CHAPTER FIVE
AXEL
My breath came out in a single white puff in front of me. New York was extra frigid today, though it might have been because I was about to enter the front doors of Margulis Realty. Cora had left my apartment that morning, and I could still taste her kisses on my lips. I felt both dreamy and reckless, like Romeo before he pulled all that crazy shit with Juliet’s family. Which was probably why I was here in the first place.
I knew a guy who worked for Allan. Entry level, but he was on the inside. Jake and I had gone to undergrad at Columbia together. I gave him $10 grand after we had our first windfall from when Trace squeezed Wall Street. He’d needed it to cover his mom’s funeral costs, and we’ve been linked ever since. There’s something about helping a guy pay for a funeral, I guess. I hadn’t planned on calling in a favor until Jake mentioned he worked on the bottom rung of Allan’s company. He knew the right people to get me on Allan’s schedule—under an alias, of course.
Just call me Spencer Wattford.
The inside of the building was slick and gray, like polished steel had sex with marble. Smackdab in the middle of the foyer was a ginormous glass sculpture, curling up out of the floor like tendrils of smoke. It was equal parts gaudy and fascinating—even though my first thought was that the sculpture represented the flames of the souls Allan burned in order to stay on his golden perch.
The air itself was blanketed with hushes, though I wasn’t sure if people were too afraid of Allan to make noise or if it came from reverence of the real estate industry. Allan’s company moving into this building had been a big deal in the early 2000s, apparently—not like I was in NYC then, or cared about his business, but Cora had told me the inaugural party here was one of her earlier memories—and well-documented in Time magazine.
And I guess, in a way, I could see it. The place was both cavernous and professional, artistic yet tasteful. But every last inch of it screamed money. The walls themselves were woven with the memories of the Caribbean vacations the Margulis family had taken so frequently Cora had viewed the Cayman Islands as her backyard as a child. The floor was polished with the millions of dollars of interest her father’s investments made in his sleep. The air itself pressed down on all corners with the immense weight of his wealth.
Don’t fucking freak yourself out. I jabbed at the silver dollar of an Up button at the elevator, my gaze wandering to the worn sleeves of my leather jacket. It was a stark contrast to the rest of my outfit—pressed navy pants, a crisp white button-up. But I didn’t own a formal coat.
I slid my leather jacket off, my gaze bouncing around the lobby. I knew I couldn’t go into the meeting with this sad, beat-up excuse for a jacket. Not that I’d ever say those things in front of it—I loved my jacket. It just couldn’t accompany me upstairs. I spied an ostentatiously large fern nearby—something like Jurassic Park foliage on steroids. Seemed like a good enough coat check for now. I folded my jacket as small as it would go and tucked it among the fronds. It would be there when I came back—I knew it. Nobody who came to this building would ever need to steal a shitty jacket from inside a fern.
The doors of the elevator slid open and I stepped inside, my likeness reflected back to me endlessly through the walls lined in mirrors. It was easy to get lost in the trappings of wealth—that was something I’d learned immediately at Columbia and at every soiree I attended with Cora. And it was when you got lost in the trappings that made it so easy for them take the upper hand.
But I wasn’t going to be distracted by the glitz and the marble. I might hide my jacket in his damn fern, but Allan wasn’t going to win. This whole display of wealth wasn’t going to distract or intimidate me. I’d calmly and firmly approach Allan about my unwavering intent to marry his daughter. Hell, I’d even invite him to the wedding. I was a nice guy, after all.
When the doors slid open, the emotionless face of a receptionist greeted me.
“Spencer Wattford,” I said in lieu of a greeting, affecting the same disinterested energy she doled out. You had to play the game in this world. I knew how to play the game. I wet my bottom lip and attempted a casual lean on her desk. “I’m here to meet with Mr. Margulis.”
Her gaze raked over me, prickly and disapproving. She consulted her computer, assessed me once more as though searching for my name tag. I knew better than to reiterate my identity. Reiteration was a sure mark of lying, or worse, desperation. Again, part of the game in this world. Lying was fine, but to be seen as desperate? There was no graver sin. I remained steadfast, my cool smile unwavering. As long as nothing about me betrayed the hammer of my heart, I was fine.
“One moment please.” She frowned, her nails clicking against her keyboard as she typed out something. Then she sighed, dragging her disapproving look my way once more. “He’ll see you.”
The receptionist led me down the long hallway. Through the windows, dusk tugged at the edges of daylight, impatient and sultry. Manhattan stretched like metal clockwork away from our fortieth-floor perch. At the end of the hallway, the receptionist knocked twice, waited for something, and then pushed the door open. She pinned me with a dead stare.
“Good luck.”
I mustered a smile and brushed past her, fighting the urge to return with snark. The office of Allan Margulis spread luxuriously around me. Two entire walls were floor to ceiling windows with the best view of New York City I’d ever seen. Unobstructed New York City. Photographers probably paid big bucks for this exact view. And this was Allan’s ho-hum everyday landscape.
“Mr. Margulis.” I forced my gaze off the glittering anthill of life beyond the windowpanes. “Great to see you again.”
