It’s not a suggestion. It may appear flirty, my foot may graze his crotch, but the new position allows me more room and greater extension of my body in the car. I like it. He knows I like it.
I’ve fought sleep and sleep has fought me so many times that I easily remain awake throughout the car ride. After parking, Ryke unbuckles Sulli and carries our sleeping daughter in his arms. My heart has an extra beat watching them together, and I unlock the front door, flipping on the lights to our cottage.
Coconut greets us by the door, tail wagging excitedly. She first looks up at Sulli, as though ensuring she’s okay. I whisper that she is, and Coconut nudges my cheek with her nose.
“I missed you too, Coconut.” I scratch her neck and kiss her. Then I pat her belly and run with her towards the backdoor. I let her out to pee, the stairs creaking as Ryke brings Sulli to bed. And then I see something.
In the kitchen close by. I leave the backdoor open, drifting towards the counter beside the oven. Ryke. I instantly start crying, my fingers to my lips.
He baked a chocolate cake. Yellow icing spells out: we fucking love you.
I remember what Frederick said about people having compassion for other people. Ryke knew I was upset, and he meant to comfort me. I picture Sulli on the counter, helping with yellow icing, staining her fingers. I bet she found the beaded keychain in a kitchen bowl—where we store knickknacks and other junk.
Dazedly, I wipe at my wet cheeks. Coconut bounds back inside, and I shut the door, put a slice of cake in a bowl, and trek upstairs. My white husky follows at my heels. I check on Sulli, fast asleep (no Ryke), and then I slip into my bedroom.
Ryke situates cable-knit blankets onto a hammock, strung in our wide window nook. Our rustic bedframe is made out of wooden logs, bark and all, but when I have trouble sleeping, which is rare these days, I usually migrate to the hammock.
The moonlight illuminates the nook, almost like it could exist outside under the stars. I wander closer, eating cake. Coconut hops onto the bed, lying down at the foot, paws beneath her chin. She’s alert and watchful.
I know what I want to tell Ryke, but I can’t break the sweet quiet. The serenity he’s created tonight warms me like a sun that sweeps the dock of a lake. I sidle next to my husband, my hands occupied by spoon and bowl. Cake comes first.
He watches me eat a giant spoonful, and a smile peeks at his lips. His fingers descend to my shorts. He unbuttons and unzips me. I step out of them. Watching him. I love watching Ryke Meadows. His hands disappear beneath my tank top.
He unclips my bra. It’s a rusty skill since I don’t wear them often, but he succeeds. I pass him the bowl, needing to pull my tank top and my bra off my arms. Now just in cotton panties, he returns my bowl to me, and he unbuttons his jeans and takes off his shirt.
In seconds, he’s left in dark green boxer-briefs.
Ryke Meadows is thirty.
I’m twenty-three, and I fawn over his broody demeanor, his caring personality, and his compassion before I do his supremely defined muscles and rock climber body.
My wolf.
I climb onto the hammock, stretching out, and he climbs right beside me. I drape my arm and leg across his chest, pressed against him, the blankets enveloping me. I rest my head on his shoulder, able to finish my cake in a couple more bites. I offer only a spoonful to Ryke since he’s not crazy about super sweet foods, but he’ll eat pretty much anything.
The hammock brings security, but no more so than my husband. Tucked together, protected. Bowl set aside, he pulls the blankets up to my shoulders. Exhaustion tries to tug my eyelids closed.
I look up at him.
He looks down at me.
And I whisper, “I fucking love you too.”
His heart pounds against my heart. He kisses me with that skilled tongue, and slowly, safely, I begin to drift to sleep with love all around me.
[ 18 ]
March 2020
Hale Co. Offices
Philadelphia
ROSE COBALT
I’d like to return to when I was just ten, and there was this loathsome neighbor boy who tagged along on all family trips. We were left in the care of our nannies one week in England while our fathers dealt with business and my mother vacationed with her friends.
