I don’t say the rebuttal, because it’s so obvious: She’s your mother. It doesn’t matter. The more a parent pushes their child away, the more the child seeks to please them. The world’s stripper poles are full of girls whose fathers never loved them, whose mental-short circuit says, If these men love me, it’s like my father is loving me.
But that kind of love is poisoned, a drug a broken person can never swallow enough of.
“But I think it was his fault,” she says. A tear falls. “And instead of seeing my mom’s side, I’ve been defending my dad. I’ve been against her. Hating her instead of hating him.”
I lean forward, speak to Lincoln: “Give us a few more minutes,” I say. “Take a lap around the block.”
Then I return my attention to Caitlin. I think I know what’s coming.
It won’t be easy. Or pleasant.
CHAPTER SIX
ANTHONY
I RAISE THE PRIVACY DIVIDER, then look into Caitlin’s eyes.
“Nothing is one-sided,” I tell her. “I’m sure your mother had her role in the problem. Only you and your brothers are blameless.”
More tears fall. Her voice deepens — less sad and more angry. Her words are no longer helpless. They’re moving toward furious.
“His fucking business,” she practically spits. “Eighty hours a week, sometimes more. And on top of that, he was always traveling. Mom kept our big, fancy house together. I got a brand-new car on my sixteenth birthday and we had locked cabinets full of crystal stemware that we were never even allowed to touch. My dad’s suits were all custom — I bet his closet was worth over a hundred thousand dollars. I never wanted for anything growing up. Never. Unicorns practically grazed on the lawn, but Mom had to do it all alone. We had this perfect life — or at least that’s what I thought. It was Dad’s definition of success, … except that we never saw him. None of us did. He was this benevolent force that kept us in the lap of luxury — but he never made time for us to sit in his.”
Caitlin’s sudden anger seems alarming, but it’s a positive sign. Anger — especially righteous, indignant anger like I’m hearing now — is a nice middle ground between sorrow and change. Depression is passive, helpless almost by definition. Anger is at least action-oriented. People finally act when they get angry enough.
So I’ll fan rather than dampen her fire. “Maybe you should tell him that.”
She looks at me, disarmed. “What?”
“Get out your phone.”
She smirks nervously. “Ha-ha.”
But this isn’t the time to relent. I need to put on my tough-love face and push. “I’m not kidding,” I say, my voice even and stern.
A little laugh. “Um, no.”
“Caitlin,” I say, now boring holes in her with my eyes. “Get out your fucking phone.”
Now she does it, almost nervously. She keeps looking up at me as if I might strike her.
I keep my eyes hard, saying nothing. Now it’s my turn to be strong, for her own good. “Call him.”
“You’re joking.”
“Call your father,” I repeat, “and tell him how pissed off you are.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. And you will.”
Caitlin seems incredibly uncomfortable, but I also know she very much wants to do this. It’s in every inch of her body, in the way she’s holding her iPhone, in the way she’s glancing at me, in the words she’s carefully chosen and continues to choose. Someone witnessing this might think I’m twisting her arm, but I’m not.
I’ve made a name for myself by pushing people to take extreme actions right there in the middle of a seminar crowd, but even my most outrageous advice has turned out to be wise in the long term. My batting average is perfect, because I’m never really guessing or presuming. All I do, when I push people to uncomfortable action, is read them — then force them to do what they already want to do.
“Just … call him? Just like that?”
My own phone vibrates. I ignore it. “Just like that.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Everything you just told me.”
“But …”
“Look at me, Caitlin.”
She does.
“Your father is an asshole. Do you hear me? He’s selfish. He pretends he’s doing what he’s doing for you, but he’s not. He’s doing it for himself, to feel significant.”
“He needed to work. He couldn’t just sit around.”
“Stop backtracking. Stop defending him.”
“I’m not—”
There’s a ping on the Escalade’s intercom system — Lincoln is trying to get my attention. He’s not supposed to do that, and he damn well knows it. The intrusion is coming at a critical time. I tap the Do Not Disturb button almost without looking and return my attention to Caitlin.
She’s all eyes. She knows I’m right, but doesn’t want to believe it. She wants to tell her father off more than anything, but can’t quite do it. He’s her dad, and dads tend to be larger than life to their children. She can’t see him as a person with his own issues. She wants his love; she’s afraid she’ll lose it. She can’t yet understand that their relationship is already broken and won’t be getting better.
Breaking it further — so that it might properly knit — is the only way.
“Caitlin.”
Again, those eyes.
“You know about the Syndicate I belong to. You shouldn’t, but you do.”
She seems surprised, but then she nods. Of course she knows about the secret Syndicate, because Jamie knows, and girlfriends don’t keep secrets.
“Everyone in the Syndicate is a billionaire. Do you know how you get to be a billionaire? You turn everything else off. You devote everything to your work. You cut out everyone in your life so that you can make your existence about the relentless pursuit of monetary success. Do you think those people are happy? Do you think they have fulfilling lives, no matter how successful they are?”
“Aiden seems happy,” she says meekly.
