by Ellie Danes
We all laughed.
“No dining and dashing going on here,” I said. “Just needed a breath of fresh air.”
“And it looks like we got back just in time,” remarked Meredith. “This food looks fantastic.”
“I hope you two enjoy it,” said the waiter with a smile.
“I'm sure we will,” I said as I sat down.
We were both hungry at this point, so we tucked in and started eating. The food was amazing, and we both ate in silence for a while, simply savoring the flavors, but then we started to talk again.
“You know,” I said, “taking over this company from my father has been one of the most stressful things I've ever experienced. Seriously.”
She nodded. “Just from the pressure on me in my position at the company, I can understand that. It's a very fulfilling job but the pressure to deliver and perform can be overwhelming. Is that what that phone call was about earlier?”
A sour taste formed at the back of my mouth at the mention of that phone call. It seemed as if my father wasn't content with controlling my life in terms of work – now he even wanted to control it in terms of who I was going to marry. Tracy Hendrikson. This was who my dad wanted to set me up with. He was pretty adamant about it, too.
To tell the truth, I had seen it coming for a long time. He and Tracy's mother, Marsha Hendrikson, had been friendly rivals for many years. Marsha was CEO of a company similar to ours, and it had been going almost as long as my dad's. The two companies had always been neck and neck in terms of profits over the years, with our company coming out on top as often as Marsha's.
Tracy was a few years younger than me, and she was a stereotypical spoiled rich girl. She had been brought up with every demand catered to, every whim indulged, and I doubted whether anyone had ever said no to her in her life. She was really pretty – she had done some modeling, not because she needed to work but just so that she could say that she was a model.
Beyond her good looks, though, there was very little to her. All she cared about was her appearance and money. The reason my dad wanted to get me and her together was almost entirely political, like some sort of medieval king consolidating his power and influence by wedding his son off to a foreign princess. I think that he had a dream that somewhere down the line the two companies could merge, obviously with his being the dominant one that would absorb Marsha's. My being married to the heir of the company would almost certainly make this dream into reality.
The problem with this, however, was that neither I nor Tracy seemed to be permitted to have an opinion on our impending wedding. Well, to be fair, I was pretty sure that she would be down for it regardless of what I felt. She had always been into me; she had told me so once.
Me? Well, she was hot, but I hadn't done anything with her because I didn't want to encourage anything. And anyway, there had always been plenty of hot women who I could entertain myself with without consequences such as marriage.
Now, however, it seemed that my father's plans were finally catching up with me, and I didn't imagine I could evade them for much longer now that I was the CEO. In fact, now that I had been CEO for a month, it seemed that my days of freedom were almost certainly numbered. After all, my dad had set up a date between Tracy and me, and he had made it very clear that there was no way I could get out of it.
“Uh, Kyle?”
I snapped out of the daze of thoughts I had drifted into, and jumped back to the present. “Oh, sorry Meredith,” I mumbled. “I was just, uh, just drifting off there.”
“I was asking you about that phone call,” she said.
“Ah, yes, the phone call,” I replied. “Um, no, it wasn't about work stuff. Well, uh, it was but not really...”
I trailed off, unsure of what else to say. I didn't want to tell her about this situation with Tracy and the pressure my dad was putting on me to get married, to settle down and become a family man. She didn't need to know about all of that just yet.
“What do you mean?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, just family stuff,” I replied. “It's not really important, and I don't want to get into details now. Let's just say that there are many things that he and I don't see eye to eye on.”
“Okay,” she replied. “We don't have to get into it.”
I was thankful for that.
“So,” she said, “I guess now is as good a time as any. Since we kind of talked earlier about what happened between you and me the other night, I guess what I wanted to talk about was this: where do we go from here?”
Ah. I had known this question would come up, but I wasn't sure how to answer it. All sorts of things had been going through my mind, and the bottom line for all of them was that I wanted her to be in my life in some capacity. I wasn't sure how she felt about the idea of a relationship, and hell, I wasn't even sure what I felt about that. It was difficult to communicate such uncertainty without coming off sounding flaky. Still, it had to be talked about.
“I like you, Meredith,” I said. “And obviously, there's some really powerful physical chemistry between us. But we're both really busy at the moment, and we both have a lot of pressure on us. I don't know if being closer is a wise or practical decision for either of us at this point.”
A strange look crossed her face as I said this. Was it anger? Disappointment? Relief? All of those? I couldn't really tell.
“I think you're right,” she said. “I don't know if either of us is ready for a commitment. Not just yet.”
I nodded. “It looks like we're on the same page, then.”
“I guess we are.”
“So...we can be friends?” I asked, not sure that it was what I actually wanted, but not knowing if now was the time to ask for more.
Again, that strange look came across her face, and I couldn't really tell what she was thinking. But then the look passed, and she smiled at me.
“We can be friends,” she said. “Or, at least, we can try to be friends.”
