by Parker, Ali
She strode to my desk and leaned her butt onto it, folding her arms. A knowing smile played on her lips. “You’re not going to ask me how I found this out?”
Seeing as it was Tiffany, I stopped myself from throttling her for playing coy at a time like this. I would miss talking to her too much if I murdered her. “No, just tell me what you found out.”
She pouted her lips, disappointed in my lack of indulgence of her theatrics. The fact she had even asked set me on edge. “Seriously? I do some major super sleuthing and you don’t even care about the process.”
“I don’t, just tell me. Please. He just burst in here, told me he had to go back to the office and then practically ran out the door. I’ve had enough drama for one day. What is it?”
Tiffany frowned at the wall in the direction of the outside exit door. “I hope he’s okay. For more reasons than just because you’re into him. We could all be in trouble if he’s not.”
“Business has been doing amazing the last few days, so don’t worry about whatever trouble we might be in and just tell me already.” Maybe I wouldn’t miss her that much. I hoped I wouldn’t, but if she didn’t tell me soon, I was going to explode.
There was a severe shortage of creative murder weapons in my minimalistic office, so my bare hands would have to do. “I swear Tiff, if you drag this out any longer I’m not going to be responsible for my actions.”
“Fine. Fine.” She threw her hands out to her sides as if she was surrendering. “I Googled him. I looked up his details on our system and you won’t believe who he really is.”
My voice rose several octaves and became a little shrill. “I’m on the verge of chucking you out of my office and just looking him up myself. It’ll be faster than having to listen to you drag it out any longer.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh fine, it’s just that I never know things before you do. I was trying to savor the moment. Guess I’ve had my fun, so, drum roll please.”
I glared at her. She lowered her hands to my desk and tapped out a quick beat with her fingers. “His full name is Blake Carlton McAllen.”
“Mc—” My mouth went completely dry. “McAllen, as in—”
Tiffany beamed at me. “Yup. As in McAllen Property Group McAllen.”
“You can’t be serious.” This had to be a joke, right? There was no way I gave up my virginity to an actual honest-to-God billionaire. A billionaire who also happened to be my boss’s, boss’s, boss’s son. Somewhere very high up in the hierarchy of the company, anyway. No matter the details, it made Blake one of my bosses. One of my biggest bosses. “There’s no way.”
“It’s true,” she said, peering at me like she was a teacher trying to guide a lost child. “Blake Carlton McAllen. He’s twenty-eight and the Chief Financial Officer of the group.”
“But he’s in quality assurance, too.” There had to be some kind of mistake. The universe couldn’t possibly be this cruel.
Tiffany nodded. “His company profile says he’s finance and quality assurance.”
“How could I not have known who he is?” I wasn’t really asking her, I was really directing the question to myself. I lived and breathed for my job. I knew every wrinkle on Wayne McAllen’s face.
Then it dawned on me. I hadn’t known what Danny McAllen looked like the other day on TV when he made the announcement either. I’d never really paid much attention to the McAllen boys.
It was their father I admired, their father I worked for and respected. I kind of always wrote off his sons as boys born with silver spoons in their mouths. A part of me always resented that they were born with the world at their feet while I had to work for the very cheap shoes on mine.
Theoretically, I knew one day the company would belong to one or both of them. But it was supposed to be at some abstract point far off in the future. I hadn’t really thought or cared about it, because my focus was on their father.
He was the man I thought I had to get to. I worked hard to get his attention, so he would know my name and hopefully one day promote me.
Tiffany shrugged, oblivious to the anguish I felt when I realized what I had done. “Anyone would’ve missed it. His bio on the company profile has a very small, kind of outdated picture.”
“I feel like such an idiot.”
She came to my side immediately, catching on to where my thoughts were racing to. “Don’t. According to the all-knowing internet, he keeps a super low profile. He avoids the press at all costs and there are very few pictures of him online. I mean, there are still hundreds of pictures, but nowhere near as many of him as his brother.”
“But Tiff, I—” I couldn’t believe it. I had slept with the son of the owner of the company I worked for. I was horrified. I worked so damn hard, and now it could all be for nothing. “I slept with him.”
The last sentence came out as a whisper. I couldn’t find my voice. What had I done? I hadn’t really been planning on applying for the round of promotions they announced, but if I had applied I didn’t stand a chance of getting it now.
If it ever came out that I’d had sex with Blake, everyone would think I slept my way to the top. My reputation would be ruined.
Worse than that, I might have ruined my future at the company. What if he thought I’d lied to him about being a virgin and that I was really just a big slut trying to get with him for his money or his fame? Or even the promotion?
What if I’d ruined the opportunity in this company I worked so hard for? Tiffany slung an arm over my shoulders. “Maybe you should call him.”
Maybe? No. Not maybe. I had to call him. I had to find out what the hell was going on. It was very possible that my entire future depended on it.
Chapter 23
Blake
It was late by the time I landed in Florida. My mind was in a daze. It felt like I was stuck in a bad dream. I replayed the morning over and over again in my mind, trying to change the way it ended. But it never changed.
