Masters of Love Engineering (Degrees of Love #2)

Chapter 1

one

LOCKE

Actions have consequences. Irrefutable knowledge taught at a young age, to counteract delinquency. I’ve never worried about those lessons. Before I understood consequences and karma, my father drilled discipline into my head.

Spine straight. Shoulders back. Chin up. Eyes avoiding him at all costs.

That last one I learned on my own.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you these last few months, but you’re pissing me off, Locke.”

The tidy, nearly untouched space of his high-rise office is familiar with this monologue and every other criticizing word he’s said to me in the last few years.

The large VK Corp logo mounted above his desk chair probably knows my face as well as I know its.

If his floor wasn’t meticulously cleaned every night by specialized staff, I’m sure there’d be prints of my heels digging into the tile.

Pushing my feet further into the ground, hoping it’ll swallow me while my father tosses unforgiving words my way.

Like usual, I’ll berate myself on the car ride home. I’ll create a bulleted list of things in my head to get back on his good side.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

Dad’s frame feels bigger than mine, despite the three inches I have on him. His green eyes have a menacing glare I hope I haven’t inherited. His presence is dark, despite the sunlight creeping through his floor to ceiling windows.

Emotionally, I want to curl into myself and move as far away from him as possible. But I’ve been taught better.

Voice stoic, I reply, “I apologize, sir.”

“Apologize?” He chuckles, laced with disbelief. “Your apologies were worth almost nothing when you charged my card with a private jet in June. Do you think they’re of any value now?”

The memories of that night linger. Dad might expect me to regret defying him, and I hope my face makes it seem like I do, but it’s the opposite. That night was the first time Grant and I truly felt like brothers.

He’s been my brother my whole life, but only by technicality. My father kept Grant’s existence under wraps for too long. Two decades of only knowing he exists through the whispered conversations my parents would occasionally have when they thought Billie and I weren’t listening.

A few years ago, after Grant’s mother passed, Dad thought it’d be appropriate to shove us into his life. It was understandably awkward. I couldn’t blame Grant for having strange, negative feelings towards the siblings our father chose to raise, while he and his mom were left in the shadows.

He pushed us away for years. I’ll never fault him for that.

It wasn’t until a few months ago, in June, that he decided to give my sister and I a place in his life. There’s so much we don’t know about each other—too much, considering we’re brothers, but we’re learning. Our lives are intertwining with one another, bit by bit.

Even if he hadn’t considered me as family until recently, I’ve always seen him as my older brother.

The cool one, who does what he wants and says what he wants because it doesn’t matter to him how much power my father holds.

Grant doesn’t care about Dad’s opinion of him.

He makes snarky comments when Dad throws him too much attitude, and is strong enough to ignore phone calls when he doesn’t feel like talking.

In a slightly embarrassing, younger brother sort of way, I idolize Grant and how strongly he sticks to who he is. Not who our father wants him to be.

I knew Dad would be fuming when I charged his card with a private jet. I knew he would scream at me over a phone call when he realized Grant and I went for a late night joy ride.

I don’t regret doing something so reckless, but I’m paying the price for it.

He keeps a sharp glare pointed at me, and I slowly speak. “No. My apologies are worthless.”

“Exactly.” He paces in front of his dark wooden desk two, three times, before pausing and placing his hands on his hips. I know the next words before he inhales to say them. “All you do is disappoint me.”

It stings. My whole life, from the first breath to this very moment, has amounted to making my father proud. I don’t know anything else. As far as I’m concerned, I’m only as valuable to him as I am dutiful. That’s my purpose—to wordlessly follow him, as his son.

When my father inevitably becomes unhappy with one of my choices, it burns to hear him scold me. I’m not perfect, but I try really hard to be.

“First, the jet in June.” Dad holds up his hand, one finger extended in a count.

“Then you disappear for a whole weekend with your sister—missing one of the company’s biggest dinners—and now your university calls to tell me you switched out of the classes I specifically chose for you.

I pulled strings so your professors would be personal friends of mine, and you ruined it.

Do you think I’m just going to let this shit slide? ”

I keep my mouth shut. Reasoning with him doesn’t work. There’s no reason to waste my breath reminding him that Billie and I were set for our vacation long before he changed the company’s dinner plans. I wouldn’t dare say I didn’t know he chose my classes because the professors were his friends.

After twenty-four years of this being my constant, I wouldn’t risk something like that.

