Don't Hate Me (My Secret Boyfriend Book 2)

by S Doyle

  Marc and I had never ordered room service. I didn’t want that to show on the bill. I’d also politely asked the staff, to the tune of hundred-dollar tips for several of them, that there be no mention of any guests who had stayed with me, should my father ask.

  Although I didn’t think he would. He seemed too confident in my docility.

  “You know, I was reviewing your expenses this past semester. I noticed there were quite a number of purchases.”

  I shook my head regretfully. “We spent so much of our time shopping. There were times I felt as if I needed to keep up. But I’m having the school ship everything home. I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for all you’ve provided.”

  He crunched on a piece of bacon. “Of course. Understood.”

  “Thank you.” I nearly had to choke on it.

  “Your friend, from the estate, came to see me recently. He seemed concerned over your health.”

  “Marc came to see you? About me?”

  I made sure to add just the right amount of wistfulness in my voice. I couldn’t immediately convince my father I was over Marc. It had to come slowly, gradually. Just a girl getting over a crush and moving on with her life.

  “To check on your condition. George told him about your attack in Switzerland. I informed him that as much as you loved it there, it simply wasn’t healthy for you to continue your schooling.”

  I nodded. “I did love it. It was so beautiful, but yes, a little difficult on my lungs.”

  “I’ve decided he’s going to work for me.”

  Again, I blinked. Playing dumb. “Really? I thought you considered him to be beneath your attention.”

  Arthur glanced at me and lifted his chin. “Maybe I’ve underestimated him. He’s applying to finish his degree in three and a half years. Top of his class, too. I’d be foolish to let that talent go when I have a certain sway over him. Perhaps if I train him right, there might be some potential there. To break away from his less-than-auspicious origins. Would that make you happy? If you thought I approved of him?”

  Was that possible? Was that part of what Arthur was doing? Turning Marc into an acceptable choice for me? Making sure he had the money my father thought he needed in order to forget his mother was a heroin addict.

  I sighed sadly. Not willing to stray from the script I’d written for myself. “I don’t know that it matters much. You could approve of him. But Marc, well, I just don’t think he looks at me the way I look at him.”

  “More fool him then.”

  I laughed softly. Then I took a sip of my orange juice and another bite of toast. “You know, I was thinking about what comes next. I imagine you’re still not in favor of me attending Princeton.”

  “We agreed not this year.”

  “Yes, we agreed,” I said. “I was thinking about what I would do then. I’ve asked before about maybe getting a job.”

  He scoffed. “Why on earth would you work when you don’t have to? I didn’t raise my daughter to be a common laborer.”

  “I just thought the experience of working would help in my growth. So that I am ready for school next year. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. I could work at the Starbucks on Main Street.”

  His face flushed. “Absolutely not! I don’t want anyone in town seeing you working. As if I hadn’t spent my whole life ensuring you would never have to. You know how that town thinks. What they would say? That I’ve raised you to be more than someone who pours coffee, of all things. Take a menial job and people will question everything we’ve built.”

  His reaction was expected. I knew how important appearances were to him. “It doesn’t have to be in town. I can find something in some other town.”

  “You don’t drive,” he countered

  Of course, I drove. George taught me when I was fifteen, just like he did Marc.

  “I can Uber,” I pressed. “I’m not trying to upset you, Daddy. I just don’t know what I’ll do with my time if I’m not going to school and I’m not working.”

  “You’ll read,” he said, using a napkin to brush the crumbs from his shirt. “You’ll study independently. What would you say to another tutor? Maybe we can bring out a teaching assistant from Princeton to work with you one-on-one. How does that sound?”

  It sounded like I was going back to my gilded prison. However, at this point, I’d pushed him as far as I could. Days of thoughtful arguments and give and take were over, it seemed.

  He’d let me attend Marc’s soccer games. He’d let me attend school for three years. In his mind, the result had been me asking Marc to go to prom. Had been me announcing I was going to marry him.

  It made sense Arthur was going to hold the reigns a little tighter now.

  “That sounds excellent,” I said. “May I be excused? I think I’ll take a walk on the beach. It’s lovely today.”

  “Of course. Don’t exert yourself,” he said serenely. “We wouldn’t want to bring on another attack.”

  No. We wouldn’t want that.

  I got up from the table and went inside the hotel suite. I walked past the couch where Marc had gone down on me. Into my room where he’d had me in so many ways, I couldn’t remember them all.

  There was a certain amount of power in that.

  Part of that was the sex. Marc had taken us to a new place, and, while intellectually I understood that sex played a part in any relationship, I’d had no idea how important it would be to ours. How much deeper our connection would become. An understanding of who we were to each other, and, more importantly, what we needed from each other.

  There was power, too, in defying my father. In knowing that my life was happening independently of his, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. To that end, Marc was right. There was a limit to Arthur’s power. To what he could make me do.

  And by next January, when Marc was finally out of school, his degree in hand, there would be nothing he could do to stop us from being together.

  All Marc and I had to do was keep us a secret for one year.

  How hard could it be?

