by Penny Wylder
I groan and lean back in my seat. “Dad, you’re being ridiculous.”
“What do I always tell you is the most important thing?”
“Family, yes—”
“Even more important than money. Even more important than a successful business, or making good cars, or finding the right buyers. Family is all you have at the end of the day, when everything else fades. You say you know that, you claim to understand it, and yet here you are, no grandchildren, not even a decent prospect of a future wife to show for it. How can I believe that you really value family?”
“I put up with you every day, don’t I?” I mutter.
Wrong direction to steer in. Dad’s face goes white, then red-hot. “I’ve made this too easy for you. I’ve let you waltz through business school and through the last ten years of working for us like you’re the heir apparent. But this company would never have existed without family, and it won’t exist without that support in the future.” Dad leans forward and jams his finger into my face. “Plenty of your cousins would kill to be in your shoes. Given the real respect and family-mindedness they show, I have a mind to name one of them as the heir at the reunion.”
“What?” I nearly shout. Other faces swivel in our direction, other people in the restaurant lean closer to spy. I ignore them, though I do lower my voice a touch. “That’s insane, Dad. I’ve been involved in this business from the minute I was old enough to understand what a car was. I’ve devoted all my spare time to working for you, putting in the hours, understanding how every inch of this company operates.”
“And yet you failed to understand the most important lesson—the most important thing—in the world.”
“This is ridiculous. What does having a wife and kids have to do with owning a business?”
“Everything, son,” Dad snaps. “That’s what you don’t see. That’s what I won’t wait around for you to wake up to.”
“So, what? You’re just going to sign Quint Motors over to my cousins, and that’s it?”
“You could change my mind.” Dad leans back in his seat. He eyes me now, cool once more, his expression composed.
Beneath the table, out of sight, I clench my fists. “How?” I ask through gritted teeth. I know I won’t like whatever’s coming next. But whatever I expect, it isn’t this.
“Find a woman.” He holds up a hand, forestalling my protest. Because it’s not like I can’t find women just about anywhere I go. “A marriageable woman,” Dad clarifies. “A wife. If you can find a wife by the time we all leave for Greece, then maybe I’ll believe you’re as serious about this company’s future—and more importantly, this family’s future—as you claim to be.”
“You sound like a crazy person. I’m not listening to this.” I wave a hand to get the waiter’s attention. I need the check. I’m out.
Dad lunges across the table and grabs my wrist. “All your mother and I ever dreamed about was having a big family.” His eyes bore into mine as he says it, as though he’s willing me to understand.
But I don’t. I don’t get it. I’ve never felt the way about a woman like he felt about Mom. I’ve never looked at a girl and thought, I’d like to have dozens of kids with her. I’m just not like him. On some core level.
“You’re our only shot at that now,” Dad is saying. “You’re our only hope at fulfilling our dream.”
“Exactly.” I stand, giving up on the waiter. “Your dream, Dad. That’s what you wanted. I’m different, okay?”
“Well.” Dad releases my wrist and turns his attention back to the table, unrolling his own silverware. Clearly he plans to stay and eat anyway. “If we’re so different, then you won’t care about my decision to hand the company over to one of your cousins instead. Maybe Alexander. He does always have good manufacturing suggestions…”
My blood boils. Alexander is half the salesman I am, I think. Last time we let him run a European business conference himself, he walked away without a single new buyer. Not a single one. You have to be completely incompetent to do that—Quint cars practically sell themselves.
“If you want to run this business into the ground, have at it,” I mutter as I turn to stride away.
“One month,” Dad calls at my retreating spine. “You have one month to prove to me you’re not a lifelong bachelor after all, or I drop you from the company roster.”
“I need a wife,” I tell Greg.
Once he finishes laughing, I scowl and snatch the stack of intern applications from his hands.
“I’m serious,” I say, fanning the pages of the applications, but not really paying any attention to the ink on the paper, what any of the words say. “Dad’s talking about giving Alex the company if I don’t get serious. Find someone to settle down with.”
“Alex?” Greg says in the same tone you’d use about a pile of manure you stepped in. “The same Alex whose accountant we had to fire because he was embezzling thousands of dollars that Alex didn’t even notice was missing?”
“One and the same.” I drop the stack of intern applications once more with a groan. “Dad thinks Alex will be more serious about running the company because he’s family-oriented. Him or any one of my other married-with-children cousins. He’s holding it against me that I don’t have a million grandkids for him to spoil yet.” I run my hand through my hair, teeth gritted in frustration.
Over and over, ever since lunch, I’ve replayed our lunchtime fight in my head. And over and over, I just hear his voice on repeat. If you can find a wife by the time we all leave for Greece…
Crazy. He’s crazy. That’s a month away. And I’m not going to just marry some random woman to please him, to do what he says. It’s my life. I get some damned say in it, don’t I?
“He told me I had to be married by the reunion,” I inform the ceiling. “Or he’s giving Quint Motors to someone else in the family.”
