Chapter 18
ONE YEAR AGO
“ Y ou’re out of your goddamn mind if you think this is smart!”
Mr. Hunt rarely raised his voice at home, but hear in the office, the fury with which he spoke reminded me of the devil. His eyes went wide, he practically snarled at his associate, and his neck bulged with veins. Off to the side, Morgan and I watched with horror and some morbid curiosity.
We’d been brought in to watch a day in the life of Mr. Hunt, one of us to become the future of the company, the other probably at the behest of his wife. For most of the first couple of hours, Mr. Hunt had insisted we just work on school assignments while he handled some paperwork and phone calls.
But then, around 10:30 a.m., he called in someone named Scott Dill, the VP of sales for his company.
When Scott entered, he looked like he had just seen his dead mother, and given the way that Mr. Hunt proceeded to rip him to shreds, I couldn’t blame him.
Even Morgan looked incredibly uncomfortable with the way his father dressed down the VP.
“Next time I call you in here, you better have some goddamn numbers worth more than the shit I took this morning, or you’ll be a shit on the street. Now get out of here!”
With that, Scott left without a word, avoiding eye contact with both his boss and us. He shut the door quickly but without slamming it, perhaps fearing what would happen if he did that.
Then, just a few seconds later, Mr. Hunt spoke to us as if we were back in the house.
“Do you know why I did what I just did?”
Neither of us said a word, perhaps wanting the other to speak. I knew better than to speak up with Morgan around; I knew better than to assume Mr. Hunt ever had an interest in speaking to me directly; I knew better than to ever believe I had priority over Morgan.
“No, Dad, I don’t,” Morgan said finally. “I thought Scott was one of the best salesman you’ve ever had.”
“That, he is,” Mr. Hunt said. “But here’s how business works, son.”
I knew now he was speaking only to Morgan, but at least I got to benefit by hearing it in person.
“Whoever you have to annihilate to get what you want, you have to do it. If you have to step on someone to motivate them, you do it. If you have to trick someone to get what you want, you do it. If you have to go through some elaborate schemes to get what you want, you better goddamn do it. Closing the deal and the art of business require not the soft touch of a woman but the brute weapons that war requires. Do I make myself clear?”
Morgan hesitated for half a second, said yes, and I nodded. I didn’t want to speak, but I did want to avoid an undressing.
“I may have, but I know you don’t get it,” Mr. Hunt said.
It became unclear now who he was speaking to, given his relative avoidance of directly criticizing Morgan.
“You’re too goddamn soft. You keep letting people get their fair share, you’re gonna get chewed up and spit out a million times before you get tired of being crunched down.
If you want to get anywhere in life, and I mean anywhere, you better learn and adhere to the warfare of business and the art of the deal.
I’m not going to ask if I’m clear, because I know I am.
If you can’t digest that, then it’s your own damn fault. ”
Present Day
It’s my own damn fault.
I knew what this might entail. I knew this might end in heartbreak. I knew this might ruin my career.
And I went ahead and told her anyways.
I just never imagined she would choose to humiliate me in so public and vicious a fashion. What the fuck, Layla? What the fuck… the fuck did any of this mean to you? Did any of it matter?
It took me a couple of blocks to catch her, but when I did, she stopped and turned. Her eyes were filled with tears, some of which had flooded her cheeks. She looked inconsolable.
But that was nothing on how I felt. I couldn’t even bring myself to talk. Even as my mind went at a hundred miles per hour, even as I begged for answers, my tongue literally felt tied and that I could not speak. It felt like I would have to reach into my throat and pull the words out.
“Wha… what… why… the fuck, Layla!”
I slowly regained control of myself, but that did nothing to quell the rising disgust and hatred I began to feel. Layla tried to speak, but she just sounded like a disgusting blubbering mess. I was beyond furious.
She knew my weaknesses. She knew my vulnerabilities. And as evidenced by her actions since the moment her… her fucking “uncle” started speaking, she was guilty of having stomped all over them.
