40. Jenna
JENNA
“Do you think hair up or down?” I ask Hannah nervously in the women’s bathroom before I leave.
“You need a haircut, so definitely up.”
“Maybe I should have sprung for a blowout.”
Hannah makes a face at me in the mirror. “You remember your high school graduation?” she asks delicately as she twists my hair up on top of my head.
“Yeah?” I’m trying not to sound defensive, because I’m not, you know. “Dad was busy. He had a work trip. ”
“Sure, sure. Just… you bought that new dress, and we went to the mall so you could have your makeup done, and he ghosted you.”
“This is different. I asked him to the graduation, but he asked me over for dinner. To his house. His home, where his family lives.”
I add more mascara on my lower eyelashes. “He wants me. Me!”
My dad’s house is huge for Seattle.
It’s a contemporary home with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and tiered levels that spill out onto roof-deck terraces. There’s a little penthouse at the top that looks like the perfect place for a cozy bedroom or office.
Maybe he’ll want me to move in.
Maybe he’ll want me to go on vacation with them. I don’t even mind being the free babysitter as long as it’s a way to get to know them, to be in my siblings’ lives.
I’m jittery as I ring the doorbell. The chime echoes through the house.
I have presents for the kids in my bag along with chocolates and a bottle of wine. It’s not as nice as the wine at McCarthy’s penthouse, but I hope it’s good enough.
Screw him.
What does he know about my father? He hates his dad. Not everyone has to hate their parents.
I’ve held my dad on a pedestal since forever. He’s the exact opposite of my mom—steady, gainfully employed, has a real house instead of an unconditioned cabin. He goes out to eat at nice restaurants. He plays golf. He wears nice things. He drives a BMW .
He’s a lesser version of McCarthy.
We’re not playing daddy-issues bingo tonight. Besides, Dad has brown hair. So suck it.
“Hi, Dad!” I gush when the oversized redwood door swings open.
My dad seems a little taken aback. “Oh, uh, right.” He rubs the back of his head. “Hi, Jenna.”
“I’m so glad to see you!” I give a little scream. “Ahh! This is crazy, right? It’s been way too long.” I’m bubbly and high-energy and happy.
“Yeah, crazy, right? So long.” He pats my arm awkwardly when I throw my arms around him and hug him.
I even left Truman at McCarthy’s so he wouldn’t be a distraction and my dad and I could focus on rekindling our relationship.
“Wow, your home is amazing! Do you want me to take off my shoes? I’ll just take them off anyway. These look like vintage Persian carpets. Oh, I brought wine, yay! And chocolate.” I hand them to him.
“Also toys for the kids…” I look around, expecting to hear happy-children sounds.
My dad clears his throat. “They’re actually in Vancouver, visiting my wife’s family for the week.”
“Just us, then.” I keep my smile broad and beaming.
“You can give them their presents when they get back. We could FaceTime when they open them, or I can come back over. I mean, it’s not super far from my office.
Why don’t we have a drink on the porch before dinner?
I brought wine. Not sure what you were planning for dinner, so I’m not sure if it will go with the meal. ”
“I really just wanted to have a drink with you. I actually have dinner plans… ”
There’s an awkward pause. Then I say, “Drinks are good! Baby steps. We’ll proceed at your pace.”
My dad grabs two glasses as he leads me to the porch. He snorts when he reads the label of the wine I brought.
I kick myself for not just going ahead and stealing a bottle from McCarthy when I had the chance.
“Interesting choice,” my dad comments, sitting at the small table across from me.
“Cheers!” I say too brightly, hoisting my glass. This wine is so not as good as McCarthy’s.
“Yes, well.” More throat clearing. “You’re probably wondering why I’ve been trying to get in contact with you.”
“I hope it’s not because you wanted to walk me down the aisle.” I wave my unadorned ring finger at him. “Engagement got called off. It’s a real doozy of a story. So my ex—”
My dad holds up a hand to interrupt me. “No, I actually didn’t know you were engaged.” He winces.
“It was on my Instagram. Do you follow me? I’m @JennaLovesPups. I assumed that was why you wanted to get in touch?”
“Actually, I saw you at the Evergreen Trust Charity Foundation ball, but you disappeared before I could get a chance to talk to you. I heard that Prism PR is representing McCarthy Svensson’s account.”
My stomach sinks.
