Wealthy Playboy (Cocky Suits Chicago Book 7)

by Alex Wolf

  I figured he would know who my father is, but not like this. I thought it would just explain why I hide so much of my past, to sever the connection to his name, so I can still do business with people. I didn’t think he’d want to murder him.

  Despite the fear, my natural instincts take over. “You need to lower your voice. This is my mother’s funeral.”

  “I’m sorry. I should—” Dad holds up both hands and starts to walk out of the room to ease the tension.

  “You’re not going anywhere, you motherfucker.” Covington takes off for Dad, and I leap over to step in his way.

  My eyes go wide, and I worry he might just barrel right through me at first.

  Fortunately, he sees me do it and stops himself.

  “Hey!” I yell right in his face.

  He glances to me for a brief second, but his eyes go right back to Dad. I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want Dad out of his sight, or because he doesn’t want to look at me. I can hear him snorting, he’s breathing so hard in and out of his nose.

  Finally, his eyes drift down to mine, but it’s new, a different look than all the ways he’s looked at me before. Something just changed. There’s hate there, pure, unadulterated hate, and it feels like some of that is directed at me.

  Finally, still staring right at me, he shakes his head slow and deliberately, and says, “Fuck this, and fuck you.” He points right at Dad. “I can’t believe you came from that. Good luck.” He turns around and never looks back as he stomps all the way out the door.

  I stand there, and it feels like I’m outside of my body. I feel like my life just spanned an entire spectrum in a matter of seconds, and I’m just tired. Tired of the roller coaster, up and down, to every goddamn extreme there is. I just want to be fucking normal, average, moderate, for ten minutes. I just want a small break from the peaks and valleys, a moment of reprieve.

  As everything starts to crash into me, the reality of the situation, anxiety takes over, and I can barely breathe. It feels like walls are closing in on me. In the last month I’ve cried more than I have for the past ten years.

  I’ve lost almost everything I care about in the world in the span of a week.

  Dad walks up behind me, and I feel his hand on my shoulder, and I don’t even have the energy to knock it away. I’m so tired of men in my life disappointing me, fucking crushing me, turning me into this.

  My heart starts to crack right there, because I realize the only thing I want right now. It sounds so childish to say it in my mind, but I want my mom. I just want my mom for two seconds. I know we weren’t super close, like some mothers and daughters, but nobody comforted me through grief like her. She would always wrap me up in her arms, no matter how old I got, and smooth down the back of my hair, the same way, every single time. I would give anything to have that right now. Literally anything.

  But it’s time to grow up. Mom’s gone. She’s not coming back.

  “What happened?” I say the words at Dad through my teeth, then turn around to look at him.

  There’s nothing but shame there. He takes a deep breath. “It’s a long story. I’m sorry, Meadow. For now, I’ll just say he has every right to be that angry at me, but I’m so sorry you were caught in the line of fire.”

  I grind my teeth, not sure whose ass I want to kick harder; Covington’s or Dad’s. Surprisingly, I think Covington just took the lead, but I’m sure it’ll switch once Dad tells me the story behind that. “I wasn’t caught anywhere. He took aim right at me.” I want to lay into him, make him feel a little of what I just felt, but I can’t. Because I’m just fucking exhausted. I don’t think anything could surprise me anymore. I finally just sigh and say, “What happened?”

  About the time he starts to explain, people arrive, walking through the front door. Thank God it’s acceptable to look like you’ve been crying when you’re in a funeral home. Because I have to greet everyone with puffy and swollen eyes, and do the things I need to do, for my mother. I just want to focus on Mom, why is that so hard to do?

  I greet people and welcome them as they go in and have a seat, relatives, people I haven’t seen in ten or twenty years, Mom’s friends.

  I’m supposed to give her eulogy.

  It’s going to take an act of God to get through it. I’ve never been crushed like this before. It’s like pure torturous pain, bound to every strand of my DNA, just strangling me at the cellular level.

  I don’t even know how I’ll be able to stand up there now. Wells was my plan. He was going to help get me through this, if I had a breakdown, if I got stuck. He promised me that he’d be there, every step of the way. Now, he’s just gone.

  He left me at my mother’s funeral.

  That fact plays through my head, like the stock ticker loop on CNBC at the bottom of the screen, over and over.

  What the hell could have happened between him and Dad? Is this even real life?

  One thing I do know, is this is not fair to my mother. I will not let this tarnish her memory. It was just her and me for over a decade, by ourselves. We didn’t need men then, and we don’t need them now.

  I take a deep breath.

  I have to get through this. I have to honor her.

  Then, I may kill both of these motherfuckers, starting with Dad.

  Meadow Carlson

  I keep glancing down to Mom’s face, and it’s literally the only thing getting me through her eulogy. Dad’s in tears in the front row, but every time I make eye contact with him, he can’t even look at me. It’s shame, regret, and I know he feels bad, but it doesn’t make me not want to rip his head off.

  I look down at Mom’s empty shell of a body, pretending she’s still in there, and I’m talking directly to her. Then I think about everything Pastor Jeremiah told me. His words are the only thing that gets me from one word to the next.

