20. Hayden
TWENTY
HAYDEN
With Doris out of the office this morning, I've been left to my own devices. Naturally, I haven't done a damn thing. At this point, Elias and his telephone meltdowns are elevator music to my ears. I hum along to its beat.
Given that it's a weekday, so we're not the only souls in the building, I'm vaguely aware of the sideward glances coming from nearby cubicles. Employees peek past my tiny desk, toward my boss's office, exchanging whispers and concerned looks.
I guess he is on a rather impressive tirade, even for his standards, but his shouts quickly fade into the back of my consciousness.
Humming again, I throw in some toe taps and the occasional head bob, then my pencil is off to the races once more. Not filling out this balance-sheet-report-thingamabob-nonsense, but shading in the torso of the man I saw on my drive over here. The reason he caught my eye, you ask? He was wearing a three-piece, solid-brown suit.
Riding a unicycle.
I've always done that, drawn things or people who catch my attention. Nothing too crazy. Just some scribbles, here and there. If nothing was of note on a given day, I'll make up scenes in my head. Anything to pass the time.
With a bored yawn, I flick my wrist, outlining the shape of his curly hair, opting for a wide, lazy shading technique. Until I'm arching my back, drawing closer and closer, detailing each individual hair, then expanding outward, utilizing more of the document's real estate, invading lines of business jargon and financial numbers and—
"You never change, do you?"
My pencil jerks, slicing clean through his suit. Annoyance ticks my jaw, as the man who's always an overcast on my sunny day rounds my desk, looming right in front of me. I crane my head back, feeling like a child, but I don't show it on my face.
I smirk instead, plastering on a mask of innocence, loving when a vein flares across his forehead. "Whatever do you mean, Father?" He may control my trust fund, but I'll be damned if I let him think his coldness has any effect on me.
"Don't play dumb with me, boy." His arms fold across his suit-clad chest. "It's just like you're still in school. Scribbling little doodles, when you should be working. No wonder you never learn anything."
He snorts, shooting Doris a smile, who stands behind him, carrying a stack of paperwork. She returns a grin, yet to my surprise, when he shifts his gaze back to me, she offers me a look that I swear carries an undertone of sympathy.
When I stare past her frame, I catch half of the room snap their attention back to their work.
I'd attribute their prying eyes to the presence of their president and CEO, but it's more than that. Warren Kingston isn't that rare of a sighting, especially on this floor. Granted, I haven't actually seen him since starting my job over a week ago, but I'm sure that's because he's just doing what he does best—avoiding the pit stain of his family.
I digress.
Spotting a CEO outside the door of his Director of Finance? Not that remarkable. But you know what is? Seeing one chastise his lousy son, while his golden child wages fiscal warfare ten paces away. The employees here, they may eagerly run in the hamster wheel of capitalism, hungry for bonuses and promotions and recognition, but they'll take any chance they can get to watch a spoiled, good-for-nothing billionaire's son rot.
It's like Thanksgiving dinner to them, and I plan on cooking their eyes one hell of a feast, as long as it'll embarrass the man who brought me into this world, then hired others to raise me.
Standing to my full height, I clear my throat. "Well, aren't you—"
"I don't have time for your excuses." He breezes past my desk, aiming for my brother's office. "You're Doris's problem now," he says, before slamming the door shut.
I blink, as an aching silence spreads throughout the room. It takes a moment, but distant chatter soon picks up, unlike Doris's pitiful expression.
Don't worry, I want to tell her as I sit back down. This isn't my first day under my brother's shadow.
Returning to her desk, she stutters, for perhaps the first time in her life. "Uh-uhm... Could you update your father's time sheet? I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on."
"Sure." I pull up the program, thankful for the distraction. Something mindless and easy. Like purposely asking a question I've already voiced—"Remind me again, why we clock their hours? My brother and father aren't paid by the hour, obviously."
Instead of shooting me her usual glare, Doris plays along. "It's just a personal record us assistants keep, to help track of our bosses' whereabouts. It makes hunting them down easier, when they go radio silent."
"Ahh," I hum, scrolling through the now-familiar program. I've been tracking Elias's hours for the past week, so finding my father's timesheet is easy as—
Wait a minute.
I blink... then blink some more... then give Doris a look, who's engrossed in her paperwork. I even refresh the page— three times— because what I'm seeing cannot be right. "Uhhhhhhh, Doris?"
"Yeah?"
"Why has my father only logged ten hours this week?"
She goes quiet for a moment.
I whip my gaze, finding her stare frozen and locked onto me, swimming with mysteries. Did something happen? Why isn't she saying anything? Cinching my brows, I look again, flicking through the prior weeks. Ten hours. Twelve hours. Nine, seventeen—even three. While my brother's working eighty , sometimes more.
He's got a pull-out sofa in there, for fuck's sake.
With each click, the answer becomes clearer and clearer, until I'm staring into Doris's mysteries once more, seeing right through to the truth.
He lets Elias do all the work.