“Aiden has Jamie. He didn’t used to be happy.”
“And Onyx—”
“Has Mia. And I could name others. Hunter Altman, maybe. Caspian White. Daniel Rice. Those few are the exceptions: billionaires who have balanced lives, who think about other people from time to time. Yes, even Caspian.”
Here I smirk just a little. It’s breaking character, but Caspian is a special case. He’s the biggest, most twisted motherfucker any one of us has met, but ever since Aurora he’s grown a soft spot. It’s almost adorable. And it’s funny how furious he gets when anyone points it out.
“What do all of them have in common, Caitlin?”
She should know this. I talked about it in yesterday’s Fate In Your Palm session, just not in the same way. But all my fans have heard some version of my Evil Fucks speech.
“They found love.”
I nod. “Love changed them. Love changes everything.”
I think she’ll take my point, but instead she says something that totally disarms me. “What about you? You’re a billionaire who’s not evil, and you don’t have anyone.”
I nearly stutter, but the answer comes easily enough: “It’s different for me. I’m happy already. I don’t need love.”
She cocks her head just a little.
“I don’t need it to be fulfilled. I’m fulfilled without it — without that kind of thing, I mean. Or more accurately: I have love. From my parents. From the people who come to my events and listen to my programs in their cars, then change their lives and tell me how my words helped to shape them. And from Jamie.”
“But—”
I cut her off. This isn’t about me or my friends. It’s about her. “My point is that if you approach your father with love — with anger, yes, but with love behind it — you can’t make him less happy than he already is. You’ll hurt him some, but he’s not an idiot; he knows he hurt you first. You’re not telling him anything he doesn’t know. You’re just giving him a r
eason to stop long enough to finally pay attention. The family’s bills are paid; so he can back off the pursuit of money a bit. It’s time to stop being so obsessed. It’s time to stop being so selfish, and to let love change him. To change both of you. All of you.”
“But what if he gets mad at me?”
“If he gets mad instead of thinking how he’s neglected all the people he’s supposed to love, then at least you’ll know exactly how big of a selfish son of a bitch he really is.”
My phone buzzes again. It’s all I can do not to open the window and throw the damn thing into the street.
“It scares me, Anthony.”
And it’s true. I can see it on her face — but beneath the fear lie the answers Caitlin so deeply deserves. She needs to stop trying not to offend her father. She needs to face him — then start healing, with or without him.
“Then you’d better do it quick.”
Caitlin gives me a final helpless look, then dials.
And I sit back and watch as her impotence disappears in the shadow of her strength.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANTHONY
IT’S NOT UNTIL I LOWER the privacy divider and ask Lincoln to take us back to the hotel that reality finally returns and prompts me to check the time. Until now, it honestly hasn’t occurred to me — not the time, not any awareness of time, not the fact that others might be counting on me. All of my attention was on Caitlin facing her fears and confronting her father.
It unfolded quickly. Of course he hadn’t been sleeping; men like him who focus on their work to the exclusion of a fulfilling personal life tend to pack the evening hours with sleep as their lowest priority. It sounded like she caught him at his desk, and for thirty seconds she apologized for bothering him. Then shit got real, and happened fast.
She cried. She yelled. By the end, I think her father might have been crying, too. They left things as well as could be expected. They’re going to lunch once she gets home, and I’m sure things will improve. He’s had his Ebenezer Scrooge moment. I’ve seen this enough to know that Caitlin did the right thing, and that her family will benefit immensely.
Watching the moment unfold was hypnotizing. I lost all sense of anything outside our backseat bubble.
Only now am I seeing that twenty-five minutes have passed since I told Lincoln to circle the block. Only now am I thinking to slip my phone from my pocket to see the disregarded texts.
Only now am I realizing, with no small amount of guilt, that I’ve completely missed my appointment for drinks with Erica.
It’s 10:20. I was supposed to meet her at 10 p.m., and we only had half an hour before my phone call. There’s no way to make it now, and I’ve got enough respect for Erica to not presume and skip the drinks so I can take her straight to bed. There’s a good chance she’d be okay with that, but I can’t allow it.
What I told Caitlin about my billionaire friends — if that’s what they are — is true: before Hunter and the others found their wives or steady girlfriends, they were miserable, cruel, selfish assholes. They treated sex as a commodity and women as disposable things. This slope with my single-serving ladies is slippery, so I’m careful to choose women without daddy issues or other strong insecurities, and I’m mindful to always treat them right, get to know them at least a little, and never take advantage.
They know what our encounters are, and never expect more. But the whole thing is a gray area; the day I decide that niceties can be skipped is the day I start sliding from gray into black.
I won’t do it. It’s just not right.
Fortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve blacked out my phone and gone rogue. Judging by the timeline of texts that have been hitting me while Caitlin faced her father, Tracy and Perry went against my wishes and called Amber in to help. Amber, with her trademark tact, drove to the hotel, found Erica, and ended our pending encounter before it began.
