by Nella Tyler
“Fine, but I’m going to try and talk you out of it,” Tyler warned me.
And he did. We went to the place we’d always gone for our suits, a private company that only sold to people who could afford it. The man there knew my measurements, and we got started on finding a suit for the occasion. Despite being raised in an environment where nothing mattered more than a well-fitted suit, I knew surprisingly little about fashion, though I held appreciation for the art.
“If you get married to Tiffany, you might be miserable and unhappy,” Tyler offered as his first point against it.
“I’ll be miserable and unhappy alone,” I replied.
“You might still have someone out there who’s right for you.”
“Everyone here cares about money and business. I can’t leave here. Ergo, I’m probably not going to find anyone who’s right for me, and I might as well make an intelligent business decision.” I winced as the man fitting the suit to me pricked my arm.
“Tiffany DuBois is the worst.”
“Statistically unlikely.”
“She’s going to drive you crazy.”
“Also unlikely. I can devote my life to work and never worry about it.”
Tyler sat back in his seat and glared at me. I sat next to him while the man who’d finalized my measurements went off to find a different suit—the one we’d been fitting for was apparently too formal. I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the one he brought out.
“He’ll die either way,” Tyler pointed out.
I raised my eyebrows at him. That seemed a bit cruel to say, even if it was true. “Come on, man.”
“It’s true. He’ll die either way, and he’s not leaving the company to me.” Tyler folded his arms. “You might as well not get married. He’ll still die, and he’ll still leave the company to you, and you’ll at least be a little less insane for it.”
“But the company won’t be as good as it could be,” I reminded him. “This DuBois selection isn’t random. He wants to create an alliance and strengthen the company after he’s gone.”
“So what? Screw the company.” Tyler rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter whether it does well. What does any of that matter if you’re left upset in a dead-end marriage?”
I shook my head. “It’s bigger than us, Tyler.” I knew he wouldn’t believe me and that there wasn’t any talking sense into Tyler in the first place, so I decided to let the topic drop where it was. True, I was likely to end up unhappy. But if I left my position, hundreds of employees would be at risk. An entire business would be at risk of crumbling. Locally, that could be a big deal for a lot of people who’d done business through our investment system.
It was selfish and irresponsible to ask for my own peace of mind when the path I had to take was so clearly carved in front of me.
Tyler grumbled something under his breath, and we decided on a suit for Monday. While it was being properly bagged up, my phone went off in my pocket. It was an email from my father, detailing where exactly I was supposed to meet Tiffany DuBois, and exactly when, with a reminder of how important the whole ordeal was. Not in so many words, though. The exact email read: “Dinner at 8. The Amelie. Don’t forget what’s at stake.”
I couldn’t help but scoff. My own personal future, and the man couldn’t be bothered to pick up a phone.
Chapter Four
Briella
“Briella? Briella, good morning.”
I squinted at the sunlight that stuck itself through my eyelids and resisted the urge to pull the sheets up over my head. For a second, I forgot where I was and nearly panicked. Then I remembered: I was in my room at my home. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
My father stood in the doorway. He was a tall man, bulky, too, and some people who didn’t know him found him intimidating. I knew, though, that Heyward Green was arguably the kindest person on the planet. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a person, and he was smiling at me now from the doorway.
I smiled back. “Morning, Dad.” I ran a hand through my hair and winced at the tangles.
“Glad to see you awake. I made breakfast for us. It’s ready whenever you are,” he told me, still smiling. He went on his way to let me have some time to change and mentally assess myself.
I decided against thinking too much about where I was and why. I’d done enough crying the night before when I’d unpacked all my things and realized that there was no going back. If I went back, I worried Jason might actually kill me. As it was, I was worried he would show up here, demanding answers.
So, it wouldn’t do to think too much. I pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants and a T-shirt from my old high school and decided to shove my hair up into a ponytail. At least it was decidedly soft today; it was usually soft, especially compared with the coarse texture of my father’s hair, but today it felt especially soft. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and then went out into the kitchen.
It smelled like home. The sight of the kitchen I’d grown up in made my heart swell up, and I felt all at once like I was 18 again, still thinking about where I wanted to go to college. My dad sat at the table with a small dish of eggs, another with fruit, and another with bacon in front of him.
“Thank you so much, Dad,” I said. I sat down across from him and started serving myself.
“I made some hot water in the kettle. We have a few tea bags from last time you were here; I hope they’re the right kind.” Dad pointed to the tea kettle resting on an iron piece on the table and a few bags of breakfast tea sitting next to it.
I grinned, glad that he’d remembered that I wasn’t a coffee drinker. I preferred tea enormously to coffee; he liked to joke that drinking black coffee was how his skin had gotten so dark, and that mine was lighter because I drank tea instead.
“I’m glad you called me last night,” Dad said.
I looked up from my plate and smiled a little. I really felt like cringing; the night’s events hadn’t totally sunken in yet. I partly expected to get back in my car and drive back to my apartment like nothing had happened. “Of course. I was kind of out of options.”
“I’ve got half a mind to drive over there myself,” Dad grumbled.
