does that mean?”

His eyes flicked behind me at the click of the door opening and closing, letting me know our time alone was up.

“It’s…a lot to explain,” my father hedged before changing course and forcing another smile. “Why don’t you, me, and Lucian all go to dinner at Raíces? We can review the details there.”

“No,” I blurted, stepping back. “I don’t want to sit with some stranger while you give away our family company. I wanted you to talk to me before you made such a massive decision that impacts my life. I want you to reconsider before going through with anything.”

“It’s already done.” Mr. Daire’s— Lucian’s —deep voice delivered the death knell. A sucker punch from behind that knocked the wind from my lungs and stole any other pleas I had for my father.

I took a step back. And then another and another.

Angry breaths clawed at my lungs.

Muscles in my jaw cramped under the tension.

Crescents dug into my palm from my tight fist.

Worst of all…the fire burned beyond the back of my throat until it pricked at my eyes. I whipped my glare from one man to the other one last time before storming out just as fiercely as I entered.

The ball of emotions climbed higher, only serving to piss me off more.

I hated the loss of control closing in.

I hated that it weakened the weapon I’d sharpened my emotions into.

I hated that sometimes it took on a life of its own and the final storm sucked me into a whirlwind I couldn’t control. So, before anyone could catch sight and doubt the strong, impenetrable woman I was at work, I stormed to my office.

As soon as the door shut, I dropped the book on my desk before lunging for the mini-fridge and grabbing a cold bottle of water. I took deep gulps, trying to relax the tension squeezing my throat. I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck. I inhaled slow, deep breaths. I used every tool I’d learned over the years. I did them again and again until my muscles unkinked one knot at a time, and the pressure abated from around my chest, leaving behind the familiar disappointment of losing control.

I’d learned at a young age to curb my reactions. Throughout school, people took one look at my Hispanic mother and used it to judge me against their stereotypes—mocking me for my “spicy” personality. I hated it.

Nena, everyone has emotions. Small-minded people will see your heritage and call yours over-the-top and too big. The reality is that, yes, you get your passionate energy from me and your father—the Irish are very energetic, too. But also, you get it from you. You are your own person and there is nothing wrong with letting people see your passion. Don’t let them change who you were meant to be. Don’t let them make you ashamed and hide. Other people don’t get to decide who you are— you do .

Despite my mother’s words, I stifled my emotions and controlled them—robbing students and teachers of their ability to criticize.

Unfortunately, sometimes they grew too big and bubbled over, swallowing me whole.

A soft knock pre-ambled the door cracking open. All over again, my muscles tightened, preparing for battle, fully expecting my father’s gray hair to appear. Instead, a dark crown of ringlets entered, followed by a hesitant smile.

“Did you know?” I asked, still stiff.

Shiloh had the decency to wince as she closed the door behind her.

“How could you not tell me?”

“I only found out this morning,” she explained and held up her hands. “And you kind of scare me.”

A bark of laughter slipped free. I scared her ?

One, Shiloh was my boss. She was the director of the A&R department. She’d trained me when I was a teen in high school.

Two, she was almost six feet tall, giving her more than six inches on me.

Three, I loved her. She’d become one of my closest friends and stood for everything I wanted to be. Naturally respected and powerful, but kind and well-liked by everyone.

“Don’t laugh,” she ordered. “You’re small and scary when you get in your moods.”

“I don’t have moods.”

She pursed her full lips and leveled me with the most deadpan look I’d ever seen.

“Ugh, fine.” I caved and fell into one of the cushioned chairs in front of my desk. Even though I tried, she was the only other person I didn’t have to hide my emotions from. However, unlike my father, she understood the pressure of stereotypes as a Black businesswoman. “What does this mean?” I asked once she sat in the chair beside me.

“I don’t know. I was hoping I’d catch you before my meeting so you could tell me what the contract said.”

“Oh, um…I haven’t seen it.”

She gasped. “He didn’t show you?”

“Well…” I hesitated, fiddling with an imaginary string on my black slacks. “I kind of stormed out when he offered that we go over it with Mr. Arrogant-pig-face-buyer at dinner.” Unsurprisingly, her jaw dropped, but I continued before she could start pointing out how absurd I acted. “And I didn’t want to go to Raíces with him. It’s my favorite restaurant and if we went there to go over the contract that sold away my family company to some tall-dark-man, then I would never be able to eat there again. Would you want that for me? To never eat their delicious mofongo or tostones again?”

She shook her head and breathed a laugh before standing up. “You know what? I know you. I know you need to sit with your anger for a bit. So, I’m gonna let you do all the name-calling and be as dramatic as you want. We can talk later.”

I sighed, releasing another inch of tension from my shoulders. “You know me so well.”

“I sure do. Which makes it kind of hard to leave for my meeting when I know all the creative names and insults you’re going to come up with for this buyer. Although, I think I heard some swooning when you used the words tall and dark .”

“Blech. He looks like the shadows of hell. There was zero swooning,” I denied vehemently.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she muttered with a dubious roll of her eyes.

Once she left, I rubbed at my chest, attempting to ease the chaotic energy still lingering. I glanced at the book and quickly looked away. Then to the stack of papers on my desk, wondering if they could distract me, but knew I couldn’t think straight. I needed something mindless. Something to connect with and tether me back to reality.

And I knew just the thing.

Grabbing my phone, I wondered how quickly I could get home. Probably less than twenty minutes, which left me plenty of time to beat him there.

I sent a message before I thought too much about it.

Me: You have five minutes.

Less than a minute later, my phone dinged with a response.

Ash: I’ll be there in fifteen.

Perfect.