  People aren’t gasping or walking out, so I must be doing this right, but it feels like I’m just going through the motions. My heart is just a constant dull throb. An ache so deep it’s crippling.

  Finally, I make it through, walk around to Mom’s body, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her I love her. The second I turn around, it’s like a giant wave hits me. That’s how it’s been the past few days, like waves on a beach, over and over. I’ll start to think maybe it’s not so bad, maybe I can do this, move forward, and then another wave, and another. Then Wells showed up earlier and it was just a damn tsunami. Maybe that’s how it works for everyone, sans the boyfriend showing up and yelling, “Fuck you,” in your face. I pray that hasn’t happened to anyone else, because I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  Pastor Jeremiah was right, too. There are emotions specifically related just to grieving for my mother that I’ve never felt before. She’s the only person this close to me who has ever passed away.

  You try to prepare yourself for things like this in your mind, always knowing when you’re with people you care about, that one day they’ll be gone, or you’ll be gone. But no matter what kind of mental gymnastics I did, it never prepared me for this moment. Not even close.

  I walk over and sit on a chair in the front row, next to my father, only to honor my mother and for no other reason. He reaches over for my forearm, and I glare at him. He immediately pulls his hand back.

  I need to be better than this. I need to fake it, pretend everything is okay with him, at least until we’re out of the building, but I can’t.

  Pastor Jeremiah takes over for me at the podium, says more nice things about Mom. He’s so convincing you would’ve thought he knew her for her entire life. They play music we selected, and there’s a slide show. I’m in about half the photos and it’s Mom with friends in the others. There are some older photos with Dad in them, the three of us as a family. I can’t stand the smile on my face in them. I wish I could go back and shake that girl, and say so many things to her, prepare her for everything that would come her way. Or maybe I just wish I could go back to being her, in a time when I was truly happy and thought I
was the luckiest girl in the world.

  I didn’t think it could be possible when I woke up this morning, but now, everything hurts even worse. I had hope this morning, that maybe I could get back to being that little girl in the pictures, find her again. Dad came back. Wells and I seemed so perfect.

  Now, the world feels pretty useless. What’s the point of even being here?

  I have zero hope for my future.

  I look over at my mother’s body once more. She was the only one who never hurt me. She was the only one who put me before herself, no matter what she was feeling, what she wanted.

  Tears stream down my cheeks, and I just thank her, over and over in my mind. I hyper-focus on how much she loved me, and the sacrifices she made for me. I don’t really know if I deserved the type of love she had for me, but it was unconditional. She’s the only person I can say that about right now.

  Finally, it’s done, and they close the casket. I’m a blubbering mess, and so is Dad.

  Everything hurts.

  I just want to go home and disappear. I just want to sleep for days, and maybe eventually, I’ll find the strength to come out and try to start over. Pick up all the pieces.

  Feeling like a zombie, my feet drag me through the motions, the mingling, accepting condolences from people. I really don’t mind. I love the stories some of Mom’s friends tell, but by the end, if I hear one more person say, “She was so young,” I might gouge my eyes out.

  Once everyone makes their way to the front of the funeral home, we walk out and get in the car. I take a deep breath.

  You’re halfway through this. Just relax.

  I didn’t do a limousine for a family car because it’s just me and Dad. It seemed unnecessary.

  But I now realize Dad can’t fucking drive of course, so I probably risk our lives trying to get us there in my current condition. I should’ve hired a car and a driver. Honestly, I figured Wells would drive us. So much for that. So much for assuming things and expecting things from people.

  Won’t be making that mistake again any time soon.

  We weave our way through downtown Chicago, lightly drizzling bleak weather providing the perfect backdrop for the most somber day of my life. I just follow behind the two police officers on their motorcycles and the hearse, praying I don’t pass out behind the wheel.

  Dad hasn’t said a word, and it’s probably the smartest thing he’s ever done in his life.

  When we arrive, we have another smaller ceremony at the cemetery, and then they lower Mom’s casket down into the ground, the skyline of Chicago filling the scenery behind us. For some reason, I just keep waiting for Wells’ hand to slide into mine, for him to put his arm around me, hold me like he did in bed the other night.

  The night when he fucking promised me he’d do anything for me, no matter what.

  I know better than to count on someone else, to trust someone with my heart, but it still hurts so bad.

  We finally leave the cemetery, and I manage to get us back to Mom’s house. As soon as we’re inside, I head for one of her guest rooms. Dad starts to say something, and I just hold a hand up at him and keep walking.

  I don’t want to hear any of what he has to say right now. I don’t even care. I just want to be alone. I want to grieve for my mother without any asshole men opening their goddamn mouths, taking any more of this day away from me than they already have.

  Honestly, I don’t want to know what happened between the two of them. Not yet.

  The second I get next to the bed, I collapse face first into it, and within seconds I’m out. I just completely pass out, because I don’t know if I’ve ever had that much dumped on me in my entire life.

  My heart can’t take any more today.

  Wells Covington

  I pace back and forth in my living room. I don’t even know what I feel right now, all I know is it’s coursing through my veins and I just want to purge it. I want it gone. It’s like a sickness, a virus of emotion I’ve never had inside me, invading me from every angle.