We don’t know that’s why he wanted to see you. We just don’t know.
“I don’t know if you’ve been on my LinkedIn,” he says as I suck down my wine to keep from sobbing.
“But I work at the HopeWorks Foundation. I like to explain to people that it’s a clearinghouse of sorts for charity dollars.
You know, if you don’t want the liability of your client’s company donating to an organization that in five years might have a less savory reputation.
We don’t like to think it happens, but these small charities are so poorly run.
I heard that you were looking for potential nonprofits to partner with on McCarthy’s behalf? ”
I try to steer my brain away from the Gilmore Girls -style reunion with my dad and back into business mode.
“The HopeWorks Foundation? Isn’t that where Joseph works? The one McCarthy threw in the fountain? He hates McCarthy. He’s not going to approve that partnership.”
My dad just laughs—not a real laugh but that fake, corporate finance-bro laugh. Nathan’s laugh. “Joseph is the director of the media arm. They handle the podcasts and documentaries and whatnot. I’m on the financial side. We’re less emotional about these things.” He sets down his glass.
“Who makes the final approval on the financial charity contributions, by the way? I’m happy to schedule a meeting with the appropriate person. I think that you’ll find there’s a lot of synergy between our two organizations.”
“I’ll, uh, talk to the client.” My voice sounds faint. I feel like I’m going to pass out.
I look out over the evergreen trees rolling down the steep hill dotted with fancy houses. “I’ve always wanted to live in a place like this,” I say. “It’s beautiful here.”
“It’s a nice neighborhood.” My dad is impatient. “So, you’ll work to get a meeting on the schedule?”
I nod numbly.
“Fantastic.” My dad beams at me and shakes my hand. “I’m glad we got a chance to reconnect.”
It’s dark and drizzling when I step out onto the pavement .
I tried to keep a conversation going with my dad for as long as possible. I felt like I owed my younger self, but it was so painfully obvious that he was trying to hurry me out of the house.
Now here I stand, shivering, a few doors down, near a manicured rose bush. The rain drips on my hair then down my forehead and into my eyes as I wait at the bus stop.
I give in and sit on the waterlogged bus bench. What does it matter now?
“Jenna.”
“God, no.”
“Jenna, what is it? What happened?”
McCarthy’s in a dark raincoat, and the cold drops of water pelting me stop as he holds an oversize black umbrella over us.
I ignore him.
He grabs my shoulder. “Talk to me, Cupcake.”
“I don’t feel like seeing you gloat,” I say to his shoes.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” he asks quietly.
He doesn’t sound mean. I almost want him to be mean so I can have an outlet for my anger and heartbreak.
“It’s not fair.” I grab my middle, doubling over.
McCarthy gathers me to him. “I’ll fuck him up, Cupcake.”
I let out another guttural sob.
“No? Fine. I’ll pay him to be nice to you. How about that?”
I’m full-on sobbing against McCarthy’s chest. “Stop trying to fix this. You can’t fix it.
All the money in the world won’t make him stop wishing I’d never been born.
I thought I was over this.” I grab the wet lapels of his overcoat.
“Why doesn’t anyone love me? It’s not fair.
None of them—none of the men who proposed marriage, none of the stepfathers— shoot, one of them wanted to date me.
And my own dad just wants to use me. I’m so stupid!
” I cry. “Gosh, why are you even here? You don’t care. ” I swipe at my face.
“I care.” He tips my face up, turning me toward him like a flower to the moon. “I’ll burn down the whole fucking city for you then buy you one of those disgusting muffins. I care about you very much, Jenna.”
“No, you don’t,” I sob.
He kisses me. His mouth is warm. “I do.” He licks his tongue into my mouth, kisses me there on the bus-stop bench, like we’re in a romance movie—except it’s freezing fucking cold and I drank too much cheap wine.
“Why is it always raining?” I fish a wet tissue out of my bag. “You better not have driven over here.”
“I figured you wouldn’t want an audience for this, so I sent the driver to do a loop.”
“That’s charitable of you.”
“Following the ten-step plan.” He wraps an arm around my waist. “Can I take you home, Jenna?”
When I’m done with my hot bath, complete with actual expensive wine and pizza, McCarthy tucks me into bed and curls up next to me.
He takes my hand and kisses it softly as he looks up at me from where his head is cradled on my chest.