“I’m so close to being done with you, Locke.” He waves his hands again. My face stays stoic, but the tips of my ears start to heat. “From now on, you’re walking a fucking line. Every time you mess up, I cut something off.”

I blink. The hands clasped behind my back start to sweat. It’s not new that he threatens me with money.

“Your summer of recklessness is costing you that nice apartment under my name. You want to keep messing around? You’ll pay for it.”

My instinct is to flinch. I expected him to react negatively.

My “summer of recklessness,” as he calls it, would be classified as a normal summer by a normal parent.

But it defied what his plans were and cost him more money than he thinks my happiness is worth.

A millionaire, e-commerce CEO doesn’t need to pinch pennies, but it’s not really about the money, I’ve learned.

When it comes to his threats, I know his tell. He’ll tap his foot twice before spewing some claim meant to give him the upper hand.

His foot hasn’t so much as twitched since I walked in. And when it comes to his threats towards me, and my punishments, I can’t remember him ever bluffing.

I gulp down the nerves and force out in a monotoned voice, “My apartment?”

“I’m having movers pack your things now, but once everything arrives at your new arrangements, you can deal with that hassle yourself.”

The hassle of manual labor?

If I wasn’t so terrified of random people invading my space and touching my personal belongings, I’d laugh. Dad isn’t above making that happen on purpose. I bit the inside of my cheek and hope he’s not that angry.

“Where do…” His glare is pointed, and I tense my jaw. “Where would I stay if not at my apartment? I have school, sir.”

“Do you think I’m dumb?”

Yes. I’m too terrified to say that either.

“Of course not, sir.”

“You’ll stay at the dorms, with all…” His nose scrunches. “Those people.”

I almost scrunch my nose too. It’s nauseating to think of my father and how he looks down on anyone who can’t match his tax bracket.

Sometimes I wonder what happened in his life to make him so detached with humanity. If we had a real father-son bond, maybe I would ask him.

We stand in silence while the words sink in. I don’t particularly like the thought of living in the dorms. Being in an engineering program—especially one as highly regarded as Brookstone University’s—means it’s filled with students who seem to care more about money than the craft.

Ones who read the badly written business and industry magazines that sing my father’s praises. People who would actually recognize me for being a CEO’s son, like that makes me some kind of notable figure.

My muscles tense and I hold myself back from wriggling.

Dad shouldn’t have been able to get me a dorm barely two weeks until the fall semester starts. I’m sure our last name made it happen.

Once again, I fall into being Keller McCarthy’s privileged son, and nothing else.

“You move in two days from now. If your attitude hasn’t improved by the end of the school term, and you haven’t shown me you’re serious about being my son, you can stay that way. Permanently cut off.”

Out of maybe the hundreds of times my father has punished me, permanent was never a word he used.

He’s taken away money, sent embarrassing rumors to spotty news outlets, and created a social pariah out of me at school before.

Months at a time, maybe, a punishment would last, but never a threat of forever.

His arms stay crossed while his words cut down any courage I had to talk back. The air gets sucked out of the room. I allow myself the tiny release of fidgeting with my glasses for only a second.

I glance at his foot. Still.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Locke?”

Spine straight. Shoulders back. Chin up. Forcing myself to stare back at him and pretend the anxiety in my chest won’t overwhelm me later tonight.

“Yes, sir.”

After he scolds me, again, for being so “careless” with my summer months, my father tells me to leave my VK Corp responsibilities behind and leave. In the space of my car, leather interior reminding me of our family’s financial comfort, I scold myself.

For acting out of line and not preparing for the backlash. For getting so far on his bad side, he might remove me from his life permanently. For hoping, even for a second, he’d take pity on his son.

I don’t know who I am if not Keller McCarthy’s son. The thought of having to figure that out scares me more than facing his wrath does.

By the time I reach home, the movers who shouldn’t have access to my private living space are packing up Ghost’s cat tower and toy bin. I don’t stop them in fear that word will get back to Dad.

Instead, I lean against the now bare living room wall. Ghost rubs on my ankles while we watch them together, white fur catching on my seams of my suit pants. I squat down to pet his head and silently hope another move so close to our last won’t be as stressful to him as it is to me.

Once the movers have taken everything out of my apartment—with the exception of essentials and my carefully constructed Lego sets, thankfully—I pull out my phone and beg one of my siblings to help me move.