Chapter 18
Marie
Work is a strange mixture of excitement and terror.
I’m constantly aware of Ansell lurking in his office or roaming the halls. I never know when he’s going to yank me aside, shove me into a closet, and fuck me brainless until I come moaning into his hand as he fills me roughly from behind. It’s a constant threat, and one I absolutely love, but it leaves me on edge.
He can appear at any moment and take his fill of me.
A few days pass after my meeting with my father. It doesn’t surprise me when Ansell says Dad decided to turn to the Crawford family. I add that to the list of indignities forced on me by my controlling asshole father, and I find that I’m numb to my old man’s hatred by now. It doesn’t shock me that he cares more about his fund and his standing with the Crawford family than he does about his own daughter.
Which is why I’m caught off guard when Blair appears at my cube looking uncomfortable. “Hey, Marie, I have to show you something.” She hesitates, fiddling with her phone. “Unless you saw it already?”
I raise my eyebrows. It’s a little after ten in the morning on a Thursday and things have been quiet for a while. I shake my head. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
She sighs. “I had a feeling you didn’t.” And she turns the phone around.
It’s a video, paused a few minutes past the start. My father’s standing there, staring at the camera and sitting in his study. I recognize the ship in a bottle on the shelves behind him alongside a picture of me holding up a trophy I won by scoring the greatest number of goals in a U-12 soccer tournament.
“What is that?” My heart starts racing. I don’t want to see it, but I know what she’s going to show me anyway. I keep thinking about what Ansell told me and how badly this is going to hurt, and I try to steel myself against it, but I can’t—he’s still my father.
Even after all this, even knowing that he wants to make me bleed, even fully aware that this man only cares about himself and nothing more, I still can’t help myself.
He’s my father and knowing that he wants to hurt me is like a knife in my chest.
“It’s this douchey investor-bro podcast,” Blair says, crouching down next to me. She’s speaking softly so that the other people in their cubes nearby can’t overhear. “I don’t normally go for this sort of thing but a friend mentioned your dad was on it and was talking about you, so I gave it a listen. And sweetie, listen, I love you, but I won’t sugarcoat it. This is really bad.”
“Play it,” I say quietly.
She hands me a pair of headphones. I put them in and she frowns at me sadly before hitting play.
My father starts talking.
“And listen, Morris, I know the markets have been choppy lately, nobody’s making great profits, but there’s been a lot of FUD these days. You know what FUD is?”
The camera jumps to another guy, slick black hair, pastel shirt. “Sure do, Geoffrey. Fear, uncertainty, doubt.”
“That’s right, and this FUD is aimed directly at my firm, you know what I mean? It’s a lot of chatter about my family, my daughter in particular, and some personal stuff that’s happening with her and her former fiancé. Before we start talking macro-trends, I want to clear some things up.”
“Go ahead, say what you need to say.”
My father looks dead in the camera like he’s addressing me personally. His face is flat, affectless, totally devoid of emotion. It reminds me of Ansell, or the Ansell I thought I knew before all this started, but the Ansell I know now is full of tiny tells, and I swear I’m the only one that can see them. He’s like an ocean filled with tiny fish flickering under the surface.
“My daughter made a mistake. She trusted the wrong people, and now everyone’s paying for it. There’s a lot of false information out there, a lot of FUD about my daughter, and I’m telling you it’s all bullshit.”
Morris looks delighted. “You’re telling me it isn’t true? All that salacious stuff about her and Will? William Crawford, for anyone not familiar with what’s happening.”
“It’s all bullshit. Look, if Marie was here right now, she’d tell you herself. She was wrong. William didn’t cheat. There are verified facts out there now, proving that he didn’t do what that gossip rag claimed he did, and all those images were doctored up and faked in like Photoshop or whatever. Marie was wrong, she’s embarrassed, I’m embarrassed, but that’s it. We’re fixing it as we speak. So everyone out there that wants to keep spreading lies and FUD, stop it. My daughter fucked up. She’s a little bit naive, a little bit too trusting. Frankly, I hate to say this since I’m her father, but frankly, she’s a little bit stupid. You know what I mean, Morris? She’s emotional, very emotional. She’s a woman, you know? Very emotional and stupid. And now we’re here. She’s paying the price. End of story.”