Allan sat behind an enormous desk, a laptop pushed off to the side, papers stacked neatly into color-coded letter trays. His dark hair was immaculately arranged, in a constant state of Ken doll. He was a bear stuffed into an Armani suit, the same business casual shade of navy as mine, but probably sixty thousand dollars more expensive. He looked up at me, brows beginning a slow trek toward the center of his face.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Clarity sharpened his sage green eyes, the same hue as Cora’s but far more threatening.
“I set up an appointment with your office,” I said, donning my best neutral voice. I had to erase any hint of duh from my voice, because this man was .05 seconds away from kicking me out already.
He snatched up his cell phone from his desk with the practiced swipe of a jaguar. He checked something, then looked up at me. “So when did you legally change your name to Spencer Wattford?”
“Today.” Oops. Snark had a way of slipping out sometimes.
“Get out.”
“Allan, please.” I held up my palms, as if this might convince him of my harmlessness. “I only need five minutes of your time. Your receptionist blocked you off for thirty minutes with Spence. This is a win-win, because then you’ll be ahead of schedule.”
His jaw flexed and his blue stare turned cloudy; a storm was rolling in. “You have one minute. Starting now.”
“Great. I work best under pressure.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets, running my tongue back and forth inside my cheek as I struggled to remember the monologue I’d prepared. But all I could think was fuck you, which wasn’t helpful. I needed to both calm myself down and get him to loosen up slightly. Maybe offering him a Xanax first would get the ball rolling.
“Thank you,” I started, my heart hammering so loudly I wondered if he could hear it. “Your office is absolutely stunning. I’ve never seen a view as amazing as this.” I gestured unhelpfully to Manhattan through the window. “Honestly, this sort of thing is a goal for me—”
“Get to the point.”
I swallowed hard. “Right. You’re probably aware that your daughter and I are, uh…” All words failed me. I swiped my tongue across my bottom lip. This man was going to fucking murder me up here, and his receptionist would cover for him. If I made it out alive, I was marrying Cora straight away. “We’ve been together for a long time now. And I wanted to formally just, uh, you know—”
“Forget how to speak?”
I cleared my throat. The man wasn’t known as a shark for nothing. “I plan to ask Cora to marry me.” My neck went hot as Allan’s face went from snide to blank. Somehow, the emotion draining out of him was scarier than any other reaction I’d imagined. “I thought you should know. And I want to see what we can do to make this relationship between us a bit more…pleasant.”
He stared at me, but he’d checked out. He stared so long that the last thread of my ultra-faked cool exterior was fraying. Say something, already. I rubbed at the back of my neck, but I wouldn’t crack first. The silence became deafening. When he finally blinked, it at least let me know that I hadn’t killed him on the spot with the news.
“You actually think she’s serious about you?”
The words landed like an uppercut. I swallowed the pain. “I know she is.”
“You’re batshit crazy if you think she’ll marry you.”
I stuffed my hands back into my pockets, reminding myself to bite my tongue. There was one batshit crazy person in this room, but I didn’t want to tell Allan it was him. “She and I have already discussed the future. I know she’ll accept when I ask. I wanted to extend the courtesy of—”
“The courtesy.” Snide laughter rolled out of him, and he pushed to standing, palms propped against the desk. “Now that’s fucking hilarious.”
“I’m not joking, Allan.” I swallowed, thinking better of using his name so casually. “Sir.”
“Don’t you fucking sir me. You haven’t had an ounce of respect for me or my family since the day you met Cora. It’s not just laughable that you’re in my office, disrespecting me yet again by giving falsified information to my staff, it’s reprehensible. And then you have the gall to tell me you’re marrying my daughter?” His body shook with bitter laughter. “Absolutely fucking ridiculous.”
I squeezed my hands into fists. It wasn’t going exactly what I would call well. “If I’d given my real name, you never would have let me through the door.”
“And with good reason!” He slammed his palm against his desktop, causing some papers to flutter to the ground. “You lie to get through the door, what else will you lie about? Your income? Your stability? Can’t trust a fucking word you say, boy. My daughter deserves more than that. She deserves someone at her level, in every sense—which will never be you.”
My throat tightened, and I straightened my back. “I’m just over six months away from securing my MBA. I have an LLC started“—A slight white lie, but now was not the time to retreat; I needed to go balls to the wall—”and my brothers and I are on track to generate a quarter of a million profit in our first year of financial management.”
His teeth flashed brilliantly white as he laughed and laughed. “Isn’t that just a quaint little family business. Are you getting your Ma and Pa in on it too? Maybe they can help print paperwork or make meals while you and your brothers are so busy making all that money. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the small closet you can work out of with all those hard-earned profits. Wow. Quarter of a million, huh?”
Jesus, this man was relentless. I bit my tongue, fighting back the choice words that swirled to the surface. I had to be pleasant Axel, let-me-marry-your-daughter Axel. Not fuck-your-condescension-with-my-fist Axel.