Greg laughs. Then he catches a glimpse of my expression, and sobers immediately. “But that’s in a month. That’s insane.”
“I know.” I roll my eyes once more.
Greg, on the other hand, gets a new expression. A tight-lipped one that I recognize.
His thinking face.
“Uh oh.” I side-eye him. “You only ever look like that when you’re about to suggest something completely batshit, you know.”
“Because I think I am.” Greg turns to face me. “You only need a wife for the reunion, right? Your father is stepping down, naming the new CEO at the retirement event they’re all planning on day, what, four of the weeklong reunion?”
“Something like that,” I agree.
“So you only need a wife for that long. Once he signs Quint Motors over to you, it doesn’t matter what he wants—the company becomes yours.”
I tilt my chair forward and tear my eyes from the ceiling, sensing where this is going. “Good thought, but unfortunately, it’s not quite that cut-and-dry. Once he makes me CEO, Dad’s still going to retain the majority share in the company stocks. Not to mention our family holds the rest of the stocks. He can bully and strong-arm them into ousting me the minute I ditch any temporary wife I show up with.”
“True. Unless your father approves of the divorce,” Greg says with a laugh, because my father, Mr. Family Man’s, favorite rant topic is about kids these days and how little they value lasting marriages.
But… “Hang on.” Lightbulb. I look at Greg. “Say that again.”
He frowns. “Unless your father approves of the divorce?” he repeats. “But, he never would, I mean, he doesn’t approve of that unless…”
“Unless it’s someone like the crazy cheating woman Luke left before his second wife?” I say, mind racing. “The one trying to get her hands on his inheritance. Or like the one Chloe split up with, the one she married when she was a teenager, he was a real trip, utterly classless…”
Greg sits forward in the chair, following my drift. “So if you do find a wife, but she’s absolutely completely awful…”
“Then Dad would be
begging me to divorce her. He’d be completely apologetic for forcing me into marrying so quickly in the first place too. And I can tell him I’ll only divorce her if he makes me CEO without any of his crazy conditions.”
“That could work,” Greg agrees. “But where the hell are you going to find a woman like that? Just start scouring local bars for a pick-up?”
He keeps talking, but I don’t hear the rest. My eyes have landed on a cast-aside stack of papers, and my brain is already ticking into overtime. I reach out and snatch up the pile of intern assignments once more. “It has to be someone desperate,” I hear myself saying. “Not an ounce of class in her. Someone who doesn’t fit in our world, someone who’ll take to rich like a fish out of water. The most untrustworthy gold-digger type you can find.”
Greg slides the stack of intern files out of my hands then. “In that case,” he says, flipping through it with the practiced eye of a man who’s already read through this file at least a dozen times today. “I have the perfect candidate in mind…”
With that, he withdraws a single slip of paper with my one last chance at freedom written on it.
“Deeandra Smith,” I read aloud.
Prom King
Chapter One
Ollie
The doorbell rings, and I internally groan. I’m not even sure why I ordered food, I’m too sick to my stomach to eat. And I don’t want to see anyone. Not even the delivery guy. Closing my eyes, I lean my head back against the couch. Maybe if I ignore him long enough, he’ll just leave the food by the door.
I’m in clothes that no one should ever witness me wearing and probably would be better off in the trash: A t-shirt that’s so worn it’s falling off my shoulders and ratty sweatpants that would never be decent in public because they have more holes than pants. But I didn’t want to put on anything nicer. Not after tonight. These are the only clothes worth wearing in my state of mind.
The doorbell rings again.
Just go away, I silently beg him. Leave the mozzarella sticks and milkshake. Leave me to wallow in my self-pity. But he rings the doorbell again, and then my phone starts to buzz. Damn it. Answering the phone is even worse than answering the door. I know it’s the just the unfortunate person who’s trying to deliver my food, and I cringe.
“Hello?”
“Delivery.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice squeaking. “Can you just leave the food by the door?”
There’s an uncomfortable pause. “Sorry, you have to sign the receipt.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”
Let’s get this fucking over with. I keep my blanket wrapped around my shoulders so that my ratty clothes are less visible, and go to the door. The guy is just standing there with my food and I feel even worse for making him wait. “Sorry,” I mutter, taking the receipt and not meeting his eyes. I give him a good tip before sealing myself back on the safe side of the door. My goal was no more humiliation for tonight. Missed that shot for a mile.
I suppose it’s my own fault though, I didn’t have to go on that date. In fact, Lorraine told me that it was a bad idea. But he was cute and I hadn’t been on a date in a really long time. I think it’s going to be another very long time before I risk that again.
Sinking back into the couch and my cocoon of pillows, I take a sip of the vanilla milkshake. Sweet bliss. I know that I shouldn’t drown my sorrow with sugar and fried cheese, but fuck it, I can go back to being healthy tomorrow.
