Chapter 16
Ivy
After Nolan visited Damien’s place, whatever truce Damien and I forged in Paris was gone. Damien and I barely spoke to each other as he prepared for the takeover of Hawthorne Inc. And now that the takeover is in the news and my role in it, that doesn’t make things any easier. People from my long-ago are calling me out of the blue, curiously enquiring while pretending to catch up. My only escape is Antoinette’s and Lake. I have taken to bringing him along to work, to the delight of everyone. Sonya especially enjoys spending time with him and teaching an eager Lake her recipes. ‘Sous Chef Lake,’ she called him.
Lake’s with her now as they make the afternoon batch of croissants together. It’s Sonya’s secret recipe she never shares with anyone so prefers to make them herself. Well, a secret to everyone but Lake. Two trays are already out of the oven and cooling on a rack when I return to the kitchen two hours later. Everyone is busy doing prep at their stations and few notice my entrance. Sonya and Lake have their backs to me and Lake is standing on top of a stool so he can reach the counter. Unable to resist, I pick one pastry and take a bite. The croissant melts into my mouth as I chew. It’s a heavenly blend of bread, cinnamon, and sugar that hits the right spot. No wonder she got a Michelin star. “These are coming out okay,” I say. The sound of knives hitting boards and the clanking of pots and pans drowns my voice but, Sonya and Lake both turn and smile and go back to shaping dough.
Lake looks disappointed with my review. He shakes his head from atop his stool. “Understatement of the century.”
I chuckle. “Oh no. I thought you were teaching my child cooking. Now he talks like you.”
Sonya lightly bumps against Lake’s side. “Tell her that we like to tell it like it is.”
Lake shrugs as he presses a piece of dough under a rolling pin. “We like to tell it like it is.”
I raise my hands in mock surrender. “Hey. I want no fight. I like them.”
Lake shakes his head again. I turn to Sonya. “Will you be done by one?” I ask Sonya. “I need to take Lake back h…” I almost say home before stopping myself. Damien’s place never was or will be my home.
Lake looks at me with pleading eyes. “I can stay here. I won’t be a problem.”
Although I want him to, I won't give Damien an excuse to call me a negligent mother just because I let Lake stay at my place of work without me present. “I know, but I won’t be able to pick you up when the shop closes.”
“Sonya can take me home.” Home Lake called Damien’s place home. He looks up at Sonya with the same begging eyes. She casts a weary glance at me and sees my worry. “Is the vote today?” she asks. I nod. She smiles at Lake. “I’m going on a date tonight hon, so I have to get off early, Sous Chef.” Lake’s shoulders deflate. Sonya brushes away the flour on Lake’s cheek. “You can take these back home.” She puts three croissants into a paper wrap. “You made them after all.”
Lake’s eyes widen. “Thank you!”
“Now go wash your face in the bathroom before we go,” I say. He nods enthusiastically and rushes out of the kitchen. Sonya drops the dough she was holding and brushes her hands on her apron. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You know what I am referring to.”
“And I said, everything is fine.”
She bends her head to the side. “Come on. You’ve moved in with your baby daddy, who’s currently trying to take over your family business and you’re looking for a family lawyer. That’s not how I would define fine. “
I look around the kitchen, but everyone is busy working. “I never said he’s Lake’s father.”
“Lake said Damien Sinclair is his father without saying a word. That face alone is a self-report. So, is he suing you or what?”
“No. Not yet, at least. I don’t know. It’s all… complicated. I just want to be prepared when shit hits the fan.”
“You know,” Sonya looks around, leans in, and whispers, “You can always come to me if you need help. It sounds moot saying that to an heiress, but I know a couple of busboys who can beat up a man without it leading back to you.”
I think of the bodyguards Damien has around him sometimes. They look like they did dark Black Ops shit in the Middle East. I doubt anyone Sonya knows could harm a single hair on Damien’s head. “Thanks. I will keep your number.”
She pats my shoulder, and as I leave the kitchen, my phone rings. I ignore it when I see the strange and foreign number. Probably some scam caller. That same number texts me. “It’s Raine.” Shit. So the news has reached Europe. He calls again. “You never call and when you do it’s today?” I say as soon as I answer.
Raine chuckles. “Not even a hello brother. How are you? How is Barcelona?”
“Last time we spoke, you were in Amsterdam.”I can hear race cars whizzing in the background.
“Amsterdam? Damn, that was a while ago. Anyway, I’m being pestered by Nolan’s people on one end and your husband’s people on the other end. They both want me to vote in their direction at the emergency meeting.”
My heart beats a little faster. “And which way are you going to vote?”
I don’t need to see him to know that he is smirking. “I called to ask you.”
“Me?”
He sighs. “I don’t know what’s happening over there, but all I know is that whenever Damien is involved, it has something to do with you.”