Finally, she got words out that I had to think about to understand fully.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
I just laughed. Of fucking course. Of course that’s what she would say.
What a convenient line to avoid having to admit to all of the lies she had said.
What a nice way to avoid having to admit all of the horrible things she had done to me.
Fucking hell. Seriously? This was the best that I got? Not a chance.
“Then fucking tell me this, Layla,” I said. “Were you ever honest with me? Was any of this real?”
Layla looked like she wanted to speak, but she just cried even more.
Had I been a better man, I might have tried to empathize with her, to tell her I would never see her again, but that I would make sure she got home safe. I would tell her she needed to think things through more in her life, but that she would be safe in doing so.
But I was not a good man. I was Chance Hunt, a man who had been heartbroken and taken advantage of my entire fucking life. I had no family, I had no true friends, and I had no love. No man, no matter his background, personality, or strength, could be good with those kinds of circumstances.
“Layla!” I shouted.
I was on the verge of tears of anger, too. I just felt nothing but fire and rage at everything. How the fuck did it turn out like this?
“I’m sorry, I ha-had to,” she said in between tears. “I had no choice. There was… there was no other way.”
“You know,” I said, trying to breathe as slowly as I could to better control my emotions. “I could have said I loved you and never said a word about the deal. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You told your ‘uncle’ or father, whoever the fuck he is, about all of this?”
Layla just shook her head.
“You don’t understa—”
I had heard that line far too often. Turning to a nearby newspaper stand, I punched it as hard as I could, knocking it into the street.
“FUCK!”
But the truth was, with that unleash of anger, I understood all too well what had happened.
Layla had executed the world of business better than I ever had or could have. It sickened me to think that Craig Taylor might have told Layla to sleep with me to get a better deal… that a man would whore off his own niece or daughter for some extra money… but Layla could have said no.
Instead, she played me like a fucking fiddle. She used me to get what she wanted. And in a sickening way, I had to admire what she had done.
“You fucking whore,” I said, my words more reflective of uncontrollable anger than anything else. “You’re fucking despicable. You know that? I told you I loved you. I said I loved you! And you used me. You used me to get a few extra million dollars. Wow. Whoop-de-fucking-do.”
I just found myself completely at a loss of words. Words got spoken, sure, but I had no control over them. They just spilled out without thought; I had no control over anything, even if I tried to modulate my breathing as best as I could. I pointed a finger at her and bit my lip.
“You have to fucking live with this,” I said. “You knew me. You knew me well. You want to be the kind of woman that manipulates men for money? Go be a fucking gold digger. It’ll be a lot easier than the shit you put me through.”
“Chance…”
I didn’t let her say anything else. I hailed a cab and ripped open the back door so hard that I thought I might pull it off its hinges. I turned back one more time to see Layla in tears, looking at me.
If I was being perfectly honest, I could see a bit of hurt in her eyes. I could see that her care for me was genuine. She truly seemed pained by what she had done.
But she also wasn’t exactly apologetic about it. Regardless of if she actually loved me, she clearly loved money more than me.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, flipping her the middle finger as I got in the car. “Just drive me south five blocks. I’ll figure it out from there.”
I stewed in the back seat, my rage rising in an uncontrolled manner, the better to suffocate the sorrow and pain that I felt. I had always sworn never to take out my anger in the form of destruction and hurting others. Even with Sarah, I had done a good job.
But this… I had been played so hard. I had fucked myself over. I had lost everything.
No one would ever give me a job after this.
No one would ever see the name Chance Hunt as anything other than an embarrassment to the Hunt family—who would in turn disown me for being such a fucking idiot.
No woman, upon hearing this story, would see me as anything more than a boy toy, someone to be manipulated and played with.
I had fucked up so bad “fucked up” didn’t seem like a strong enough verb.
I knew I risked getting hurt when I decided to say I loved Layla Taylor.
I didn’t know I risked getting destroyed.
I didn’t know I risked my career and my family life dying before my very angry eyes.