A sense of loneliness filled me. I didn’t have my parents. I didn’t have Dean. I didn’t have my best friend, Caryn. I had no one and nothing.
I also had nowhere to go. I’d allowed my parents to dictate my entire life, and because of that, I had continued to live with them as I went to college and grad school. They supported me financially. The only money I had access to was the little I’d earned freelancing as a paralegal. It wasn’t much. I had a week, maybe two, worth of money stashed away. The smart thing to do would be to go home and marry Dean. Knowing what I knew now, it wouldn’t be a real marriage. It would be one like from the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Centuries, where women were married off as a business deal.
I pulled my car back into traffic, resigned that my prospects for happiness were gone. It was a bitter pill to swallow. So bitter that as I passed a dumpy-looking efficiency hotel, I pulled into the parking lot. I had barely any money, and no job prospects, but I wasn’t going home. Las Vegas was a city filled with businesses and tourists. Surely, I could get a job here.
I rented a room, dragged my bag in, and then sitting at the wobbly table, I used my phone to pull up the job ads in Las Vegas. There were plenty of job openings for restaurant and bar servers and hotel staff, but I wasn’t sure that would pay enough for me to rent an apartment. At least, not without a roommate. Since I didn’t know anybody, that didn’t seem likely.
I wasn’t a lawyer yet, but I could do paralegal work or maybe something related. I was smart and a fast learner. I came across a couple of job openings related to administrative assistance. How much different could that be from paralegal work?
I wished I had brought my laptop with me to make the application process easier. Since I’d finished my school term, I hadn’t brought it because I didn’t need to study. I doubted my parents would hand it over to me if I went home to get it, since they had paid for it.
I filled out a couple of applications and sat in the dingy room, wondering what the hell I was doing. All I had were a few bucks in the bank and the clothes I’d put into my suitcase. Everything I had, everything I was, sat in this efficiency apartment.
I let the tears flow, weeping at my situation. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to be free of it all. But deep down, I didn’t know if I had the strength and stamina to succeed, starting with so little. But I’d have to try. The thing that terrified me the most wasn’t running out of money or not being able to get a job. It was having to go home to parents who didn’t care about my happiness and being forced to marry a man who didn’t love or respect me.
CHAPTERONE
James
I’m fucked.
This last business meeting on my two-week tour of the Pacific Northwest to get investors was going the same way every other meeting had gone—nowhere. The group of three men and two women listened intently, nodding and showing signs that they were impressed by what I was telling them, and yet, there was a distance that told me their answer was going to be no. That wasn’t a surprise. I’d walked into the meeting thinking the answer would be no because every other meeting had been a no. But if there wasn’t a possibility of yes, why did they keep the meeting? In the business world, time was money, so why waste their time on a meeting they weren’t going to take action on? That thought had given me a morsel of hope, but it quickly dissipated as the presentation went on. Either they kept the meeting out of politeness, or they’d been hoping I’d say something stupendous to change their minds. So far, nothing I said came close to stupendous.
I hid all those feelings as I finished my presentation and then looked each one of them in the eyes with a smile, and hopefully, in expectation that they were going to invest with me.
“Your board must be excited by the enthusiasm and infusion of new ideas and energy you’re bringing to the company,” Talia Brentwood, the CEO of Brentwood Incorporated, said.
No, no, they weren’t.My board had even less enthusiasm for me than all the other boards I’d met with on this business trip. Perhaps that was the problem. If my board didn’t believe in me, why should these people?
“Thank you. I know the company’s reputation precedes me here, but I can assure you that she’s in good hands. Honest, legitimate hands.” I would’ve preferred not to bring up the company’s past under my father’s lead, but it was the elephant in the room. If I acted like my father and his dirty deals didn’t exist, I would look at the very least, naïve, and at the most, complicit. I’d spent the last six years of my life trying to protect the company from my father and his questionable business practices. If my father were running this business meeting, he would’ve had in-depth investigations on each of these board members, finding the skeletons in their closets and threatening to use them against them. And if that didn’t work, he’d seduce Talia Brentwood or somebody else in a position to embarrass the company. I hadn’t done any of that.
“The problem is,” Mark Riggins, the VP on the board, said, “organizations are judged by the company they keep, and while we can see that you’re an earnest young man, you are right in that your father’s reputation precedes you. It still taints the company, and we can’t risk being associated with your father.”
