Inevitable Inheritance

by Kade Charest

  When she emerged from Marty’s room, she went in search of Derrick and her promised food. The sitting room he had mentioned was familiar to her—it had been the main place she, Derrick, and Marty had all hung out. As Taylor approached it, she was flooded with hundreds of memories: sleepovers and movie nights and games of hide and seek.

  When she rounded the corner into the space, she was pleased to find that not much had changed. It was still filled with comfy, heavily pillowed couches, the bar in the corner still had a soda tap instead of liquor bottles, and the window at the back of the space that overlooked the garden was still curtain-less.

  Derrick was on the couch closest to the window, and a square sofa table in front of him held two plates of sandwiches. The thick carpet beneath Taylor’s feet masked her steps, and Derrick didn’t notice her presence as he concentrated on his phone, his brow furrowed. When Taylor was a few feet away, he glanced up, and a slow smile spread over his face.

  “Hi,” Taylor said, taking a seat on the chair across from the couch. Her blood was humming at Derrick’s heartbreaking smile, as well as all the unreleased promises from the pool only hours before. She reached for one of the plates, suddenly realizing how hungry she was. “What are you doing?” she asked, angling her chin at Derrick’s phone.

  “I’m googling what a drawing room is.”

  Taylor laughed and realized she had done a lot of that today. She was relaxing back into a life here, a life that, though it had a heavy load, wasn’t apparently as stressful as the constant looking-over-her-shoulder life as Libby had been.

  “Why?” she asked Derrick as she bit into her sandwich.

  “Because when I was bringing you to meet with Todd and Charlie in the drawing room, I realized I had no idea why the hell it was called that,” he told her. “Do you know why it’s called that?” he challenged, shaking his phone at her.

  “It’s the room where visitors are traditionally entertained,” Taylor answered in between bites of her sandwich.

  “How the hell did you know that?” Derrick demanded, looking both irritated and amused.

  “I’m classy,” she informed him. “Now tell me about these slash tags.”

  Derrick rolled his eyes at her. “Hashtags, Taylor,” he said, shaking his head. “Got your phone?”

  Taylor shook her head, her mouth too full to speak.

  “Is it in our room?” he asked, and Taylor went still.

  Their room? No, it wasn’t their room. It was his room; he had grown up there. Her sleeping in there for one night with a ring he had given her under false pretenses did not make it their room.

  “Taylor?” Derrick asked, interrupting all her thoughts. He was staring at her, waiting for an answer, and all she could do was resume chewing and shake her head no. “Marty’s?” he pushed, and Taylor was able to nod at that, still fixated on the “our room” thing. “Okay, I’ll get it. Eat up,” he instructed, and he was off, leaving Taylor to panic about word choice all by herself.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So people use a pound sign and a word after it to catchphrase everyday things they do?” Taylor asked.

  Derrick shrugged. “Pretty much,” he confirmed.

  “Well, that’s dumb.”

  “I didn’t invent it,” Derrick assured her.

  It had been two hours since she had come into the sitting room, and she now had Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter accounts, with the highest available security settings in place. When Derrick explained to her how important this whole social media thing was in today’s business world, she went in search of Preston Corp. across social media platforms and found that, while they had a Facebook page, it sucked. She added hiring a social media person to the to-do list on her phone, something else she had learned about from Derrick.

  Taylor tapped on the Instagram icon, loving the little camera, and scrolled through Derrick’s posts. “Well, for someone who thinks they are dumb, you sure use them a lot, Fletcher,” Taylor told him. “‘Beautiful day #greatview #nofilter #sunset’” she rattled off, reading one of his most recent posts. “Was that necessary?” she asked, shooting him a quizzical look.

  Derrick looked a little embarrassed. “They are addictive, okay?” he defended. “Everybody does it.”

  “And if they all jumped off a bridge, Derrick?”

  He glared at Taylor. “You just wait, I cannot wait until you will be just as guilty.”