I shake my head. Raine was young when the event happened. He was in high school, so whatever he thinks he knows about me and Damien; I am sure he’s wrong. “Damien has his own mind, and he’s doing this to piss off Nolan. It’s got nothing to do with me.” I am just a tool he is using.
“Uh, huh? Sure sis. About that meeting, though. I won’t be able to make it. In-person or otherwise.”
“What are you saying? You’re going to forfeit your vote?”
“Hell no. That wouldn’t be fun. I have something else in mind.”
Raine and I speak for a few more minutes. He asks after Lake and I ask about his race car business. It sounds like it’s successful and by the time I end the call; I am at the door of my office. Lake is sitting in my chair, pastries in his lap, waiting for me when I enter. He swivels the chair to face me. “Are we going now?”
“I thought you didn’t want to leave.”
“I want to give Uncle Da—Dad this,” he lifts the pastries, “at his office.”
“We’re not going to his office now. And besides, he is probably busy.”
“No, he’s not. He said he’s free.”
I almost want to smile, wondering if he’s basing this on some conversation they had this morning or last night. “When did he tell you this?”
“Right now,” Lake says nonchalantly.
“How?” I cross my arms
“On the phone.” He points at the landline on my desk. My office phone. Fuck.
“Uh,” I cross my arms. “How did you do that?”
“Uncle Damien said I can call him anytime I want. He even made me memorize his number. It’s…” he rattles a string of numbers that vaguely sound like the number I’ve seen on my phone calling me.
I take out my phone and dial him, ignoring the niggling fact that the number on the screen looks similar to the one Lake just gave me. Damien answers after the second ring. “Did Lake just call you?”
“Good afternoon to you, too.”
“Did he?”
“You were right about our son. He is compassionate. He wants to come over and bring me some pastries that he made.” I try not to dwell on the way my heart skips when he says ‘our son.’ He wants full custody. He thinks you’re the devil’s mistress. I glance at Lake, who’s looking at me expectantly. I leave the office and enter the passage. “Aren’t you busy haranguing people to join you in your takeover bid for my family’s company?”
“I already have enough votes.
I inhale sharply.
“Oh, come on, don’t act so surprised. You knew this was coming. But I’d rather talk about Lake. He can come over if he wants. I’m dying to taste the donuts.”
“Croissants. And I don’t think you can. Your office is a bit far if we walk. We won’t make it in time.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I sent my driver to pick you up.” He ends the call without waiting for my response. Great. Fantastic. Being around Damien at his home is one thing. Being around him in his domain is another.
The driver he mentions arrives sooner than I expected. He whisks us to Damien’s offices in record time and sooner than I want; I am holding Lake’s hand in an elevator while Lake holds a box of pastries in the other. The elevator doors open and even though the offices differ from eight years ago, memories flood in. I can still remember the smug look on Damien’s assistant as she told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. I brush away the thought and squeeze Lake’s hand.
These offices are bigger and buzzing with more people. The C-suite has a sterile white and black aesthetic to it that is reminiscent of how his company works. Brutal capitalists who wipe other companies clean of incompetence and then resell them at a higher value. Destroying whatever creativity was there along the way. People like to call him the devil of Wall Street, but war general would be more precise. And now he’s at the gates of my family’s company, waiting to conquer.
The C-suite receptionist is kind to us as she sees us enter. She doesn’t even ask who we are and immediately recognizes me as soon as I approach her desk. Seems like she has been keeping abreast of the Hawthorne-Sinclair family drama. We follow her as she leads us down a block of glass offices and right to the end, where a two-door office is situated. I don’t need anyone to tell me it’s Damien’s office. Nicole is sitting right outside. She’s typing away at her laptop. She lifts her gaze from the screen and frowns, her eyes narrowing when she sees us.
“Mr. Sinclair has a couple of guests,” the receptionist says meaningfully to Nicole.
“He’s aware. He’s in a meeting.” Nicole’s tone is curt and dismissive. “Like I told you when you called,” she adds. The receptionist looks at me and at Nicole and then back at me as if to say, this is not how I expected it to go, but this situation is above my pay grade. I smile at her. “It’s okay. We can wait.” The receptionist returns my smile with a weary one of her own and leaves.
Lake and I take a seat on the couch of the semi-lobby we’re in and wait. And wait. Lake is quickly getting impatient and is now swinging his legs against the couch to keep himself company. Meanwhile, I’m slowly getting angry that Damien is keeping us waiting and wonder if this is one of his ways of playing with me when my phone chimes. It’s a text from Damien. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Outside of your office.” I send the reply. Seconds later, one of the double doors swings open and Damien comes out. He sees us waiting for him and turns to Nicole. “Didn’t I tell you to send them in as soon as they arrived?” I can hear the barely concealed irritation in his voice. It doesn’t seem fake at all. Maybe he didn’t know. I turn to Nicole with a fresh perspective. She couldn’t have been blocking us from him, could she? “You said you were on a call and not to be disturbed.”