All I could hear was Danny’s voice telling me our father was in the hospital. That he’d had a stroke and I had to come home. To my dad’s home, anyway. I didn’t really have a home anymore. I guess I thought of Florida as home because that was where my father was.
If anything were to happen to him—my throat threatened to close up. Breathing was hard enough as it was without those kinds of thoughts.
It felt like it took ages to get to the hospital, but in reality it was only a matter of hours. Unless my watch was broken and it had, in fact, taken as long as it seemed.
The roads were quiet this time of night around here. Dad’s neighborhood was one of the quieter ones and the hospital Danny told me they were at was right on the outskirts.
It was dark except for the pools of light created by the high street lamps. My cabbie didn’t say much. When I hailed him at the airport I gave him the name of the hospital and he obviously sensed my need to get there fast and quietly.
I couldn’t manage small talk. Not now. I could barely manage thinking. Images of my father and his tired eyes the last few times we had Skyped swam behind my eyelids every time I blinked.
Guilt weighed heavily in my stomach. I should have known he was working too hard. I should have leaned on him more to take time off. I should have—fuck. There were so many things I should have done differently.
I shouldn’t have been so focused on Danny’s announcement and saving the jobs in California. It all seemed so trivial now. Not saving people’s jobs, of course, but my personal involvement. I’d been so absorbed in trying to take care of other people’s families that I neglected my own.
Could have, would have, should have—none of it was going to help my dad now.
The cab turned a corner and suddenly, the hospital was looming up ahead. I swallowed. Whatever was waiting for me in that building—I had to be ready. I wasn’t sure I really was.
This was the last place I thought I would be tonight when I woke up this morning. Life was a bitch sometimes.
We were just pulling up
outside of the hospital when my phone started buzzing. Afraid it was Danny calling about Dad, I ripped it out of my pocket.
A sigh of relief escaped me when I saw it was Aston calling, not Danny. Using my thumb, I pressed the button on the side of my phone to silence it. I couldn’t talk to her now.
I owed her an explanation and she would get it. Later. Once I knew what was going on with Dad. I felt bad about taking off on her again, but there was no way I could’ve stayed in California.
Waiting to get updates from Danny would’ve killed me. Besides, I was pretty sure Dad would give me an extension on the two week deadline to turn the branch around under the circumstances.
Vowing to call Aston later, I shoved my phone back in my pocket at the same time that I handed a fist full of bills to the cabbie. “Thanks.”
“Good luck, man,” he said. I barely heard him as I slammed the door behind me. Danny had told me which room my dad was in. With tunnel vision, and focused only on getting to my father, I ignored the front desk and all the people milling around and made my way through the bright interior.
I followed the signs to the intensive care unit, willing myself to be prepared for whatever I found there. Stopping outside the closed door, I sprayed my hands with the disinfectant spray attached to the wall outside and donned the protective coverings for my shoes and mouth in a dispenser next to the ward.
Taking a deep breath, I lifted my hand and depressed the bell of the locked ward. There was one tiny window in the door and I watched as a heavyset nurse came to open it. “Yes? Visiting hours are over, son. You’ll have to come back in the morning.”
“I’m Blake McAllen, my father is—”
Recognition sparked in her eyes. “Wayne McAllen. Of course. I was told you’d be arriving late. You have good timing though. The doctor is in with your father now. He stopped by for his last rounds of the evening. Follow me.”
“Thank you.” My voice was barely above a whisper. I stepped into the unit and the smell of disinfectant and whatever else combined to make that familiar combination so unique to this setting assaulted my already fragile senses.
Glass cubicles formed private rooms inside the unit. The curtains were drawn inside all of them, shielding the patients from view.
When the nurse stopped outside one of the cubicles, she motioned to the door and I knew he was right inside. I took another deep breath, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see.
A wall of monitors stood behind the hospital bed, lights displaying my father’s vital signs and God only knew what else flickering on the screens. My father was not a small man, but the bed seemed to dwarf him tonight.
He was lying beneath stiff white blankets. Unconscious from the looks of things. His chest heaved with every breath he took and thick tubes protruded from everywhere, attached to the machines behind him.
A white haired man stood next to the bed. He looked up from a clipboard he was holding when I entered the room. “You must be Blake. I’m Dr. Richards. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”
I wondered how many people he had said that to. And how many of those family members left the hospital with only memories of their loved one.
On auto pilot, I shook his hand. “How is he?”
The doctor gave me a grim smile. “He’s not good, son. I won’t sugar coat it, he’s in bad shape. We’re doing all we can for him, of course.”
My heart stuttered. “Of course. Do you have any information about what happened yet? My brother said it was a stroke.”
The doctor nodded. “It was definitely a stroke. We won’t know the full extent of the damage until he wakes up, but with the test results we have, things aren’t looking too positive.”
I blinked. This wasn’t possible, but plenty of evidence that it was all too real was right there in front of me. It was absurd. Surreal.