I’m re-watching one of my favorite TV series—an overly polite British reality show about amateur bakers. I mean, amateur my ass. They may not get paid for their baking but you better believe they’re experts. I’m the amateur. I can’t make a cake that doesn’t come out lopsided. It doesn’t mean that I don’t try, though.
Stupid moron, I say to myself. I’m not sure whether I’m talking to myself or to Jason, my ill-fated date, but the words fit regardless. I try to lose myself in an episode about making the perfect identical little cakes, but the embarrassment keeps rolling through my head like my brain has the track on repeat.
I thought it had been going well enough. We went to a little Mexican place on the Lower East Side, and it was nice. He was sweet and charming and the conversation was flowing. He works for one of the larger law firms downtown, and even though all of our interests didn’t align, enough of them did. In my mind, it was one of the better first dates that I’ve ever had. Until we walked to the subway.
With an effort, I freeze the tape in my mind. I’d really rather not relive it again, though I know it’s only a matter of time.
A text buzzes on my phone, and I glance at the screen. It’s Lorraine.
How did it go?
I roll my eyes. Of course she’s going to want to know. But she can know later.
A couple of minutes later my phone buzzes again.
Ollie…
I turn the phone upside down on the other end of the couch. It vibrates a couple more times, but I don’t look. It’s judging time and I want to see how the raspberry mint cakes stack up against the orange cardamom. Even if I already know the answer.
There’s a knock on the door and I jump. Did the delivery guy forget something?
Then a loud, brassy voice. “Ollie, it’s me. Let me in.”
Fuck. Lorraine. “Go away!” I want to wallow in my misery, and Lorraine isn’t going to let me do that.
There’s the sound of a key in the lock and I groan. The door opens and her heels—Lorraine always wears heels—click on my floor. “I should have never given you that key,” I say.
“Yes, you should have,” she says as she comes around the corner into the living room. She sees me in my nest of blankets and my comfort food. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too bad.”
I defiantly dip another mozzarella stick into my marinara sauce. “What are you doing here?”
She flops down onto the couch next to me, ignoring both my glare and my personal space. “I was on my way home. When you didn’t answer my texts, I wanted to see if you were still out or if you were home. And here you are.”
“Here I am,” I say bitterly, taking a sip of milkshake.
“So what happened?”
The judges on TV think that the orange and cardamom cakes are more successful, since the mint didn’t really come through in the cake or the frosting. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too bad.”
“Lorraine, please,” I say, fighting off a sigh.
She puts her arm around my shoulders. “No. You know why? Because you hold onto these things. You overthink them, and bury them so you’re never able to let go. So you’re going to tell me about it, and then I’m going to give you some good news.”
“Can’t you give me the good news now?”
“Nope.” She steals a mozzarella stick and bites into it. “I’m holding it hostage for your date story.”
I dig through the blankets for the remote and pause the show. Lorraine and I have been friends long enough that I know she’s not going to give in. If I don’t start talking, she’s just going to stare at me until I do. So I start talking. I tell her about the beginning of the date and how cute he was and how it seemed to be going well.
And then I get to the subway.
I take a deep breath. “Well, he was hot. And you know me, I’m not the kind of person that goes home on the first date. But it’s been…a while, and I thought, what the hell, let’s do it. So we were standing there at the subway, and I was wondering if he was going to kiss me or not, and I asked if he wanted to go back to his place.” I shove another mozzarella stick in my mouth.
“And?” Lorraine prods.
“And he laughed.”
She gasps, “What?”
“He laughed, and not like a little laugh. Like a big fucking laugh. Like people on the next block probably heard him crack up.”
“Geeze.”
I swallow. “And w
hen he was done laughing, he told me that he wasn’t looking for some kind of slut, and that even if he was, I wasn’t really in his league. And then he asked if I thought that it had really gone that well.”
Lorraine blinks. “Well fuck that guy.”
I laugh once, but it’s not really funny. “Yeah, fuck that guy. Please don’t say that you told me so.”
“Oh please,” she says, “I thought it wasn’t a great idea because he looked like a bro not because I thought he was going to be a complete dick.”
“Yeah…”
She snuggles against me. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’d hoped you weren’t answering my texts because you were getting some. And seriously, fuck that guy. I bet he doesn’t call himself a slut when he has first-date sex.”
“Probably not.”
Lorraine sits back up, curling her legs underneath her and facing me. “Now for the good news. It’s gonna cheer you up.”
“Oh?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Saturday is our ten-year reunion.”
I think, and I’m drawing a blank. “For what?”
“For high school.”
My jaw drops. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not.”
“Why on earth would you think that that’s good news? Or that it would cheer me up?”
“It’s not the reunion that’s going to cheer you up, but one of the people going.”
I feel sick to my stomach. If I’d known Lorraine was going to spring some sort of high school surprise on me, I wouldn’t have eaten this much cheese. “Do I even want to know?”
“Adam Carlisle.”