Chapter 4
Ivy
“Is this the end?” Sonya confronts me the minute I enter my office. Her chef’s jacket is powdered with flour and spotted with chocolate. Her face is marred with worry. She’s always looked ten years younger even though she’s done no cosmetic enhancements, but now, all of her forty-five years are printed on her face. I can even spot a couple of gray hairs in her jet-black hair. “Should I pack it in?”
I shake my head.
“And the others? You know I’ve never fired anyone who’s done nothing wrong. I don’t think I could do it.” She held her arms akimbo. “I might have to—I might have to leave the job to you. Since you’re the boss and all.”
I place my bag on the table, take out the laptop and boot it up. I smile at her. While I want to put her out of her misery, it’s amusing to watch someone as composed as Sonya fret. My pink and white tiny office feels even smaller with both of us in it, but it doesn’t have the claustrophobic air it usually does.
“I’m not firing anyone.”
She pauses. “I—I can’t do it.”
“For someone who runs a tight ship, it’s funny that you have an issue laying off people.”
“The investor rejected the business proposal, didn’t he? Fuck.” She spits out. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I chuckle.
She frowns. “What’s that face? Why are you smiling?”
“He… accepted my offer and—” Sonya jumps, squeals like a girl, and hugs me. “So no layoffs,” she says after she lets go of me.
I shake my head. She makes an exaggerated wipe of the brow and exhales. Sonya doesn’t know the truth of how I will get the money and I want to keep it that way. All she knows is that I was looking for investors, which is true, and I found one. She doesn’t even know that I come from a rich family. I feel guilty for not telling her about my family, especially now that we’re no longer simply employer and employee but friends.
“I can’t wait to tell the kitchen. Everyone was on edge the whole week. So how did you do it? Will the new investor come to see this place? What can we expect? Who is he?”
“Uh, Damien Sinclair.” I blurt out his name because I couldn’t think of a fake one fast enough, and I cringe inwardly, hoping she will not recognize the name. Sonya’s wide eyes disabuse me of that notion fast enough.
“The Damien Sinclair? How did you manage to get a big shark like that interested in our little place?”
“He said he comes here from time to time, but usually sends his staff to order for him. You know how these billionaires are. They rarely buy anything on their own.” I look away from her and fiddle with my computer so she won’t detect the lie. “As for seeing the place, I doubt he’ll visit. He said he’s already seen it and knows that the food is good.” Even though, technically, Damien wasn’t the investor, the thought of him coming to my bakery fills me with dread and simultaneously makes me laugh.
Sonya nods and flashes a smile. “Well, thank Damien Sinclair for me. As for Mr. Real Estate. Tell him to shove it up his ass.” She leaves me in the office and her last statement reminds me to deal with the gnat that has got me into this situation to begin with.
Roddy, the owner of the four buildings on this block, wants to sell to a real estate developer unless we can afford to buy the places ourselves outright. The other three stores were able to either come up with their own funds and buy Roddy out or move to some place else. I can’t find another place as good as this one. There’s a good market for the kinds of pastry we sell and there’s a lot of space which is hard to find in New York. And besides, I’ve become familiar with a lot of our customers and it would suck if we were to change location.
It takes a couple of rings for Roddy to answer the phone. “Have you come to your senses?” I roll my eyes. Not even a hello. “Hi Roddy. I was just calling to ask how I should pay you.” He chuckles. I hear a stream of water echoing in the background and a swinging of the door. Even his voice echoes. Oh god, is he in a bathroom? My suspicions are immediately confirmed when I hear tap water rushing. Was he peeing? A point for washing his hands, I guess.
“Are you saying you’ve come up with the money? Remember, I said I want it all at once, not in tiny piecemeal installments.”
“And I’m calling to inquire if I should send the money to your regular bank account or if you have another account you prefer.”
“You have the money?” I want to laugh when I hear the surprise in his voice. Like Sonya, Roddy doesn’t know my background and thinks I’m a struggling bakery owner. Which, that part is true, but I wonder if he would have the same note of disbelief in his voice if he knew I was from that Hawthorne family.