Chapter 15
Meredith
Kyle sat back in his chair, an inscrutable expression on his face. “I'm glad that you're okay with that,” he said. “I mean, not that I'm glad that we're not going to be anything more. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant to say that—”
“Relax,” I said. “I know you didn't mean anything more than that. We're both on the same page. We're both two very busy people who are under a lot of pressure, and neither of us can really afford for this to become something...more.”
It was weird. Saying this, deciding to do things this way, made perfect sense on paper. As I had just said, both of us were far too busy to engage in anything more than friendship. But part of me felt intensely disappointed that he hadn't pushed for more. Perhaps, though, part of that disappointment was in myself, because I hadn't pushed for anything more, either.
Part of it was fear, too. My failed relationship with Connor had left me distrustful of men in general, and while I knew that it was neither logical nor reasonable to feel this way, it was a tough thing to shake.
“More wine?” asked Kyle, suddenly seeming eager to change the topic.
“Sure,” I answered, and he topped up my glass, along with his own.
With that, the bottle was finished; we had been drinking faster than we’d planned to. I could see that he was eyeing the bottle, and I wondered if the same thought was running through his head—more. I didn't want to get drunk but the wine certainly had loosened our tongues somewhat, and it made it a little easier to speak frankly about whatever issues we had.
Kyle's eyes met mine, and immediately that same surge of attraction heated up the blood in my veins. Were we doing the right thing here? Agreeing to simply be friends, when this fierce attraction was raging in our blood?
It was a complex question, and it had neither a simple nor an easy answer.
I noticed that Kyle was drinking his wine pretty quickly, and almost felt pressured to keep up, so I took a big gulp of mine.
“Tell me someth
ing,” I said, feeling bold. “Those secrets you told me that night, about wanting to sell off a large portion of the company, and to let a whole bunch of people go. Were you seriously gonna do that stuff?”
He looked at me for a few long, drawn-out moments. “I might still do it,” he said, a strange look coming across his face.
“Wait, what?” I stammered. “You're...you're still thinking of doing that?”
He nodded slowly, the strange look still on his face. “I might...but not for the reasons you may be thinking.”
“And what do you think I'm thinking?” I asked, still feeling shocked.
He took another long sip of his wine, finishing his glass. “My father,” he said, looking away from me as he spoke, “has put a lot of pressure on me. He always has, especially after Jimmy's death, which made me his sole heir.”
“I understand that but...selling the company? Affecting people’s lives like this? That's not the right way to deal with pressure.”
“What do you know about it?” he snapped, anger flashing across his eyes.
“Hey, relax,” I said, not wanting to escalate the tension. “I'm not trying to attack you. I'm just trying to figure out why you're considering such extreme measures.”
The anger faded from his face, replaced by a resigned sadness. “It's just that...” he began but trailed off without saying anything else. Instead, he simply shook his head, sighed, and looked away.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. But you know, I'm not just some outsider, and I'm not only a friend. I work for you, and I now have a vested interest in the company. If you do those things, if you sell a big portion of it off, my career could be at stake. And the company is doing so well. Why would you even consider doing that? I'm having a hard time understanding it.”
“There are a lot of things that my father is trying to pressure me into,” he said. “Not all of them involve the company. Well, they do, yeah, but they don't involve the company directly. I sometimes feel as if I don't have control over my own life. As if I'm just a puppet dangling on strings.”
“But you're the CEO of the company,” I countered. “You're in charge; you're in control. Your father has left, and the company is yours now. I don't understand why you'd feel like that.”
“If you knew my father better, maybe you would understand. Look, he's not a bad man, he's not evil or anything, and I don't think that he even realizes how controlling he is. I think that he just has trouble seeing things from other people's perspectives. You know, like he has difficulty putting himself in other people's shoes – especially mine. He wants what's best for me, I know that, but his version of what's best for me isn't necessarily what is actually best for me.”
“And you can't tell him that?”
“You don't think I've tried? He's impossible to talk to. Once he gets an idea in his head about how something should be done, then that's the way it's gonna be done, with zero deviation from the plan. He's probably the most stubborn person I've ever met.”
I nodded. I had a bit of experience with dealing with stubborn people – Connor had been a pretty stubborn guy – so I had a bit of sympathy for Kyle.
“I know how difficult it is dealing with stubborn people,” I said.
“You might, but I doubt that you've ever experienced dealing with anyone remotely as stubborn as my father. Talking to him when he's made his mind up about something is like talking to a freakin' brick wall.”
“And you think that doing something as extreme as what you're considering would help?”
Again, a look of anger crossed his face. “Well, it would sure as hell show him that I'm in charge. That I'm not his puppet, not his damn servant. That this really is my company now, not his. That I can take charge of my own life, that I can do what I want to do.”
“All right,” I said, trying to keep my tone soothing. “I can see where you're coming from. But just think about the potential consequences. Is it worth it, just to defy him?”
His hands balled into fists, his knuckles tight and white. “You know what?” he growled, face still stormy with wrath. “It might be.”