A weight bears onto my chest, heavy and nauseating. Our father's supposed to be teaching him, working alongside him. Not using his prized pony like a sled dog. How long has this been going on? I want to ask, to pick Doris's brain until only air resides between her ears, but her lips are sealed too tight.
She may be an executive secretary to both of them, but she knows who reigns, who stuck me at this child's desk out of spite, and who it is that has the final say.
In everything.
No more than twenty minutes later, my father's tearing back Elias's office door. "Well, you'll just have to buck up and get it done," his stern voice booms. "We all make sacrifices," are his ironic words of wisdom, before he storms past my desk without a glance, aiming for the elevators.
Bursting from her chair, Doris follows his lead.
Elias sighs from deep in his office.
"What was that about?"
He walks out, stoic as ever. "Oh, nothing."
"Didn't sound like nothing."
Leaning against the doorframe, he shrugs. "That's his weekly thing. Waltzes into my office, gives me a lesson, then goes along his way."
"He's got some poor teaching skills, if you ask me."
"Meh." He waves a hand through the air. "He's just stressed, from working himself to the bone, as usual."
I freeze up, as a colossal wave of urgency washes over me. If only my brother knew he was merely describing himself, least of all our father. Perhaps Warren Kingston used to fit such a description, but that's certainly no longer the case, not after the evidence I've seen.
With a pang of sadness, I watch Elias pull out his phone, then bury his head in something that's surely work related. He needs to know. He deserves to know.
"I need to tell you something."
"Oh, yeah? What's that?" He doesn't meet my gaze, which is no surprise. Why would he? I've never said anything serious my whole life.
"I, uhh..." I loosen my collar, feeling suffocated. Come on, just spit it out. Expose our father, expose him as the asshole he's always been. "Uhm..."
But I can't.
Not when I can predict the chain of events that would follow, if I were to tell the truth. Elias would confront our father, who would easily connect the dots, straight back to me. What're the chances, Elias learns something so vital, after I've barely worked a week. It's too obvious of a coincidence.
Then he'd pull my trust fund for good.
Guilt shreds my heart in two, straight down the middle, when Elias finally lifts his head, and I stare into those glassy eyes. He's still using...
I clear my throat, using the guilt to my advantage. "I kind of... slacked off on that balance statement."
His lips thin. "Again? You've had since yesterday."
"I know. Sorry. I got... distracted with other work."
"Sure, you did." He shakes his head, pushing off the door frame. "Have it on my desk by the end of the day. Stay late, if you have to," he orders, then heads out the door, but before he passes my desk, my phone lights up, ringing loudly.
AMERICAN EXPRESS FRAUD DEPARTMENT, the caller I.D. warns in bold, which should send my heart plummeting. If it were any other day, it would. Instead, I bite back a smile.
That's my girl, I muse, before thinking better of it, my guilt long forgotten.
Elias raises an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to answer that?"
Wasn't planning on it, but then I'd have to explain why. Sighing, I pick up my phone, prompting Elias along his way.
A woman speaks from across the line. "Hello, this is the American Express Fraud Department. May I ask with whom I'm speaking?"
"Hayden Kingston."
"Mr. Kingston, we're calling about unusual spending activity on your Black Amex card." Urgency drips from her tone. Little does she know, it's just my fake girlfriend going on a mandatory spending spree. A certain hunger sparks within me as I imagine her swiping my card.
"How much?"
"Thirty thousand in the last two hours. At the department stores Gucci, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Dior."
My pulse spikes. Did she listen to a word I said? "Thank you. That's just my girlfriend. Please, reinstate the card," I say, before hanging up the phone and immediately dialing Juliana. Her sweet voice answers on the second ring.
"Hey, sorry, they said the card declined. I think I went overboar—"
"Are you shopping in the clearance sections? You should've spent one-hundred thousand by now, at least."
The line goes silent for several heartbeats. "What did you just say? I think I heard you wrong."
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "One. Hundred. Thousand, Juliana. Six digits, you should be there by now. What, did you decide to swing by the price club? You're not leaving Fifth Avenue until you've hit three hundred thousand."
"Three hundred— what? That's insane. I can't—"
"Yes, you can. And you will." Possession crackles along my skin, bordering dangerously close to anger, when memories of her old apartment flash across my vision. "Every rack in that closet better be full, or I'm sending you back tomorrow."
"Have you completely lost your mind?" Yes, what of it? "We've got more bags than we can carry."
"What store are you at?"
"Uhhh... Louuu... Louuuie Voten..." she tries again, spreading a smile across my lips so wide my cheeks hurt. "Louis Vuitton." There you go, baby. "Why do you ask?"
I put her on speaker and zoom through my contacts. "Because I'm sending more personal shoppers. They'll carry your bags and bring them to the house for you."
More silence.
"Got that?"
"Yes," she whispers through the line, emotions caught in her throat.
"Oh, and Juliana?"
"Yeah?"
My gaze lands on my brother's office door. "Buy something business-y while you're at it."