“Yes. All of it.”
He snickers. “All? Who’s dick did you suck to get that kind of cash?”
I grab a pencil on my desk and squeeze it so I don’t scream at him. “No dick-sucking was involved. Just handholding and meetings in conference rooms.” My mind flashes back to three days ago when Damien and I got married and the subsequent days spent transferring the shares from the trust and exchanging the money to my bank account. After our disastrous night in the honeymoon suite, Damien left the business dealings to Terry and his accountants. I was thankful for that. I don’t think I could do normal business stuff with him after slapping his face.
“So,” I say, bringing myself to the present, “Where should I send it?”
He grunts. “The price has gone up.”
I squeeze the pencil to the point of breaking. “Since when? The price has been stable for months.”
“Property values are going up, sweetheart. I don’t know what to tell you.”
I roll my eyes again. If I could punch Roddy, I would. Yes, property values have gone up, but I’m sure he’s saying this because he hates that I’ve gotten one over him. He has been taunting me for months that he’s going to sell the property and that it’s “Prime Real Estate.” That’s how he got the Mr. Real Estate nickname from Sonya. He just wouldn’t shut up about it. But I know the real reason he was taunting me. His eyes said it all every time he came to Antoinette’s. He hoped I would suck his dick. Sometimes I wonder if he’s threatening to sell not because he found a buyer, but because he wants me. Then I remember something. I loosen my grip on the pencil and start twirling it in my fingers.
“Hey, didn’t we sign a first deal with you? Remember when you said you were willing to sell the property at the agreed-upon price?
“It’s a non-binding contract, honey. I don’t know where you went to school—”
“Yale.”
“What?”
“Yale. I went to Yale.”
He stumbles over his words. “Yale? What did you do there? A two-week course in how to manage a startup.” He laughs at his own joke.
“A college degree in business administration, actually. And you would have seen every time you came to my office if you looked anywhere that was not my boobs.”
The other end goes silent and if he didn’t clear his throat, I might have thought he hung up. I love putting him in his place. “Roddy. I read over that contract and it is binding. You better start transferring the deed to my name once I send the full payment to your regular account.”
I end the call, feeling triumphant. I get up from my chair and go to the front of the store to help serve customers. Since it is early morning, there’s a small queue. The business-dressed New Yorkers in the bakery look out of place in the rococo-style shop, but lately, they have been the bulk of our customers and usually place bulk orders. A few are here to pick up orders and I serve those while Zack, my youngest employee, a tattooed bodybuilder, serves the single orders. From the way most of the women ogle at his tight shirt under the pink apron, he’s the reason we have an uptick in women and gay men coming in.
My mind goes to another muscled individual I was with last week. My husband. I shouldn’t have slapped him. Or at least I should have said sorry after. Instead, I stormed out of the suite and went back to my own. We returned to New York the morning after. And the trip back was uncomfortably silent. Damien ignored me the entire trip, and I was beginning to doubt my choice of husband. Not that I had much of a choice. The only other person I approached with the deal had been apprehensive about going against my brother and my family through such a stealth maneuver. Damien is the only one salivating idea and wouldn’t let everyone know I had transferred my shares to him.
I still wonder if what I did is right. I have betrayed my family. I’ve gotten into bed with the enemy. Figuratively speaking. But I saved my business. Twenty people’s livelihoods were on the line and now they no longer have to look for another job elsewhere. And now that I am very rich, I make a mental note to give them all raises. Sonya especially deserved it for her wonderful recipes.
And then there’s Lake. I saved him too. He was happy to see me when he returned from spending a few days with my mother, and luckily, I was back from Vegas before he came back.
I finish the bulk orders and the mass of people dwindles to a trickle as the rush hour passes. As I return to my office, I hear my phone ringing and groan when I see the name flashing on the screen.