  Derrick’s phone started ringing, saving him from further analysis from Taylor. He looked at it and rolled his eyes. “I have to take this,” he apologized, and Taylor just nodded. “Hey, Ren,” he said to the caller, “I was just talking with Taro.” He disappeared down the hall.

  These business calls were something Taylor was going to have to get used to soon. She held her phone in her hand and was wondering how long before it would be a heavy weight, rather than just a fun toy for her to play with on the Internet and social media. Taylor tapped on her Facebook app and scrolled through her newsfeed. The posts were limited since she was only friends with Derrick and had only liked Preston Corp. She had wanted to friend Marty, but then when Derrick explained how she could tag Taylor in things, she decided she wanted to hang on to her privacy for a little bit longer.

  Thinking of Marty made her remember her photog comment when they had been at Derrick’s apartment. Clicking on her Internet compass, Taylor typed “Derrick Fletcher” into the search box and hit go. The second item on the page was a TMZ article titled “Derrick pulls a nutty on photog.” This must be the thing, Taylor mused, and she clicked on it.

  The article had still shots of Derrick in a suit appearing to be coming from the Fletcher office tower. In the first shot he had a small smile, in the second he was glaring, and in the third his fist was in the face of a photographer. Taylor took in the pictures and then scrolled to the paragraph below.

  Leaving his office Tuesday, Derrick Fletcher was the picture of a professional—until one particular paparazzo rubbed him the wrong way. In the video below, you can see Derrick walking and offering smiles to the photographers. When a comment is made by a yet unidentified photographer, Derrick turns into the incredible hulk.

  Scrolling down quickly, Taylor found the box with the play icon waiting for her, and after a quick check over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she played it. Just as the article described, Derrick was walking out of the office building, and immediately the crowd rushed to him. Derrick looked incredibly handsome. He just offered a small smile and a wave and kept walking toward a waiting car. He was about four feet from the car when a man yelled, “Come on, Derrick, take a couple of stills.” But Derrick didn’t stop. As he was about to get into his car, the same voice said, “You’re no fun anymore, Derrick, you’re as big a prude as that little Preston bitch.”

  The movement was so quick it was hard for the cameraman to catch it all, but suddenly Derrick spun and locked a perfect punch into the photographer’s face. The man dropped to the ground like a brick. Derrick then pushed through and into the waiting open door of his car, and it sped away.

  “What are you doing?” Derrick asked from behind her, and Taylor jumped in her seat, sending her phone sailing from her hand.

  “Uh,” was the best answer she could come up with as she looked up at Derrick. “You scared me.”

  Derrick ignored her and walked over to get her phone. “Todd and Charlie just sent me an email with all the information you asked for on all the department heads. We can—”

  “Why did you hit him?”

  Derrick didn’t meet her eyes but continued to pick up her phone and bring it to her. When he handed it over, Taylor grabbed his wrist, forcing him to stay. “Why, Derrick?”

  “Because nobody should talk about you that way,” he said, shifting his gaze to her eyes.

  “They are going to say worse things about me, Derrick. You can’t go getting into fights with everybody because they say stuff.”

  “It’s different now,” he said.

 
“Why?”

  His expression was pained when he looked at her. “Because then, when he said that,” he said shaking her phone at her, “you weren’t here. I couldn’t talk to you or see you and touch you, and all I had was my memory. So when he called you that, when he talked about you, it was like he was in my head and stamping on my memories, and I just couldn’t take it.”

  Taylor stared back at him. “Oh,” she said softly and slid her hand down from his wrist to take her phone. She looked down.

  “I’m going to go print off the stuff Todd sent,” he said and left without another word.

  They pretended the conversation had never happened. Well Derrick did at least, and Taylor just took his lead. They spent the evening going over bios of her directors at Preston Corp. Simon came in and had dinner with them in the sitting room and talked some business with Taylor, going over the absolute basics, and Taylor was pleased that she already knew a lot of the things he was saying.