Erica isn’t angry, jilted, or even disappointed. I know this because I’ve got texts from her, too, wishing me the very best of luck as she heads back home, and thanking me profusely for all I’ve done for her and the world.
It’s so much goodwill, I’m almost convinced that I haven’t been an asshole.
Caitlin is looking at me as the Escalade pulls under the awning. She must see something on my face as I errantly stow the phone back in my pocket.
“I held you up. Your people were acting like you had to hurry.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“You missed her, didn’t you? Oh, Anthony. I’m so sorry.”
Nobody said anything about specifics … and for sure nobody mentioned my appointment’s gender. Yet Caitlin said “her” without flinching.
I fight a twinge I wasn’t expecting. That one word tells me that Jamie might have told Caitlin how I handle the void in my life — the same way I handle everything else: as efficiently as possible.
I’m not ashamed of my transactional sex life, but suddenly I’m sorry Caitlin knows, and even sorrier that she’s apologizing for ruining my booty call. Strangely, I don’t miss it. If I was still in time for Erica, the whole thing suddenly feels like it might have been awkward. Despite doing this every night during tours, I get the idea that tonight might have been odd and unfitting.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
“But—”
“I’m serious, Caitlin. Please don’t worry about it.”
She smiles tenderly. Her head cocks a little like she’s sorry for me — another thing I’m not remotely used to seeing. “It was very sweet of you to give me so much time.”
“I couldn’t just leave you. You were hurting.”
“I’m hardly the only person hurting.”
“Yes. But your happiness matters to me.” Then I go on, wondering why I’ve said that. Everyone’s happiness matters. That’s why I do what I do for a living. “Because you’re Jamie’s friend.”
“Well,” she says, as Lincoln circles around and opens her door, “at least the time wasn’t wasted. You helped me in a way I guess I didn’t know I needed. A lot.”
“Do you feel better?”
She nods. “I do. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
We look at each other for a few moments. There’s palpable quiet between us. She’s stepped out of the car, but she has yet to leave. I’ve let her off, but I’m still sort of watching her as she refuses to step away, as though intuiting that our conversation isn’t yet finished.
Since my date is off, my lips want to say, would you like to get a drink with me?
But that would be a terrible idea. Right now Caitlin seems to be inviting my invitation, making it clear she’s available if I ask. But for that reason alone, I can’t ask.
So far I’ve helped her, but if we sit down for drinks it will be something different — something I’m very interested in — but something I can’t and shouldn’t do, for a hundred reasons.
She’s Jamie’s friend.
She’s too young for me. Not young enough to be my daughter, but young enough.
She has stars in her eyes thanks to the last 45 minutes. Moving forward would be taking advantage.
And most of all, anything with Caitlin couldn’t be temporary. I couldn’t sit with her, or — and this makes my heart skip — be with her for a few hours, and expect a return to work the next day. I don’t have time for what “something with Caitlin” would deserve to be.
I have my work. And my work makes me happy.
Caitlin can’t be disposable, and I can’t afford anything that isn’t disposable.
But.
Maybe just one drink?
I lean forward to suggest it … and my phone buzzes. It’s Amber. I’m going to need to threaten to fire her again if she doesn’t stop working and go home to her future husband.
She’s sent me a reminder:
My meeting with Alexa Mathis is in ten minutes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAITLIN
SAYING GOODNIGHT TO ANTHONY IS almost im
possible. He’s kind of a superman, impossible to resist. His charisma, intelligence, and ability to see right into a person’s soul is what’s earned him his fame. It doesn’t hurt that he’s incredibly handsome and in fantastic shape. Everyone he talks to as he moves through his enormous live events leaves the encounter uplifted, inspired, and feeling like Anthony Ross is their personal best friend.
He has a way of focusing entirely on whoever he’s with, in a way that makes them feel like the center of the universe — or his universe, at least.
That alone makes everyone fall in love with him, but the little girl inside me wants to argue that I’m special. I know Anthony personally. I’ve run around his various homes many times. He’s always been my friend’s hot dad — a DILF, as it were. I’ve made no secret of my enormous crush to Jamie, and it’s always been a joke between us.
But tonight? Well, tonight was something else.
Something new, different, and exciting.
It didn’t matter that I spent most of our time crying and yelling, wrestling a storm of unpleasant emotions. The connection mattered, as did the genuine sense that, for once, my crush might have seen me as something other than the dumb girl skipping around with his surrogate daughter.
But just … forget it.
After his phone buzzes with yet another reminder about something I’ve already kept him from for far too long, I nod a reluctant goodbye and enter the hotel.
Then I slip my phone out of my pocket and call Jamie.
“Hello?”
She doesn’t sound sleepy, of course. I’m in Charlotte, but on the west coast it isn’t even 7:30. I’m not sure where Jamie is right now — she ferries between Seattle, where she lives with Aiden, and San Diego, where the Anthony Ross Foundation has its headquarters — but either way she’s probably just had dinner.
And, if she’s answering her phone, Aiden hasn’t yet called her to bed for dessert.
“Am I interrupting anything important?”
The Guru (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 6) Page 4