“Hi Mom,” I say. My cheerful mood is suddenly clouded in darkness. She’s the last person I want to talk to. My heart hammers against my chest as I wonder why she could be calling. She can’t have known about the marriage yet. Or maybe the trustee told her. Damien paid him for his silence, but who’s to say if he thought going to my mother was the safer option for him?
“So you do answer your phone.”
“I was serving customers. What do you want?”
She sighs and I hear clapping in the background. She’s probably at the country club watching some golf or polo event. “Do you have any idea who I’ve just spoken to?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Remember Preston? He’s just coming out of a recent divorce and he says he’s willing to meet you for lunch whenever you’re free.”
It’s funny how my mother acts as though we’re on good speaking terms, even though every time we talk we always end up arguing. But obliviousness is her strong suit. “And why would I want to marry a fifty-year-old four-time divorcee mother?”
“And how long will continue this stupid, rebellious phase of yours, honey? Preston is a friend of the family and I am sure he’s willing to help your situation. I’m sure he will give you full control of your stake.”
I scoff. By situation, she means the trust fund she and dad tied up so I would remain under their thumb. But if she’s coming to me now it must mean, “Nolan iced you out, didn’t he? Is that why you’re calling?”
“Ugh, please. Your brother and I are having a minor disagreement, that’s all. He thinks an investment in a group of islands in the Bahamas is a harebrained scheme. Can you imagine he called it that? An investment that a former president is part of, mind you.”
So he cut her off. My mother tends to buy expensive things and fall for all sorts of schemes from con artists. She once gave a few million dollars to a sheik who promised her an investment in a Middle Eastern oil field. The sheik turned out to be fake and the oil field non-existent. Dad almost divorced her a second time because of it.
“Why don’t you ask my other brothers? I’m sure they’ll help you out,” I say, knowing it won’t be the case. Carey downright hates my mother for cheating and basically home-wrecking his mother’s relationship with Dad. Ty, Levi and Seb would do whatever Nolan says in any situation and consult him first. And my youngest brother, Raine, is basically a black sheep off to God knows where, in Europe. Last I checked, he’s funding a race car business. Funding or managing, I can’t be sure.
“Ty and Levi aren’t returning my calls and Seb got poisoned by Nolan.” There’s relief in knowing she’s not aware of the marriage or the deal.
“I don’t think I can help you there, mom. And even if I could, I wouldn’t give you money to throw away at an obvious scam.”
“It’s not a scam! I thought you would understand. How else do you want your mother to live if she can’t have any money?”
“Nolan, cut you off completely?”
“I can only get twenty thousand a month. Can you believe it?” I almost laugh. Of course, my mother would think twenty thousand dollars is a small amount to live on. She probably thinks that’s what paycheck to paycheck means.
“Marry Preston yourself, if you’re so strapped for cash.” I hear clapping in the background, making it sound like the crowd agrees.
“Preston likes younger women, which is why he would be perfect for him. He would love bragging to his geriatric friends that he could bag young blood.”
“Funny. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
She sighs. “Oh honey. You know, I was doing what was best for you.”
Suddenly, anger takes hold of me. How dare she say she was helping me when what she was trying to do was keep me shackled to her and to the family? What hurts is that she wasn’t even doing it for my protection, but because she wanted to ensure, she would always have access to money. At the end of the day, I still left and didn’t matter to my mother that her only daughter cut herself off from the family.
“Thanks for calling Mom, but I’ve got some customers to attend to.”
“But—”
“They’re at the door.” I am in the back office. “Bye.”
I end the call and turn my attention back to work. But I can’t. Before I can do anything, I get a message on my phone. It’s from Roddy. What does he want? Maybe he’s sent bank details? I open the message. It’s not bank details. It’s a link to an article. Below it, Roddy writes, “So you did suck his dick.”
My finger shakes as I open the article. It’s a gossip blog that focuses on the New York social scene. The same blog that reported on us last time. The headline screams,
“Video: The Devil elops with a Hawthorne Princess.”
I scream an inaudible fuck as I scroll down. I click the video. Caught in 4k are me and Damien in wedding clothes kissing against the door of the honeymoon suite.