“Dad,” I interjected. “Come on.” I’d lied to him a little; I hadn’t told him that Jason hit me out of fear that Dad would press charges and the whole thing would get blown up. I’d just told him that he yelled at me and made my life a living hell. And those things were true, to be fair.
“I won’t,” Dad said. “But I’d like to.” He took a drink of coffee. “Still, I’m glad you came over here. Got away from all that. It takes a lot of guts.”
I wasn’t so sure. It might have been braver to stay behind and try to fix the relationship. “Thanks. I guess it just doesn’t feel like it yet.” A piece of hair fell out of my ponytail and I tucked it behind my ear. “I’m just lucky I had you to call. And that you let me in at such short notice.”
“Of course I did!” Dad looked almost insulted. “You’re my daughter, Briella. You’ll always be welcome in this house.”
I smiled at the reassurance. “I know. I just don’t want you to think… I don’t know, I just hope you know that I’m not planning on staying here forever. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Please,” he said. “You’re getting yourself on your feet right now. I’ve still got your bedroom here, and more food than I can eat. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re welcome here as long as you need to stay.”
“It won’t be long,” I promised him. I intended on getting out of his hair as soon as I could.
“As long as you need,” he reiterated. When I finished eating, I took the dishes to the sink to do them—that had always been the system at home. Whoever cooked didn’t have to do dishes. It made me think of how I cooked and did dishes for Jason. Every now and again he’d scrub a toilet badly enough that I’d have to do it again anyway.
While I was cleaning dishes, I bent over to grab a plate and my head throbbed again. I cursed and stood
back up, touching the bruise lightly even though I knew that it would hurt. I thought that I’d not been noticed, but my dad stopped putting away dry plates.
He skipped the pleasantries and asked the question straight out of the gate. “He didn’t lay a hand on you, did he?” His voice was low, and I wondered, for a moment, what he would do if I told him that he had. Dad was the mildest person I knew, but something in his stature looked murderous in that second, and I feared prolonging anything with Jason. Justice, revenge, it all meant having to look at his face again.
“No. I hit my head on the top bunk.” I referenced the bunk bed in my room. I’d insisted on it as a child, despite not having any other siblings, because I liked to sleep on the top bunk. Now I slept on the bottom bunk and the top just stayed there. When Nina came over, sometimes she used it.
He didn’t look like he believed me. “You should call the police,” he said. “If he—”
“Well, he didn’t,” I insisted. And really, Jason hadn’t beaten me. Sure, he’d lashed out at me, but that wasn’t a real beating. Real beatings were different. I’d seen movies where women had been beaten nearly senseless by their spouses or boyfriends—this wasn’t like that. I couldn’t send Jason to jail for a long time because of an angry burst.
Dad relaxed a little. “If you say so,” he said. His face showed disbelief, though, and I sighed and went back to washing a particularly difficult pan. For a moment, everything was quiet, and then there was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it!” Dad called. He opened the door, and I heard him cheerfully greet someone.
“Where is she? Is she awake?” I could hear Nina’s voice in the entryway to the house. I grinned and set the pan I was working on down.
“Yeah. Before noon, too. Can you believe it?” Dad laughed.
“Honestly, you should have been there for college. She just slept all weekend.”
“I was working during the week!” I called in an effort to defend myself. I walked out into the entryway and saw my best friend standing there with a grin on her face.
“Hey, girl.” Nina pulled me into a hug and I instantly felt better. For as scrawny as she was, she gave incredible hugs, and since she was a little shorter than me, I tended to get a head full of hair in those hugs, too.
“Hey.” I hugged her back and smiled at my dad. “Did you call her?”
“Nah, she just showed up. I think you’re telepathically connected or something,” Dad said.
“You did so call me!” Nina protested.
“Dad!” I chided my father for calling Nina as though I needed some sort of emotional response team. I was glad he had, because in all honestly, I did need an emotional response team, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to protest the means.
“I didn’t do anything of the sort.” Dad had a twinkle in his eye. He picked his briefcase up off the table by the door. “And I have to go to work now. Talk to you later.”
“Nuh-uh! You do not get to leave after you make me out to be some kind of stalker!” Nina was grinning, too.
Dad shrugged and put his hands up in surrender before ducking out the door. When he closed it behind him, Nina turned to look at me.
“For what it’s worth, I believe you,” I offered.
She nearly strangled me in another hug. “Jesus Christ, Briella, I’ve been worried about you. What the hell happened?”
We walked into the kitchen, and I poured myself another cup of tea. “Just… well, what did Dad tell you?” I offered Nina a cup, and she shook her head. We sat down at the table.
“He told me that you had left Jason and that you were staying here for a little while. That’s literally all he told me. To be honest, I’m kind of pissed I had to hear it through your dad,” Nina said.
“Well, I was… I was scared.”
“I’m not mad. Just, you know. I wish I could have helped.”
“You would have beaten Jason to death,” I pointed out.
“What’s your point?” She looked almost a little too deadpan before offering me a small smile. “I’m sort of kidding. I didn’t expect you to leave so soon. I’m really proud.”
“Really? I feel… I don’t know. Like I could have stuck it out.” I took a sip of tea.