“A call that ended twenty minutes ago.”
“Sorry.”
Damien shakes his head and turns to us. Specifically Lake. “I hear someone has a gift for me.”
Lake brightens and jumps up, pastry box in hand. “I brought you some croisandis!” He rushes over to Damien and presents them to him. “I baked them myself. Sonya helped.”
Damien brushes Lake’s head and leads him into his office. I follow the two, content for them to have their father-son moment. Damien’s office is spacious and just the kind of place that fits his style. It’s modern and chic with a giant glass table, navy blue leather chairs, and blue sofas in the corner. It also has a classic office touch with wood panels and an oak bookshelf. I gravitate towards the bookshelf while Lake and Damien occupy themselves with the croissants.
Curious to see what he occupies his mind with, I browse the books. The middle row is filled with business and financial-related books. Color me surprised. I move to the next row, where there are interesting-looking fiction books. Damien is a prodigious reader. He always had a book in his hands whenever I would visit Nolan at the apartment they shared in college. I even tried to read a fantasy series he was reading to try to make myself interesting, but he clocked my disingenuousness immediately and I never finished the long-winded story. There are a few fantasy books here, as well as some literary fiction.
Something else catches my eye, however, as I scroll through the shelves. A familiar book. My heart hammers against my chest as I wonder if I am seeing double. It can’t be. I pick up the book. It is. My hands tremble as I hold it in my hand. I gave it to him as a gift on his twenty-sixth birthday. I was eighteen back then and my allowance was increased considerably, so I used some of that money to buy a first edition of his favorite book. Or at least one I had seen him reading time and time again. Nolan and I threw a birthday party for him, and I used it as an excuse to give him the present. He had been surprised to receive it but said little about it. He merely thanked, browsed through the pages, and put it aside. I was so disappointed back then that he had what, at best, could be described as a casual reaction. Later, to pierce further into my lovesick heart, I heard him talk to a girl he was with what I gave him. “A book first edition,” he had said.
“Wow,” the girl replied, “sounds expensive.”
“She’s an heiress who can afford it. I doubt she felt a dent when she bought it.”
Something fell out of the book, bringing me to the present. A bookmark. I scoop the white card from the floor and as I am about to put it back into the book when I flip it over. It’s not a bookmark. It’s another gift I gave him. The next year, we went to an amusement park. Nolan, Damien, and I. It was his birthday again, and I asked him out to the circus. I was asking him on a date without making it obvious, and when he asked if he could bring Nolan along; I didn’t have the confidence to tell him the truth. At some point, Nolan got separated from us and we went to a photo booth and took a lot of pictures. One of those photo booth prints is the one I am holding. I am gazing into his eyes the entire time. Anyone who sees this can tell I was hopelessly in love with him.
“What are you doing?”
I jump at the sound of his voice. Damien is standing a few feet behind me. Quickly, I put the print back into the book and return the book to its original place. “Just browsing. There’s a lot of men in suits on the covers of your books.” Can he hear the breathlessness in my voice? I hope not. “Do you only read books about taking over people’s companies?”
He glances at the shelf and smiles menacingly. “How else would I succeed?” He steps forward, and my skin tingles as he invades my space. His drugging scent fills my nostrils, reminding me of all the times we’ve shared. He leans closer to me. So close that our lips can touch if I move an inch. Is he going to kiss me? Do I want him to kiss me? After what he did. What he’s doing. I tilt my head up just a little. But he does what I least expected. He pushes back a book that I had pushed out during my perusal, steps back, and thrusts his hands in his pocket.“I think we should be going.”
“Where?”
“The vote. It’s the kind where one needs to vote in person or bring a proxy.”
If Nolan sees us walking into the boardroom together, his stare alone would be enough to kill me. “Can we go separately? I can’t be seen with you.”
“That’s terribly inefficient. One car should be enough.”
“I can walk. Hawthorne Inc. is not that far away from here,” I say, knowing how ridiculous that sounds.
“You’ll be hounded by journalists. Or are you scared?” He closes the space between us again.
“Of what?” My heart hammers in my throat. Thoughts of Paris fill my mind. What we did. What we didn’t do and what we almost did.
“You have been avoiding me,” he says in a low voice designed to keep the conversation between us, I imagine, but makes my stomach flutter.
“I thought you were mad at me. What changed?”
He brushes my cheek. “My anger at you is a constant state.”
How does he sound so irresistible while throwing barbs at me? Good to know he will always despise me. “If it’s me you hate, then take all your revenge on me. Not my brother.”
He stares into my eyes. I can tell that he’s working over something in his head. Am I convincing him? I push further. “Hate me. Punish me. I will take it all if you spare my family.”
His jaw ticks. He inhales. Just when I think he’s about to be convinced, he says, “Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”