It stormed all seven days. We stayed indoors and played hide-and-go-seek in this old manor. The neighbor boy drew closer to my closest sister. His laughter became hers. Her smile became his.
I wanted to preserve our sisterhood, but he wedged himself in our lives. He could never be a Calloway sister.
He was just the loathsome neighbor boy. He’d be gone in a year or two years or three.
Couldn’t he see?
I held more animosity towards him than I realized. I even tried to forget the day I hid inside a wardrobe between musty overcoats and old laced shawls. I waited quietly for someone else to be found. It wasn’t long until I heard slow footsteps.
Then the wardrobe door creaked and swung open. I scrunched my legs to my chest, but the seeker pushed clothes aside.
The neighbor boy found me.
I stared right at Loren Hale.
And I waited for him to claim victory and laugh at my loss. As our eyes latched, as he saw my hate, he wore remorse like he understood how much my sisters meant to me and how much he’d take away. Lily would become his best friend over me. In time.
His gaze dropped.
He shut the wardrobe door and let me stay hidden. He kept searching.
I’d like to return to when I was just ten and tell myself that this loathsome neighbor boy would always be a part of our lives.
Loren Hale would always be one of us.
Maybe not a Calloway sister, but the closest thing to one.
“Take a seat, Mr. Hale, Mrs. Cobalt.”
“No,” we say in unison to one of the fourteen Hale Co. board members. Loren and I stand side-by-side at the head of the conference table, a red megaphone in his hand. We’ve practiced how this unnecessary meeting will pan out, and neither of us will shelve our battle armor and weapons for this fight.
It means too much to me, and I’ve learned in the past three years that it’s meant equally to Loren.
Loren stares down the fourteen shareholders. “I’d never manage the board. It’s not part of my job description, I get that, but you can’t manage management.”
Of course I understand what we’re dealing with here. I don’t have to be the CEO of Hale Co. to understand the corporate hierarchy. The CEO oversees management: the Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Communications Officer, etc.
The board of directors is an entirely separate entity, full of shareholders who should be in favor of the company’s best interests, not their own. Seeing as how Jonathan Hale opened the door and invited in these rotten shareholders, Hale Co. is in need of house cleaning, but you can’t just dismiss a director.
You have to put up with them.
Loren has done his best, and I can see in his angered amber eyes that he’s about to do even better.
Daniel Perth rises at the other end of the table, unfurling file folder after file folder as evidence to our three-year revamp of this company.
I’m proud of every single folder.
After he dredges up more, the towering stack hiding the man beside him, Daniel says, “These are all the women you’ve hired to this company.”
I smile triumphantly.
Loren says, “I’m the CEO, and this is part of management. I have the authority to hire and fire anyone I goddamn want.”
The board lets out disgruntled noises. The four women who serve on the board stay quiet.
I snap, “What’s the issue? They were all qualified—”
“Caitlin Brown,” Daniel cuts me off, shaking a folder like it’s his sole piece of evidence. “She has no experience to work in the marketing division, yet Theo Balentine hired her and seven more.”
Loren promoted Theo to Chief Marketing Of
ficer just last year. He went from Mark’s assistant to taking Mark’s job, and he agreed to help us in our mission.
“Todd Wentworth,” I rebut. “He has no experience for an entry-level position in sales, and yet he was hired five years ago.” I list off ten more names until the men around the table grow red-faced with agitation. “Hale Co. has been hiring white males based on potential, not experience, and just as Loren starts diversifying this company with more women and women of color, you start throwing tantrums.”
Someone on the board—I should name his name but my rage has stabbed holes into it—pipes up with, “We’re trying to stop the company from turning into a sorority.”
I see red, gritting my teeth with widened hostile eyes. I turn my face away from the board and growl to Loren, “I’m going to bludgeon him slowly and set his ugly hair on fire.” Violence is not the answer, Rose. My hyperboles still feel good. I know I can’t give these men a reason to generalize women as unpredictable and unruly and whatever else they want to attach to me, to then attach to them.