“Bullshit. He was a shitty guy, and didn’t deserve you.” She raised her eyebrows at me and gave me a sufficiently terrifying stare with her golden eyes. “I’ve been trying to get you to ditch his ass for years.”
I groaned. “I know. Please don’t give me an I-told-you-so.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “Now not, anyway. I really am glad you moved out of that shithole. You can get on with your life now.”
“I’m not so sure,” I admitted. “It feels kinda the opposite.”
“How so? I’d think you’d feel more dead-ended with Jason than here.”
“Yeah, but… I don’t know. I feel like I wasted three years of my life. I did everything for him, for us, and now it’s… it’s all gone. Wasted time.” I shook my head. “I’m 24, and I have a sort of part-time job and nowhere to live.”
“I don’t think it’s wasted time. You learned something valuable, right?”
“Maybe. But I can’t see it that way now. Maybe I will in a little while.” I set my mug down and sighed again. “Shit, I’m back at my dad’s house. I love it here, don’t get me wrong, but…isn’t this the most pathetic thing to do?”
Nina was quiet for a second, and then she snapped her fingers. “I know what you need. You need a vacation.”
“What?” I couldn’t imagine a worse idea.
“Think about it, Bri! You can’t see why leaving was such a good idea not because of time, but because of where you are. What you need is to fucking forget about him for a little while. You need a new perspective. If you’re gonna mope, you should at least do it somewhere nice,” Nina said.
I couldn’t pretend like it wouldn’t be nice to just cancel my plans for a little while and try to forget I had a life to crumble. “It sounds nice,” I admitted. “Where do you have planned?”
“My parents have this coupon for a free hotel stay at any Best Inns,” she said. “Why not Florida? It’s a long way away, it’s got a beach, plenty of bars. We can go live it up for a few days and then you can come back and worry about all the little shit.”
I bounced my tea bag in my mug. I had saved up a bunch of money to pay rent, and I wouldn’t need to this month. I’d been to Florida before, and I loved the place dearly; the beach was something I couldn’t top. I didn’t have any plans the next week, either, so really my excuses were limited. “Shit, I guess I’m in.”
“Awesome! We’re going to Florida, baby!”
Chapter Five
Dexter
I fiddled with the buttons on my shirt again, unsure whether this one or another that I had in my closet would best suit the occasion. I wanted to take off my slacks, get rid of the sleek black suit, and go to bed. After a delightful weekend worrying about the date Monday, Monday had finally arrived, and I couldn’t feel more concerned. I tried to tell myself that it would all be all right. If my father truly believed that he was making a good decision for business, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.
That’s what it boiled down to, in the end. This was going to happen whether I wanted it or not. I could only hope that she wasn’t so horrible as my nightmares had said.
I drove myself to the restaurant, despite my father’s insistence that I get a driver. It seemed absurd for such a short distance as The Amelie. While I drove, I tried to talk myself out of it, to convince myself that I shouldn’t do this. I thought about calling Tyler.
No matter how I looked at it, I needed to go through with the date. It had to happen one way or another. I parked my car in a parking garage across the street to avoid someone hitting it on the sidewalk.
The Amelie wasn’t a particularly prestigious place. It was nice, nicer than most chain restaurants, with a delightful bar. Most of its appeal came from its beach location. A lot of we
althy people liked to come here to let their hair down a bit in the reserved seating area. It looked quiet tonight; usually, most of the riffraff visited on the weekends.
I was guided to my table and sat down. It was now five after 8, so I supposed Tiffany wasn’t entirely too late. When the waiter came by to ask for drink orders, I ordered waters for the both of us and waited a bit longer.
Finally, the door to the reserved area opened; it was barred off from the regular area by glass, accessible by a door. A woman walked in behind the waiter. She was tall, maybe 5-foot-8, with long blonde hair and a dress that didn’t leave much to the imagination. I could see designer insignias on her handbag and vaguely recognized her from photos around the DuBois home at their Christmas party.
“So, you’re Dexter?” She paused before she sat down at the table.
I nodded dumbly and then cleared my throat. “Ah, yes. You must be Tiffany DuBois. It’s good to meet you in person.”
“Yeah, it’s good to meet you too.” Tiffany glanced at the waiter, and as she motioned for her to come forward, I wondered whether I could marry her. She wasn’t lacking in looks, and she looked like she took care of her body. I didn’t know anything really about her personality, but I almost feared learning more about her.
“I heard you just got back from France. What were you doing there?” I prompted. I wanted badly for this to go well. So much of my happiness was on the line if it didn’t.
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Just some stupid fucking wannabe designer wanted my signature for something. Or an endorsement, or whatever. It was stupid. She had me set up in a shitty hotel.”
I faltered at the sudden negativity. “Oh. Well, did you, um, did you see anything interesting there?”
“No. It’s France. Who hasn’t seen the Eiffel Tower? I’m not a fucking tourist.”
She was, by definition, a tourist in France, but I didn’t press the issue. I was starting to understand that she was incredibly obnoxious as a person and the sort of girl that I tried to avoid in college. The sort of person, really, that I ran into a lot as a member of the elite class.