There was a clenching sensation in my chest. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuuck. This couldn’t be happening. “Is he going to—”
Doctor Richards shook his head sadly. “We just don’t know. It’s not looking good, but we can never say anything for sure in these situations.”
The curtains rustled behind me and I turned to find Danny standing in the doorway. He didn’t look much better than I did, but there was a cold look in his eyes. A detachment I didn’t like. Like me, he was still wearing a suit.
The people in the hospital must have thought we were crazy, both of us showing up to the intensive care unit on a Saturday night looking like we were ready for work on a Monday morning.
Danny nodded to me. “Blake. Thanks for coming.”
Thanks for—Jesus. What did he think this was? A fucking meeting? “Of course I would come. Our father had a goddamn stroke.”
“Yes.” He looked at Doctor Richards. “Any changes?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not since this afternoon. We’re running more tests, but the results won’t be available until the morning.”
“Is there anything we can do to speed them up?” Danny asked, frustrated. He ran a hand through his hair.
Again, the doctor shook his head. “These things take time, Mr. McAllen. I’m sure you understand.”
“Will he have regained consciousness by then?”
Another head shake. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m reasonably certain he may not. If he does, depending on the state he’s in, we may need to medically induce a coma anyway.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. This was bad. Really fucking bad.
Danny gave a swift nod. “Very well. In that case, I need to talk to my brother.” Doctor Richards nodded his head and left us alone.
“Talk?” It had to be business related. Danny was in that mode, I could see it the second he stepped into the room. “About what?”
“I’ve just gotten back from the lawyers. There’s some stuff we need to sign, verifying Dad’s state.”
“What?” This a nightmare. It had to be a fucking nightmare. “Sure. I’ll do what needs to be done. What are we going to do though?”
That was the several billion dollar question. Danny handed me an envelope. “There’s the stuff you need to sign. In the meantime, while Dad’s here and unconscious, I’m taking control of the company.”
“Already? It’s been less than a day, Dan. Give the man a chance.” This was insane. Danny couldn’t possibly be this hungry for power. It wasn’t even Monday yet.
I understood that the show had to go on, but this? In this way? “I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do, not yet.”
Danny shrugged. “I’m not sure I care about your opinion. One of the largest companies in the country can’t be without a captain at the helm. Someone needs to step up and take responsibility. I’m that person.”
Holy Mother of God. This really was happening. “Danny, we—”
“We need to move forward. It’s in the best interest of the company and its shareholders. I now represent those interests.”
“You’re serious?”
He nodded, a dangerous gleam entering his eyes. “As a heart attack, or a stroke, apparently.”
If we weren’t in an intensive care unit, right beside our comatose father, I would’ve knocked him the fuck out. My hands balled into fists. “Move forward how, Danny? What do you plan on doing?”
The smile he gave me made my stomach turn. “What we should’ve done last week. I’ve given the order to go ahead with the cuts in California, there’s nothing you can do to stop it now. Oh, and also, I’m promoting Dustin. Everything will be as it was supposed to be.”
Shit. I should have seen this coming. My heart sank to the floor. I couldn’t let Danny get away with this. What the fuck was I going to do?
Chapter 24
Blake
“How’s it going today, Dad?” I sat down beside the bed in the intensive care unit, checking the wall of monitors hanging behind my father. It had to be the world’s most depressing headboard. The machines beeped and blinked rhythmically, the only
sound in the glass bubble that was my father’s bedroom for the time being.
I touched my hand to his forehead.
It was clammy, cool.
My stomach rolled. I hated seeing him this way. The man was a titan of industry, a legend whose name was associated with success and spoken with the highest regard the world over.
It was getting harder to remember that with each passing day. Lying in his metal framed hospital bed, he was wasting away right in front of my eyes. More worrying still was that he hadn’t yet opened his own.
It was day three of my own personal hell, waking up to come spend the day with a man who wasn’t even conscious. The doctors still couldn’t say if he ever would be again.
We were playing a waiting game, waiting on a man I’d never had to wait on before. He was always there, always right on time. Beep. Beep.
I could only hope he was fighting whatever fight was raging inside him with as much vigor and courage as he’d fought every other day of his life. Because this wouldn’t be the last day of his, it couldn’t be. Except it could.
Reaching for his hand, I rested mine gently over it. I had to keep talking to him. “It’s a scorcher of a day outside. We’re headed into a heat wave.”
The only reply I got was from the machines, their incessant low beeping. Normally, I probably would’ve gotten annoyed with the sound, but I took comfort in it instead. As long as that beeping was there, it meant my dad was still alive. Because I might have thought otherwise just looking at him.
His usually strong hand lay still beneath mine, totally motionless. It looked so frail compared to even only a week ago when I last saw him.
The doctors said we had to stay positive, but it was hard. With as little information as they could give us about his condition and the damage done to his brain by the stroke he’d had just a couple of days ago, staying positive was as hard as finding a snowflake in Florida in the middle of this heatwave.