Loren doesn’t have time to respond to my fury.
Daniel Perth adds, “We’re trying to direct you to a more profitable avenue. We don’t like huge risks.”
Loren turns on his megaphone and uses it wisely. “Bullshit.” His loud voice booms through the conference room. “Can you hear me now?”
I raise my chin while his glare slaughters their intolerance.
“Let me explain then.” Daniel is still on the offensive, but so are we. “You’ve used company money to add in a daycare for the children of…twenty female employees. Not to mention, you hired dozens of women who could potentially need maternity leave.”
At this, the entire board, including the four women, stare right at my baby bump, incredibly visible in my high-collared black dress.
My due date is next month.
“If they were men, they’d need paternity leave,” I rebut.
Daniel shakes his head. “Not as long.”
It can’t be about money. Why do I know this? Before Loren Hale became CEO, women were being paid significantly less than men who were in the same positions. Theoretically, they would’ve hired more women in the past to keep costs down.
But they didn’t.
Loren says out of the megaphone, “Everyone we hired is driven and motivated to do a damn good job, regardless of gender or race—”
“This isn’t the time for change—”
“Cut me off again, Millard, and we’re going to have a bigger problem than this goddamn meeting,” Loren says with the utmost confidence. He can hold his own in front of these men.
I talked with Connor about this meeting on the phone, about an hour before it started. I was in the bathroom, and he told me, “I believe Lo can do even more than we all think.”
The Loren Hale today is a stark difference than the one years ago. It’s his self-confidence that will annihilate their contempt. I can’t restrain my smile.
I whisper to Loren, “Slay them.”
Loren speaks into his megaphone. “Anyone else?” Everyone is quiet for a second, and then he spins to me. “Rose?”
My turn.
I take one step forward and brush my hair off my shoulder. “The company’s job is to reach out to the market. Our market is mostly female. More women buy Hale Co.’s baby products than men. I was tired of seeing men being hired as interns, and I brought this fact up to the CEO three years ago. He made sure that in ten years’ time, this company will look less like a WASP all-boys boarding school and more like the world it serves. If you’re upset with this, then…” I think about what Connor would say. “…then maybe you should reflect on your own choices and try to understand this one.”
That was fairly calm for me.
I let out a breath, knowing it’s not over here.
I have enough privilege to reach executive levels in companies, regardless of my knowledge and aptitude. I can use my power at Hale Co. to change the demographic of their employees, but I can’t use it to close the gap of inequality in other jobs around the world. Not in this way.
It’s a start somewhere.
Every day, I know how fortunate I am. To be able to work at home and split time with a husband who can do the same. I wanted to hire women who didn’t have the same luxuries I do. Who needed the benefits of daycare in order to work in a billion-dollar company. They shouldn’t miss out on these opportunities for that reason.
Daniel sits in his leather chair and cups his hands together. He’s in his early forties, an aquiline nose and no-nonsense eyes like most of the board. I’ve heard Lily call his brown hair “fluffy” which to me just means that he combed out his natural curls.
“I’ve always been blunt with you,” Daniel tells Loren. “We didn’t call this meeting for shits and giggles.”
“And you think I did?” Loren says so spitefully. A chill snakes down my neck. “You want to cut out all the bullshit, Daniel, here’s the goddamn truth. You think I didn’t hire the best for the job, but I did. Yes, you have a right to question management. But you don’t have a right to tell me who to hire. So really, me even letting you have this meeting was kind on my part.”
Slay them.
Lo sets his megaphone on the table. “I’m the CEO of Hale Co. and I’m not asking you to start treating me like it. I’m telling you to. There’s been miscommunication between the board and management since I’ve been here. It’d serve the company’s best interest for every director to instate me as chairman of the board.”
My jaw nearly unhinges.
Loren Hale just went rogue.