  When Taylor felt her eyes grow heavy, she was ready to call it a night. “I’m done,” she said, closing the folder of photos.

  “Ready for bed?” Derrick asked, getting up and stretching.

  She nodded as she covered her yawn. “Yup,” she said, pushing herself up. “Where should I go?” she asked him.

  “Uh, our room?” he said like she had just asked if gravity was real.

  There was that “our room” thing again. “Well, I was thinking that maybe after the pool thing,” she said, her cheeks blazing, “that we should put space between us.”

  “Tay, I’m not going to jump you. You said no, and the answer is no,” Derrick said. “Besides, it will look weird if we suddenly start sleeping apart.”

  She felt like a fool when he called her out on her fears, and he was right—people would talk if all of a sudden they decided to sleep in different rooms. And the worst part, which she hated to admit to herself, was that she wanted to be next to him.

  “Okay,” she said softly and walked from the room with Derrick right behind her. Taylor stood beside the door to Derrick’s room and let him go through it first. Derrick moved past Taylor to the door and grabbed her hand as he went, taking her with him over the threshold.

  “Looks like she found you some stuff,” Derrick murmured as he popped the light on.

  Taylor’s jaw dropped as she took in the king size bed piled high with at least thirty shopping bags.

  “Holy shit,” she said as she moved forward and grabbed the note with her name scrawled across it propped on the heap of what must be her new wardrobe.

  You are going to look fabulous! I think these pieces will be a great start for your casual wardrobe. I have your work things being pressed and hemmed. I will get them closeted for you when they are all set.

  Love,

  Marty

  “A start?” Taylor whispered at the note, the stuff on the bed appeared to be enough to clothe her without repeating an outfit until she died. Movement on her left forced Taylor to look away from the note and see Derrick looking in the bags and moving them from the bed to the closet. “What are you doing?”

  “Finding the bed,” Derrick said as he continued his task undeterred.

  “Stop, don’t put it in there. I can’t keep all this!” she yelled shrilly at him.

  Derrick stopped, turning back from the closet to look at her. “Why?”

  “It’s too much! I don’t need all of this! Look at all of this stuff. It could cloth hundreds of people. It’s just too much!” she repeated, her eyes wide.

  “Taylor, you need clothes,” Derrick said as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

  “I need a few pairs of pants and a T-shirt, not all,” Taylor fluttered her hands at the mass of textiles in front of her, “not all this! This is crazy. There are people who don’t have enough to eat, and I have all of this that probably cost the same as a family’s yearly income.”

  Derrick cracked a smile. “You sound like your mom,” he told her.

  “Well, she was a very smart woman,” Taylor hissed at him.

  “And she had four closets full of clothes at one point. We played hide and seek in them,” he reminded her.

  Mist started to cover Taylor’s eyes. She swallowed, trying to push away the lump in her throat. “It’s just too much,” she whispered, staring at the clothes.

  “They are just clothes, Taylor,” Derrick told her.

  Taylor shook her head because it wasn’t just the clothes. It was everything. It was the company and the money and the fake engagement and the memories and the new responsibilities and her trying to do what was best and what she wanted and what she thought everyone who wasn’t there would want her to do.

  “It’s just too much,” Taylor said as she shook her head and dropped her face to her hands. She couldn’t stop the tears now; they had all built up. Just when she thought she had it all under control, something stupid cracked her, and she fell apart. And then she fought it because she knew she couldn’t do that and it just all became too much.

  Her knees wobbled, and just when Taylor was ready to sink to the floor, Derrick came to her and pulled her into him. Quickly Taylor pushed at his chest and huffed in air, trying to stop the tears, but Derrick threaded a hand into her hair and pulled her face to him. “Just let it out, Tay,” he whispered. The sound soothed her, a fact that irritated her, but she chose to ignore it and instead cried into his chest. Derrick stroked her hair back and planted soft kisses on her forehead, each kiss a tranquilizer, relaxing her and pulling her back to the now.