  Landen Enterprises, LLC

  January

  Marc

  “Marc?”

  I looked up from where I was sitting across from the reception desk, and saw a man not much older than me approaching. Clean shaven, conservative haircut. He was wearing jeans and a sweater, reminding me it was the weekend. But as my first day on the job, I’d still gone with a suit and tie.

  I stood and shook his hand. “That’s me.”

  “I’m Trevor. I’ll be your mentor while you’re here at Landen Enterprises.”

  “You always work Saturdays?” I asked, as I followed him down a row of cubes that were neat and orderly.

  No pictures on the desks, no personal items. Just PCs with double, sometimes triple, monitors. A smattering of people occupied the cubes, also working the weekend. Assistants, investors. There had been someone at the front desk to greet me when I arrived.

  Maybe not as busy as during the week, but not as quiet as the weekends were at the bank where I’d done my last internship. I knew, because I’d worked weekends then, too.

  “Most of them, yeah,” he answered. “It’s a dog-eat-dog environment around here. I’ll tell you that right now. Landen handles a few clients personally, but the rest are up for grabs amongst the investors. The person who works the longest and the hardest tends to win more business. And more business means…”

  “More money,” I finished, knowing instinctively that’s what drove Trevor’s dedication. Mine, too, for that matter. Princeton was a stepping stone. The goal was total and complete economic freedom for me and George.

  Now maybe Ash, too, if her father was going to make her choose.

  Trevor led me to a vacant cube. Showed me the login to the software they used to do their investing, then showed me my own personal account.

  “This has a thousand dollars in it,” I said, stating the obvious.

  Trevor laughed. “Welcome to Landen Enterpri
ses. Every rookie gets a thousand in cash to start investing. Landen’s theory—if you can’t make money for yourself, he can’t trust you to make it for his clients. How much and how fast you grow that balance determines when he might let you make investments on behalf of a client.”

  “Is there a client list I should be studying?”

  “Yes. You signed your NDA?”

  I nodded. “Yes. And handed in my drug test and got my fancy security card,” I said, holding up the lanyard under my suit coat.

  “It’s here,” he said, showing me where in the program to access the list. “Broken up by broker.”

  I did a quick study of the broker list. “They’re all men.”

  Trevor snorted. “Yeah, don’t tell any feminists you might know, but Landen doesn’t think women have the DNA necessary to invest. They’re only good in a support role. Says it’s too much of a cutthroat business.”

  I would not be sharing that with Ash.

  Curious, I clicked on Landen’s name to reveal his list and was prompted for a password.

  “Uh, no. The boss keeps his clients close to the vest. No one knows who they are. Other than they are rich motherfuckers.”

  I thought of Evan Sanderson and wondered if he was on Landen’s list.

  “So that’s it?” I asked. “My job right now is just to invest and grow this money?”

  Trevor snorted. “That’s it. Easy right?”

  I laughed. No, it wasn’t easy. Otherwise everyone would do it, and everyone would be rich motherfuckers.

  “You’ll find a ton of research through the software, but don’t rely on it too much. You’ll want to use outside sources, too.”

  I raised my eyebrow then. “I appreciate the help.”

  Trevor smiled and nodded. “You got this. I’ll stop back around at lunch. I’ll show you the good places to eat and let you know who the real assholes are in the company.”

  “You’re not one of them?” I asked.

  He smiled again. “I’m the biggest one of all.”

  He left, then I turned to my account. A thousand dollars. I’d never had spare money like this before. Never really attempted to put what I’d learned into play, because any dollar I earned by working went toward some debt I’d incurred. School debt, my car debt.

  Hell, I’d had just enough spare cash to afford gas to get to Florida and back. It had been like this for these past three years. The thought of trying to hoard money so I could invest it didn’t seem possible.

  Now Arthur Landen had handed it to me.

  I should have been thrilled, instead I felt cautious. Like, somehow, the money was a trap.

  But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a test?

  What if I could prove I knew what I was doing? Employ everything I’d learned, and use the instincts that served me well to show him I was more than some kid of a drug addict whom his driver had to take in. I was going to make something of myself.

  Be more than what I’d come from.

  I hadn’t had real money to use in the stock market, but it didn’t mean that I hadn’t worked the markets with pretend money. Making investments on paper, timely sales.

  I played the market every day, I just didn’t reap the benefit of my successes. Or, to be fair, take the hits for my failures. But at an investment firm like this, risk was always mitigated.

  Hedge fund managers didn’t pull in the money they did without being right more than they were wrong.

  If I could prove to Landen I was right more than I was wrong, that I could make a life for myself, maybe he’d let me date his daughter in public.

  My phone, which I’d kept in in my suit coat, buzzed.

  Ash2: Hey secret boyfriend.

  Me: Stop saying that. It’s ridiculous.

  Ash2: Okay. But you are. What are you doing right now?

  Me: Looking at the thousand dollars your father put into a personal account in my name.

  There was no response for a long time. I could see the dots moving on my phone, then finally her response.

  Ash2: Don’t touch that money. It could be a trap. I think you should leave.