“My mom never wanted me, either,” he says, almost exhaling the words.
“She hated that I looked like my father, said I was annoying and needy. Clingy. Salinger would always keep me away from her because she’d hit me with a wooden spoon.
So I know how you feel.” He cranes his neck to kiss my collarbone.
“Maybe one day, we’ll have a baby, and they’ll have a mother who loves them and a dad who never leaves. ”
“Why are you talking about babies?” I whisper.
He kisses me. “My brother has a baby, and it’s a trip. She’s so cute—looks just like him and his wife.”
He glances up at me again, gray eyes soft.
“You need to get out of Seattle. We can go anywhere you want. We can go to my island in the Pacific. There are World War II ruins. Or my chateaux in the Alps. We can go to the East Coast but not New York because I don’t want to subject you to my family.
” He turns slightly. More of the length of his body presses against mine.
“Come to think of it, Boston’s out too.”
“Let’s just watch a movie.”
“Home theater it is. I never use it, so I might have to call my brother to tell me how it works.”
“Laptop.” I run my foot against his calf.
“Are you serious?”
“The older I get, the more I just want to be comfy.” I burrow into the nest of blankets he’s wrapped me in.
Sighing like I just asked him to go unclog a drainpipe or something, McCarthy grabs my computer and props it up at the end of the bed.
I snuggle back into him when he lies in bed next to me. “This is comfy.”
“This is insane. What are they doing?” McCarthy’s lip curls when I start the YouTube video. “This isn’t a movie.”
“Bold of you to assume I have the attention span for a feature film at this point in my life. They try new things from Trader Joe’s and rank them.”
“How is this better than my house in the Alps?”
“The only thing I like about skiing is the food at the end, and I can do that from the comfort of my own home. ”
“I am going to take you to my island because I want to see you in a bikini the color of the water and fuck you on the beach.”
“All that blond hair—you’ll get a sunburn.” I tease him.
On the screen, the girls are making faces as they try the calamari spice popcorn.
“Yeah, I’m done with this shit.” McCarthy closes the laptop and tosses it to the bench that’s at the foot of the bed because his bedroom is big and fancy enough that he can have a whole living room suite in here.
He straddles me, the weight of him dipping the mattress ever so slightly.
Kissing me softly, he licks his way into my mouth, slowly savoring the taste of me.
The belt of the fuzzy robe yields easily for him, then there’s the whisper of his fingers over my skin, the faint crinkle of a condom wrapper, then he’s easing into me.
I sigh against his mouth as he makes love to me, my legs wrapped around his waist as he tells me how beautiful I am, how much he adores me, how I’m his.
I come with him sucking on my tits, then he finishes in me, rocking into me excruciatingly slowly until I’m coming again as he shudders into me.
Blinking, I look over at him as he gathers me into his arms.
“Just tell me. I know you want to say it,” he whispers.
I cross my arms.
“Tell me you love me.” He trails his tongue along the swell of my breast, cresting the nipple. “I want to hear you tell me you love me when you come.”
“Now who has mommy issues? ”
“Just because I like to suck on your tits doesn’t mean I have mommy issues.”
Saying you love a guy who treats you like shit and who you just met definitely screams daddy issues.
His knee is forcing my legs apart.
I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
He’s rolling on another condom.
“You’re in love with me. Just say it.”
My fingers tangle in his hair as he eases into me.
“I came in you a few times. That makes you mine, right?”
My breath hitches in time as he fucks me into the mattress, my legs wrapped around his waist. I need him deep in me, to fill the ache inside.
“I own you.” His teeth scrape my neck. “Say it. I like knowing that your whole universe revolves around me.”
“You’re a fucking bastard,” I gasp out as I come around him.
“Evil.” He kisses me. “Sociopath.” He bites me, then his cock is surging in me, and he comes with a curse. “And you can’t imagine your life without me.”
When he’s cradling me in his arms afterward, gently stroking my hair, I hate myself for thinking I see the love reflected back in his eyes.
“Tell me, Jenna.”
“I love you,” I whisper, tears leaking down my face.
I hold my breath as he looks at me in awe.
“I want to marry you,” he mouths then kisses me gently.
I always fall in love too fast. And this? This is way too fast. But it’s too late.
“Be mine,” he whispers.
And that’s it. I’m crying, because I’m just a stupid child who’s falling in love with her stupid client.