His words didn’t hurt because I was prepared for them. Even so, it was fucking frustrating. My father wasn’t running the company. He hadn’t run the company for the last ten months, ever since he was arrested for fraud and a few other charges. All the work I’d done to protect the company from him, and he’d still ruined everything. He did it in the most heinous manner, using my sister. While I had been working so hard to protect the company, I’d failed to protect her. The guilt would live with me forever. Thank fuck she came out of it stronger and happier. In fact, she was now married with a baby, living happily ever after. I was thankful for her husband, Max Clarke, who I knew would look out for her. Not that she needed taking care of. She’d slap me upside the head if she heard me suggest that. But as her big brother who’d spent most of my life looking out for her, and then failing when it mattered most, I was relieved that she had a man who adored and was as devoted to her as Max was.
We were at the point in the meeting where my father would lay out some sort of bribery or extortion, but I stood, straightening my tie and buttoning my coat. “I know you were thinking all this before I walked in, and yet you still allowed me to make my presentation. I appreciate that. I wish I’d been able to say something that would convince you that my father’s fingers and taint are no longer an issue.” But again, if I couldn’t convince my own board of that, I didn’t have much hope of convincing this group of people.
But whereas my father bullied, harassed, and bribed his way through business, I planned to be respectful and professional, so as not to burn any bridges. It was a no for today, but maybe it would be a yes tomorrow. And if not, perhaps they would mention me to somebody else who would take a chance on us.
The rest of the board stood, and I shook each of their hands, thanking them for their time, and then left the Portland business building. It was the last meeting of the day, and I suppose I’d hoped that the meeting would continue tomorrow, so I hadn’t booked my flight home until tomorrow afternoon. Instead, I’d reserved a hotel room. I suppose I could still go home tonight, but I needed a few hours to lick my wounds before returning to the office.
My travel arrangements were designed so that I appeared both professional and successful without being extravagant. I was in a business room instead of a suite, and instead of flying private, I’d flown First Class. I wanted the business world to see me as somebody who understood business. I needed to appear successful without looking like I was wasting company funds on an extravagant life.
Back in my hotel room, I considered opening my laptop and checking in with the office in Las Vegas, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Perhaps that was a sign that I wasn’t cut out to lead the family company away from my father’s foul deeds and into a brighter future. The excuse I used was that we were only ten days from Christmas, so business was slowing anyway. Plus, my assistant was getting ready to retire, so she was spending her time trying to find someone to replace her. On more than one occasion, I’d thought that without my assistant, the company was doomed. She’d been a significant part of my success in thwarting my father and in leading the company forward. My new assistant would be there to help me, but she wouldn’t have the experience and history of the company or have a professional relationship with me that I needed to take on the board.
Moments like this, I wondered what would happen if I resigned, as the board would like, and went out on my own? I had the education and experience, so I felt confident I could get hired somewhere else. Maybe I could move to Los Angeles and get a job with MacLeod Capital Investment, the largest investment firm in California. Or maybe I could go to my brother-in-law’s family in New York and get a job with them, who also worked in real estate and real estate investment. I looked to both these companies as a model, as something to strive for in my family company. My father’s company was large and well-known in Las Vegas, but it was the epitome of a big fish in a little pond. My vision was to expand. But so far, expansion wasn’t happening.
I poured myself a drink from the minibar and sat on the bed, flicking on the TV. There were a lot of choices, from sports and home-improvement shows to true crime and old movies, but none of it appealed to me.
I grabbed my tablet, and going into incognito mode, I pulled up a porn site. I didn’t know why. I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but it had been over a year since I’d had sex. Not since I caught my girlfriend Allison stealing from me. I had no trouble attracting women, but the women I attracted seemed to only care about my money and my father’s influence. I suspect my money could still attract a woman, but I wasn’t looking for that.
Not that I was looking for a long-term relationship, either. I just didn’t want to feel used and abused. If I could find a woman who didn’t need my money, and all she needed was a no-strings attached affair, I would get naked right then and there.
Of course, it was possible I wouldn’t be able to perform. The truth was that I hadn’t felt a sexual urge in about as long as the last time I’d had sex. This was the first time in several months I’d made an attempt by watching porn. But as I scrolled through my options that included a woman sucking a man off or another woman with three men, each filling an opening, I felt nothing. My dick lay lifeless in my slacks. It was proof that I was dead inside. I was going through all the motions, but there was no life inside me. I tossed the tablet aside, feeling pathetic.
I rose to get another drink from the minibar when my phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, I saw it was my sister, Amelia. I suppose it was good that I wasn’t in the middle of stroking one off.
I answered the call. “Hey, little sis.” I hope she didn’t hear the dejection in my voice.