“No, Kyle,” I said, adding a bit of hardness to my tone. “This is your anger and frustration talking, and that deep inside you know that it's the wrong thing to do. It would be devastating, not only to the company but to the lives of many innocent people who'll find their investments ruined, and who will find themselves out of work. I know that it's probably satisfying, in a way, to fantasize about doing something drastic in order to take control, to take your power back, but you need to realize that despite your father's meddling, you are powerful, you have power. You're the CEO of the company! Your father has handed it over to you, and it's not as if he can take it back. It's legally yours now. If he tries to push you to do things, just tell him to back off.”
He chuckled darkly. “You make it sound like that's the easiest thing in the world to do.”
“Maybe it isn't, but maybe it's not as hard as you think it is.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it's actually a lot harder than you think it is.”
I shook my head. “Maybe, but I know for sure that what you're thinking of doing is wrong on a lot of levels.”
He turned and stared across the restaurant, his eyes going blank. “Maybe,” he eventually muttered. “Anyway, forget about it. It probably won't ever happen.”
“I hope it doesn't, and not only for your sake, Kyle. Remember what I said – a lot of innocent lives could be affected in a very bad way.”
“I realize that.”
He was silent again for a long time, before eventually, he looked up at me, fixing an intense look into my eyes. “I'm not a bad person,” he said quietly, and there was almost a plea in his gaze. “I'm not. I know it must seem that way, but really, I'm not a bad person.”
“I don't think you’re a bad guy,” I said reassuringly. “You're in a difficult position, and you've got a ton of pressure on you.”
He nodded. “Thank you for being sympathetic. And you're not gonna tell anyone about this, are you?”
“No,” I said. “Don't worry about that.”
A thought did occur to me though, one that I wasn't too proud of but one that was nonetheless useful. Knowing these secrets about Kyle did give me some leverage in terms of bargaining power. Of course, I didn't want to have to do anything like that but it was certainly useful to know that if my job was ever in jeopardy, I had some backup.
“Thanks,” he said. “And now, can we just forget about all of this?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Let's forget all about it.”
I wasn't going to though, not just yet.
* * * * *
Two weeks later
“Can I see you in my office for a sec?” Kyle asked over the phone. He sounded worried.
“Sure, I'll be there shortly.” I headed over to his office and knocked on the door. “Hey, it's me.”
“Come on in.”
I walked in. Kyle was holding his face in his hands, and his normally well-styled hair looked disheveled.
“What's the matter?” I asked.
He shook his head, grumbling. “I have to go meet a few people who I really don't feel like seeing.”
“Who?”
He sighed. “Marsha and Tracy Hendrikson.”
“Wait, Marsha Hendrikson of Hendrikson, Inc.?”
He nodded. “Yep. That Marsha Hendrikson.”
“I thought that Hendrikson was a major rival of ours?”
“They are, but it's more of a friendly rivalry than a hostile one. My dad has known Marsha for many years.”
“I see. But why do you have to go meet them?”
He sighed—a long, slow resigned sigh that spoke of a deep, burrowing worry that he just couldn't shake. “Because my dad doesn't know anything about personal boundaries,” he said. “Because he won't be content until he controls every aspect of my life.”
This sounded interesting. Worrying, but interesting.
“What
um, what exactly do you mean?”
He grimaced. “My dad has been pushing me to go the 'family man' route for quite a long time now. A really long time, actually. But since I took over the company, he's become more and more insistent about it.”
“And by 'go the family man route' you mean...get married?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said.
A strange flush of heat rippled across my skin. I felt a rip of something unpleasant churn in my belly. Was it jealousy? Insecurity? Anger?
“But don't you have to be in a relationship with someone first?” I asked. “Before you, you know, get married.”
He chuckled, and there was no humor at all in his laughter. “Yes, you do. A relationship with someone you love, right? With someone who you love so much that you never want to be apart, with someone who you absolutely know that you want to spend the rest of your life with.”
“Exactly. So, how does your dad think you're going to get married if you're not even in a relationship with anyone right now?”
“He sees things very differently from you and me, Meredith.”
“How so? I mean, what we've just said is pretty much how everyone in this country views marriage, right? I mean, surely nobody could imagine it being anything else?”
He shook his head. “For my dad, it's about public image – my public image, specifically. And do my feelings come into this little equation of his? My lifelong happiness? Hell, the happiness of the person I'm supposed to marry? What do you think? Do you think those things matter to my dad?”
I waited for a few moments before answering. “I'm not sure, I guess.”
He smiled a sardonic smile. “None of it matters to him. All that counts is public perception of this company. That's it.”
“So, what you're trying to say is...that...”
“That I'm going to meet Tracy and Marsha Hendrikson right now because my father wants me to marry Tracy.”
Wow.
“Did I just hear you right? Did you just say that your father is like, forcing you into an arranged marriage?”
“Not quite, but almost.”
“And this woman, Tracy, do you—”