51. Elliott
FIFTY-ONE
Elliott
I’m still flying high from last night. I don’t think my feet have touched the ground since I left her place this morning and went home for a quick change before heading to work. That was one hell of a surprise. I didn’t see it coming at all. I hoped for it, but I figured it would happen at my place and not anytime soon. That was by far the best sex of my life. I feel so much closer to Jillian now, like there’s a real chance of a relationship. Jillian giving herself to me is the ultimate gesture of trust. I know it was not an impulse decision. She put the thought behind it. Planned it. Arranged for us to be alone so we could be together this way. Step into the next level of being a couple. I loved spending the night with her, sleeping in her bed, waking up and finding her next to me, making love again in the morning, sharing a shower and making breakfast together. These are things I’ve never wanted before. Never even imagined I’d want.
But here I am. Going to work happy for a change, instead of dreading every minute I spend in that office. Nothing can spoil my day today.
I push open the door to my office and stop in my tracks. I spoke too soon. The one thing that can spoil my day is sitting on my chair, rocking back and forth and holding a tumbler half filled with whiskey. At ten in the morning.
I hold in the litany of curses I want to scream at him, putting a smile on my face instead. Close the door behind me. Whatever he has to say to me, I want to keep it in my office. “Good morning, Dad. Surprised to see you in my office. What can I do for you?”
My father grins. And that’s the grin of every movie villain ever made. It’s the kind of smile that always precedes bad news, berating, and accusation. I grew up with those smiles.
My father sets the glass down and leans his elbows on my desk, steeples his fingers, and the smile turns into a thin line of disapproval.
What have I done now?
“You’ve had this deal on your desk”—he taps the folder that he must have dug out from my drawer—“for weeks now and we still don’t have that damn building.”
I really don’t want to deal with him right now. I want to bask in the afterglow, but there’s no way around it. And at this stage, excuses won’t work. I can’t put him off anymore. “The deal will not happen. Mrs. Caruso is not interested in selling now, not a year from now, not ever.”
My father rises abruptly, pushing the chair backward against the wall. “I don’t give a fucking rat’s ass about what that woman wants or doesn’t want. I gave you a job. You have one job and that’s to get me the fucking building.”
No, I don’t have one job. Acquisitions is not even my job, but I keep quiet about that. “What do you want me to do? Kick her to the curb? Drag her by the hair like a caveman? She’s an old lady set in her ways. It’s her building, and she doesn’t want to sell it.”
“We need that building for the Sunrise expansion project.”
I take three steps toward my desk and drop my briefcase on the chair. “Well, Dad , you’re gonna have to move along without this building. It’s not for sale.”
“I will not move along. You either make her agree with it or you won’t like the consequences.”
I rear back. “Are you threatening me?”
“Don’t make me dig up dirt, boy. I don’t want to get my hands dirty.”
I frown. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t get to be in this position by playing by the rules every single time. There are times that you have to man up and do what needs to be done whether you like it or not.”
Alarm bells are ringing inside my head. “What do you mean, man up?”
He smiles that vicious smile again. “You think I don’t know about your little affair?”
Everything goes cold inside me.
“At first, I thought you were being smart. Get into her pants, convince her to sell the store, get the fuck out, so the old bird doesn’t have a reason to hold onto the property.” He walks around my desk, stops halfway to the door. “But that’s not what happened, is it? You had to get yourself attached. To a widow. With a dumb, mute kid, no less.”
My hands fist at my sides and I hold still because if I move an inch, it will be to rain punches on my father. And I can’t protect Jillian if I’m in jail. I have no doubt my father would send me to jail if that meant getting me out of the way so he can get his hands on what he wants.
“Are you keeping tabs on me? What I do? Where I go?”
“Of course I am. Do you think I’d allow you to get away with it? To try to undermine me and all I’ve worked so hard for? My legacy for you. Not that you deserve any of it, but being that you’re my only son, what choice do I have?”
I want to tell him to take that legacy and shove it up his ass, but I know that any confrontation now will only enrage him more and he won’t take it out on me. No. He’ll go after Jillian and Mrs. Caruso. I try to calm myself down. Maybe I can still salvage this. “Father, I’d never do anything to hurt this firm. I don’t understand why getting that particular building is so important for the Sunrise project. If you’d tell me, then I could understand it and?—”
He walks to the door and stops with his hand on the handle. “You don’t have to know my reasons. I told you to get it done. And that’s the only thing you need to know.”
I take a deep breath and try again. “Help me understand.”
He pulls open the door. “I don’t care what it takes or what you have to do. You have one week. You won’t like what will happen if you don’t get me the fucking building.”