“I understand Cora’s comfort and her safety are of the utmost importance to you, as her father,” I went on, each word scraping past my lips. Other words wanted to replace them so badly, but I would not let them out. Not right now. Not until I could scream every last obscenity into my leather jacket in a corner of a subway station like a regular New Yorker. “I am prepared to prove to you how committed I am to giving her the life she deserves. Sir—Allan—I love your daughter more than anything else in this world. I would do anything for her. And I mean that.”
His lips curled away from his teeth in a sardonic grin. “Anything, huh?”
“Anything.”
“Then fuck off.”
I gritted my teeth, the hot swirl of anger dancing dangerously close to the tip of my tongue. Do not call him a pretentious asshole. Do not call him a disgusting fucktard. Do not call him a pompous narcissist who makes Donald Trump look humble.
“I said I’d do anything to prove that I am committed to giving her the life she deserves,” I reminded him as neutrally as my internal rage would allow. “If I fuck off, sir, Allan, Mr. Margulis, then I can’t give her the life she deserves.”
“Ah, so you want to play word games. Fine. Let’s play. You want my blessing for a marriage that is doomed to fail? Then let’s start from scratch. If you want to even consider the laughable notion of becoming a part of my family, then you need to drop the smartass attitude. Ditch your plans. Even though I know that meager 250K sounds like a gold mine, I assure you, it’s not. You commit 100% to Margulis Realty and then we can see about having a conversation about this under your real name.”
I couldn’t tell if this was a joke or an action plan. I ground my teeth in thought. “Okay.”
“Start at the bottom, and then maybe in a couple years we can reconvene.”
Heat prickled across my shoulders. What he was saying did not—could not—fit into my vision for the future. But maybe I needed to buck up and accept it.
“I’m willing,” was all I could say even though there was so much unsaid writhing inside me.
“Great. You can find an application at the front desk on your way out.” Allan sank back into his seat.
I blinked a few times. “You mean I have to apply for a job here?”
His laughter rang out sharp and unapologetic. He absolutely fucking loved this, and I hated him for it. But if I wanted Cora, I had to take the beating.
“I think there’s an opening right now, so you have a good shot of being hired.” He sniffed, immersing himself in his paperwork once more. “If nothing else, we’re always looking for janitors. Ten dollars an hour, and it will get you in the door.” He glanced up at me. “After all, you’ll do anything, won’t you?”
This time, it was my turn to laugh. “You’d rather I walk away from 250 thousand dollars in profit to take your below poverty-level job?”
“I need you to show your commitment to the Margulis family.” He was unfazed. What an absolute, unrepentant bastard.
“By scrubbing your toilets.”
Allan blinked dramatically, as if he profoundly did not understand my issue. “Is it the type of work that’s stopping you? I figured you’d feel more at home at that level. Isn’t that how your father made his thousands?”
His thousands. I could have drowned in the sea of condescension he’d filled the room with. My adoptive father wasn’t a janitor. But my biological father had been. How Allan knew that was anybody’s guess. I doubted Cora had given him the rundown of my sorry family history. Which meant Allan had been doing his homework, even while actively loathing me.
He’d prodded deeper than I’d expected.
“Listen,” I began, expelling a defeated burst of air. But nothing followed it. I had nothing left to offer him that wouldn’t ruin what miniscule chance I still had left. He’d beaten me down, and I’d held back the insults.
Allan checked his watch. “Your time’s up, boy. It was real nice talking to you.” In an exaggerated southern accent, he added, “Y’all come back now, hear?”
“Fuck you,” I said. The glare this prompted served as the final push over the edge of my restraint. “You want to talk about lack of respect. Every last fucking thing you’ve said to me in here was the definition of disrespectful.”
“Look around, you na?ve child. You’re in my building. Enjoying my view. Breathing my air.” He wasn’t wrong, since buying air rights in the city was common practice. He hefted with a scoff. “I don’t owe you shit. Now take a good look around, because this is the last time you’ll ever see the inside of my world.”
Anger slashed at my chest. I had to leave. Now. Allan thought he’d won, but this battle wasn’t fucking over. I tore myself out of his office, hurt and bewilderment crowding the edges of my vision. I could barely see where I was going, yet somehow I made it into the elevator. I paced the small box as it plummeted downward, tugging at my hair as I struggled to take deep, calming breaths.
Nothing would have given me more pleasure than to smash his face in, but I’d have to settle for imagined acts of vandalism.
In my head, I was pissing all over his office and swinging a bat against the glass flames sculpture in the lobby as I stormed out of the elevator. I was so angry I almost forgot my jacket, so I had to stomp back across the gleaming floor to snag it. All eyes fell on me—maybe I was seething too hard—but I couldn’t give a fuck.
The only thing keeping me from actually pissing in the lobby was the fact that I still planned on marrying Cora. Trace’s voice of reason echoed in my head as I tugged my coat on and headed for the revolving glass doors of the north entrance. “If you piss in his lobby, you know he’ll pay off all the town clerks in the tri-state area to make sure your marriage license doesn’t go through.” Imaginary Trace was probably right.
I didn’t need to give him more ammunition against me, because Cora and I were getting married.
No matter what Asshole Margulis thought.