  “I’m sorry,” Taylor murmured into Derrick’s chest.

  “Don’t be,” Derrick insisted, softly planting another kiss on her forehead. “I’m going to help you through this, Taylor.”

  Taylor nodded. She depended on him now, and this was dangerous territory. But with all the other things demanding her to be clear and focused, she knew that how she was with Derrick was going to have to be a gray area. She didn’t want to depend on him, but nobody else understood it all, and he was her outlet. The gray area was not without its risks, like her response to him in the pool, but she was just going to have to keep her body’s response tapped down.

  “Let’s get this stuff in the closet and get in bed,” Derrick suggested. Taylor’s body totally betrayed her at the words. Her hormones were still pissed at being unsatisfied earlier.

  To prevent herself from jumping on him, she nodded and moved away, busying herself with moving the bags. She was exhausted, and tomorrow she had big plans to learn more big business with Simon.

  Focus was the name of the game.

  Derrick was surprised at how quickly Taylor moved the bags after her meltdown. Her pace was amazing, and she even found a bag of sleep clothes. He would have much preferred her sleeping naked, but that information would most likely send her over the edge, so he kept that little nugget to himself.

  She emerged from the bathroom in pajamas, and Derrick went in to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. He splashed his face with cold water and took deep breaths. He could sleep in the chair; maybe that would be best. She had wanted to sleep in separate rooms, and he had fed her the line about it not looking good. Who would really notice, though? He was desperate to have her close, and it was embarrassing. Well, it would be if anyone knew that was what he was doing.

  He would leave it up to her. If she was uncomfortable with him sleeping with her, then he would stay in the chair.

  “Tay,” he said, opening the door, “do you want me to—” Derrick stopped when he found Taylor already asleep in his bed.

  You should sleep in the chair, his conscience told him, but even as it told him this he hurried around the other side of the bed and slid in beside her. His conscience beat him up. Well, I’m not holding her like I want to, he informed it, that has to be something.

  Derrick turned and watched her breathing and sent up thanks again that she was here, safe and perfect, and here. His eyes flickered to the ring on her finger, and he smiled. To her it was just a
thing, but to him it meant something, and to everyone who saw it the ring meant that she was his and they would always be together. Too bad the only person he wanted to believe that wanted it off, badly.

  With one last look at Taylor’s sleeping face, Derrick closed his eyes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Taylor woke and rolled her head. Derrick was lying beside her, his chest exposed and his face at rest. He was gorgeous. Taylor swallowed back feelings, lots of them, and slid quietly from bed. She was hungry and knew she had a huge day ahead, so her first stop was the kitchen. Taylor padded gingerly across the room and silently closed the door.

  The house felt different this morning. It was quiet, but that wasn’t it; there was something else—something didn’t feel right.

  “There you are,” a voice whispered from behind her. Taylor froze. Fear rooted her to the ground. She couldn’t move. She could barely breathe; her breaths coming out in small puffs. “Time to go home,” the voice rasped at her, and she felt a hand on her arm. That got her going.

  “No!” she shouted and jumped back, spinning and facing her uncle, the man everyone thought was dead. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted. He looked like she remembered: crazed, disheveled, and dangerous. “You’re dead, they said you were dead,” she hissed at him, backing up against a wall as he advanced on her.

  “Do I look dead?” he asked in the flat, barely audible voice that sent chills up her spine. “You are coming back with me.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, princess,” he said sarcastically. “You stay at the house, where I can keep an eye on you.” He advanced on her, and Taylor flung herself against the door she had just exited, twisting the knob, but it wouldn’t move.

  She pounded on the heavy wood. “Derrick!” she shouted. “Help me!”

  “No one can help you now,” Cedric whispered, coming up right behind her. “Now I have you where I want you,” he whispered into her ear.

  “No! Don’t touch me!” she screeched, squeezing her eyes shut as her whole body started to shake.