The fourteen shareholders look caught off guard as they mutter between one another. So Lo takes a moment to whisper to me, “What, Queen Rose? You didn’t think I had it in me?”
I narrow my eyes at him. Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t have time to ask though because the shareholders quiet down.
To any of the doubters, Lo adds, “The president of the board is supposed to be the face of the company. I’m already the face of Hale Co., so whatever differences we’ve had, you know this makes the most sense. I’ll have an easier time working with you. You’ll have an easier time working with me.”
“Let’s take a vote,” Daniel says, here and now.
It all happens so fast that my neck stiffens and eyes continue to grow. I’m scared that they’ll reject Loren. If he’s afraid too, I can’t tell.
“All in favor of instating Loren Hale as the chairman of the board instead of Earl Pennington, raise your hand.” Earl is an older gentleman who’s apparently been there since Jonathan started the company. He pushes up his spectacles, and he’s the first to raise his hand.
All thirteen follow suit.
Most everything is a fog until Loren and I exit the boardroom together. Before I congratulate him, I say with frost, “Why didn’t you tell me?” We stop by his office door. I’m about to add we’re a team, Loren, but the sentiment lingers beneath the way he stares at me and the way I stare back at him.
“Because Rose,” he says, “I wanted to see the look on your face when they all raised their hands.” He wasn’t scared then. He believed in himself the whole time.
“And how did I look?” I bristle as I try to recall my features.
“Weepy.” He feigns confusion. “I didn’t know dragons could cry.”
I scoff. “I did not cry.” I pat my eye, just to see if there are leftover tears…my eyelashes are wet.
Loren touches his chest. “I would cry over me too.” He flashes a dry half-smile. “It’s something you have in common with your sister.”
“I revoke your congratulations.”
“What congratulations?” He lets out a short laugh, and I realize I never congratulated him aloud. “Christ, Rose, you have to lay off the demon blood. Drinking that shit makes you weird.”
It’s so easy to hate Loren Hale.
And it can be just as easy to love him.
He smiles an actual smile this time, nothing half-a
ssed or full of scorn.
Loren might not have been a Calloway sister, but he’s been more of a brother to me than any other man in my life.
[ 19 ]
April 2020
The Cobalt Estate
Philadelphia
CONNOR COBALT
“You really want to play with fate like this, Rose?”
My wife is seated at the other end of our long mahogany dining table, a spiral-bound notebook in her clutch. On a rare Tuesday, we’re both home together by noon. Rose didn’t want her water to break in the Hale Co. building where people might tip the media, and she’s too close to her due date to take the risk.
“We already play with fate every day. What’s once more?”
“I believe that fate likes Mommy best of all.”
That’s clearly not me.
The dreamy and assured voice comes from our four-year-old daughter, hoisted on a booster seat near the middle of the table. Rose helped Jane dress this morning into a pastel green tutu and a zebra-print shirt. Our daughter even picked out her favorite cat-ear headband, one coated with gold glitter.
I remember when she couldn’t even speak, and now here we are.
“Fate has good taste then,” I tell Jane, “but fate would have better taste if it liked you most of all.”
Jane smiles big and looks across the table. “I want fate to love Charlie and Beckett too.” Her two-year-old brothers are in their own booster seats, eating mac-and-cheese with their spoons. Beckett picks out the peas. “And Eliot,” Jane notes like she would never forget her other brother.
I hold the eleven-month baby in my arms. Eliot naps against my shoulder, wearing a blue onesie with a tiny crown stitched on front. Gifted by Daisy.
“It’s decided,” Rose decrees, “fate loves us all. With this, we should begin the ceremony.”
I adore her formality. My lips rise as Rose stands from her chair.
“Jane, when you’re ready, just set down your spoon, and we’ll begin.”
Jane scoops up a noodle. “Before we start, I…I think we should tell Charlie and Beckett…” Her noodle drops on her lap. “Oopsie noody come here.” She retrieves the noodle from her tutu, and Rose has trouble not smiling.
Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) Page 23