  Me: You need to relax. He does it with all the new hires. It’s a test to see how much and how fast we can grow it. To prove ourselves before we take on new clients.

  Ash2: I still don’t like it.

  Me: His client list is password protected. Any thoughts as to what it might be? I could see if Sanderson is actually a client or not.

  Ash2: My mother’s birthday. He uses it for a lot of his passwords. August 3rd, 1971.

  I hit his list again, typed the password, and hit enter. No luck.

  Me: Didn’t work. But maybe I’ll ask the people around here about Sanderson. Someone will know what his deal is.

  Ash2: Just be careful.

  Me: Yep. What are you doing?

  Ash2: Figuring out ways to escape.

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. We’d talked since Florida. I knew Landen wasn’t letting her get a job or go away to school. Instead, she was doing independent study with some woman from a nearby community college. Whatever the hell that was. But she was home. Not in Switzerland, and, for me, that made all the difference in the world.

  Me: Just be careful.

  I parroted her. Then I dropped my phone into my pocket and got to work. I felt it buzz again, but I wasn’t going to respond. Ash could await.

  I needed to get started. This wasn’t a game to me. I needed to focus on the work in front of me if I was going to prove something to Landen.

  If that even meant anything.

  7

  February

  Ashleigh

  I heard a knock on my bedroom door, and lifted my head from the book I was reading.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” Arthur said, through the door. I heard him rattle the doorknob only to find I’d locked the door.

  “What can I do for you?” I didn’t bother to get up. He wasn’t so crass he’d try to force his way in, and, until I knew if he was sober or drunk, I wasn’t risking opening the door.

  “Ashleigh,” he barked. “This is silly speaking to you through a closed door. Open it at once. I merely need you to attend a function with me.”

  I stayed on my bed. “What kind of a function?”

  “It’s a fund-raising event for charity. For animal shelters or something. You like animals.”

  I did. Arthur would never let me have one because of my asthma, even though having asthma and being allergic weren’t necessarily related. Not that he cared. Still, to have a furry friend all those years would have been a comfort.

  “When is it?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow night. In the city. It’s a formal affair. Dress appropriately.”

  “Appropriately or immaturely? You’ll need to be more specific,” I told him.

  “Ashleigh, I do not appreciate this attitude. Tomorrow night, downstairs by five p.m. sharp. You’re representing the Landen name. I expect you to act like it.”

  I heard the heavy footsteps of him walking away and resigned myself to my fate. Which meant an hour in a car with him, heading into Manhattan. Hours of pointless small talk with people, and any number of air kisses. Topped off by what was a typically bland meal, engineered that way to accommodate the tastes of so many people.

  Representing the Landen name. I didn’t even know what that meant.

  I heard a buzz and reached under my pillow for my burner phone.

  Marc: Hey, you up?

  Me: Yes. Did you get it? Did the dean give you permission to graduate early?

  Apparently that was a thing at Princeton. It wasn’t enough just to be able to handle the course work. Marc had to be granted Advanced Placement, which meant he was eligible for Advanced Standing, which would allow him to graduate early. That had to be decided by the dean of his department.

  Marc: I got it. Advanced Placement. Dean thinks I should have no problem graduating next December.

  I gasped. He did it. He got it. It
meant we were counting down the months to when he’d be free and clear of any influence my father could have over his education.

  Me: You’re amazing! Have I told you that recently?

  Marc: Not in the last week, no. You doing okay? Arthur giving you any trouble?

  Me: No more than usual. I have to attend a thing in the city tomorrow night. When am I going to see you again?

  The dots were appearing and disappearing, which meant he had no good answer for that. It was probably wrong I’d asked the question. I was the one making this relationship nearly impossible to sustain. Because I couldn’t go to him. Because he couldn’t just show up at the estate, despite it being his home for six years.

  It was Arthur who was pushing him toward graduation, and now making him work every hour he wasn’t studying.

  Me: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t put the pressure on you to figure that out. I’ll think of something. Just don’t forget me, okay?

  Marc: It’s not the easiest situation for us, Ash. You know that. But I’m not going to forget you.

  Me: If only your uncle worked on a normal estate for a normal family. Your life probably would have been so much easier.

  Marc: I’ll take the drama if it comes with you.

  I sighed and beamed.

  Me: You know, that was a really nice thing you said to me. Maybe the nicest.

  Marc: I was told I had to say nice things. Don’t get used to it. I don’t do sappy. Goodnight.

  Me: Goodnight.

  The Ritz-Carlton

  Ashleigh

  We were in the car, waiting in a line of other cars, to be dropped off at the front door of the event. I watched as women dressed to the nines, and men in their tuxes, poured out of every vehicle. I had this funny image of a circus act with clowns, but instead of a hundred clowns popping out of a single car, it was a billionaire and his dates, dripping in diamonds, popping out of a hundred cars.

  That’s what so many of these charity events were about. Letting everyone else see how much money you could wear in a single evening. The purpose of the night, the true work, could be accomplished by removing one of those diamond bracelets or necklaces and giving it to the charity.