  I can’t think straight, I can’t even see straight. Colors, my whole world, it’s all out of alignment. It’s like bugs crawling all over my skin, but it’s just rage, anger I’ve never felt before. It’s boiling, just waiting to burst out of me.

  “Everything all right, sir?” Orson walks in from the other room.

  I turn, furiously, and yell through my teeth, “Fuck! Off!”

  His face goes white as a sheet. He spins on a dime and walks out of the room as my chest heaves and more guilt floods into me. I want to run my head right through the wall for treating him like that, talking to him that way. It’s like I’m not even in control of my body, what comes out of my mouth. I’ve never yelled at him like that. I never yell at anyone.

  I’m better than this. I thought I’d mastered myself, trained myself not to feel these things.

  I go to swipe through my phone, to check Bloomberg Chat, and accidentally answer a phone call from Penn Hargrove from The Hunter Group.

  “Covington? Hello? You there?”

  I take a deep breath because I don’t want to fuck up business relationships as well.

  “Yes?” The word barely comes out.

  “You, umm, okay? Sound a little—”

  “What do you need?” I say it way too harshly.

  “Yeah, man, sorry, I have more capital partners on the line with me right now. That you asked me to round up. We were scheduled to talk about the investment property through the impact fund. The old Parker project.”

  Meadow’s dream project. The one I’ve been running for her, neglecting all my investors and employees in the process. The fucking gift I gave her when she couldn’t even tell me who her family was.

  “Do you want to proceed? Is it a good time?”

  Rage consumes me, and I grit my teeth. With Penn and all the other investors on the line, I say, “It’s a loser. I wouldn’t put a goddamn dime in it.” I hang up the phone, then turn around when I hear a noise behind me.

  It’s Orson. He stands there, staring at me. I rake my eyes up his old wiry frame, but his face is different. I’ve never seen him look at me the way he is. It’s not the way an employee looks at an employer.

  He stares at me the way a father would to a son. The resolve on his face says he’s not leaving, not until he’s sure I’m okay.

  I stand there, my legs barely holding me up, and my eyes start to burn, and I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I collapse to my knees, and I don’t know how Orson moves as fast as he does, but he catches me just as I go down. I can’t even breathe. My whole life has been ripped away from me, everything I care about. I try to suck in breaths and it’s like I can’t get any oxygen, and I fight it even harder, because I don’t know how to give in. I don’t know how to not fight for what I want, even when it comes to getting air into my lungs.

  “Relax, sir. Relax.”

  The fact he still has the dignity to call me “sir” after the way I just treated him, makes me want to lash out at myself even harder.

  “Easy, just calm down and breathe easy.” He starts breathing in front of me, long deliberate breaths, trying to get me to do the same.

  I try as hard as I can, but I just can’t. Somehow, despite my limited supply of air, I manage to gasp, “L-l-left.”

  “Shh, sir. Don’t try to talk.”

  “Left l-l-left her.”

  “Left who?”

  “I left Meadow, at her mother’s funeral.”

  Orson’s fingers tighten around my arms, as if he’s semi-pissed but still wants to comfort me and get more information. I know he thinks Meadow is probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but he’s wrong about that one.

  “Ms. Carlson?”

  I shake my head and slowly manage to start breathing again. The relief that temporarily comes over me is enormous, but it still feels like the sky is crashing down on me. “Not her real last name.”

  He eyes me curiously, as if I’ve gone insane; I’m sur
e it probably appears that way.

  “Okay, well, easy, let’s get you up.”

  Somehow, I find my legs under me, and he helps haul me onto the couch a few feet away.

  Tears stream down my cheeks, and I can’t believe I look this weak in front of him right now. I’ve never been like this before, let alone in front of someone else, even though I trust Orson with my life. He’s always been there for me.

  I collapse on the couch, and he takes a seat next to me.

  I immediately lean forward and catch my head in my hands. I can’t even look at him. “I left her at her mom’s funeral. I got so fucking angry.” My face starts to heat up again.

  Orson stands, and with a hand on my shoulder, guides me over so I’m laying down on the couch.

  “You need rest.”

  I try to get back up, resisting against him, but he shoves me down, his face inches from mine.

  “It’s okay. Just get some rest. Nothing good will come from you getting up right now. Some things just take a bit of time, then you’ll be ready.”

  I can’t even fight against him because I’m spent. I just want to close my eyes and forget this fucking day ever happened.

  Finally, I just nod. “I’m sorry.”

  “None of that now, you hear?”

  I shake my head. “No, I have to say it. You probably hate me now too.”

  He gets me laid down on the couch and says, “Remember that day, at the orphanage?”

  I lean up for a second. How the hell could I ever forget that? “Of course I do. I got my ass kicked, bad. Might’ve gotten myself killed if you hadn’t been there.”

  “Right. Right. It was a good job. It gave me purpose, and I squandered it. I got messed up in a lot of things. But I knew you were special. And I knew you had great things lying ahead of you, even if you didn’t see it coming. You were hurting so bad and didn’t feel like you had anyone, and do you remember what I told you?”