Holy fuck.
Instantly, a shiver rolls down my spine, and every damn cell in my body is shouting for him to make an exception.
We can go anywhere but here! my vagina basically shouts from beneath my dress. Just let her get her purse, and we’ll be on our way!
“Happy New Year, Beyoncé.” His tone sounds so final. Too final.
Instantly, my stomach takes a nose dive into disappointment.
A part of me wants to urge him to reconsider. But another part of me, the larger part of me, is all about keeping my pride intact.
So, I do the only thing I’m capable of. I swallow down my discomfort and keep it locked beneath the rubber of my mask.
“Same to you, Walt,” I whisper back.
After one last look into my eyes, he lets go of my fingers and walks away, disappearing into the crowd of happy people and leaving me to wonder all alone.
Is it better to have been kissed and left or to have never been kissed at all?
Trent
It’s the second official day of the New Year, and I’ve already hit the ground running.
There’s no rest for the wicked and the work-driven, and I have an entire hotel to get off the ground in New Orleans and a short-as-fuck timeline in which to do it.
And, apparently, this morning, I also have an impromptu meeting with my father.
As I walk down the marble hallway of the sixteenth floor of Turner Properties’ New York headquarters and toward my father’s office, my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket, and I pull it out to check my messages.
Cap: Do you know the name Sophia Moran?
I smirk and shake my head at the same time. Caplin Hawkins is one of my best and most ridiculous friends. With my fingers to the screen, I type out a quick response.
Me: That’s Quince’s college girlfriend.
Cap: Quince had a girlfriend in college?
Me: Uh…yeah. They dated for two years.
Cap: Ah, fuck. I knew that name sounded familiar. How firm do you think Quince is on Bro Code?
I can see the text bubbles in the chat box move up and down, and I hurriedly type out a response before he can say anything else.
Me: Keep whatever details you’re about to tell me to yourself. I do not want to become an accessory to your crime.
Cap: Who says I did anything wrong?
I laugh to myself. And as I step into the reception area of my father’s office, I type out one final text and slip my phone back into my pocket.
Me: Everything you’ve ever done in your entire life.
Helen, my father’s assistant, is busy typing something out on her computer, but the instant she looks up from her screen, a genuine smile consumes her face.
“I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“Thanks.” I nod and move toward the large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the massive city.
With leftover snow from last week’s storm dusting the rooftops and buildings and streets, New York oozes winter. But the cold weather doesn’t stop her liveliness. The sidewalks are littered with people, and the streets are filled with yellow taxi cabs and delivery trucks navigating the early morning rush.
Eventually, I move away from the windows and make myself comfortable in one of the chairs positioned across from Helen’s desk.
In a weird way, waiting outside of my father’s office is almost like sitting in my own living room. The taupe-gray walls house pictures of familiar faces from all over the world—a sort of shrine to all of the connections my dad’s made over the years—and the feel of the cushion of the leather chairs reminds me of all the years I’ve spent sitting in them.
I’ve spent more hours in this building than I have in houses in my lifetime, and I have my dad’s ambition and drive to thank for that.
Trent Turner Senior is a man who could be the poster child for the American Dream. His family wasn’t poor, but they weren’t well-off either, so it was only the power of his determination and perseverance and drive for success that allowed him to create the multibillion-dollar empire that is Turner Properties.
The company was established back in the late seventies when my father opened his first hotel in New York. A boutique hotel, at that. It began with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar debt, a second mortgage on his and my mom’s house, and an insane amount of stress and failures from what I’ve been told. But within ten years, he’d turned that debt into a million-dollar profit and ten more hotels across the country.
And with Turner Properties’ last evaluation as a solid twenty-billion-dollar company, it’s safe to say the momentum hasn’t stopped since.
No matter how big his company got, no matter how many employees he acquired, he’s always kept an ear to the ground and a hand to the work. As a kid, I went with him everywhere he would let me, and I have to admit, that meant I went a lot of places.
He flourished under my attention, and I worshiped the ground he walked on.
All in all, that foundation for our relationship is probably the reason why I am the way I am. He is a self-made man—something, as his son and employee, I’ll never be able to say I am—but he’s the man who made me.
I work long hours, and the ones I don’t spend at the office, I usually spend plotting and dreaming about new ideas to implement when I’m there.
But all of the hard work isn’t for naught.
One day soon, I want my father to be able to retire. He’s reached the age where he shouldn’t be spending the majority of his days and nights in the goddamn office. He should be at home with my mom. Spending time with her. Taking care of her. Enjoying the time he has left with her.
But getting to the point where he trusts me enough to take over Turner Properties currently feels like a nearly impossible feat. One I’ve been trying to overcome for the past decade.
I’d never personally label myself a workaholic, but it’s a term I’ve heard thrown around more than once or twice among my friends.
I don’t have to wonder where I got it.
In addition to hardworking and dedicated, my father is also incredibly loyal. When he finds an employee he loves, he makes sure they never have a reason to leave.
Which probably explains why I’ve known my dad’s assistant, Helen, since I was a baby.
The shine of her hair glints in the bright recessed lighting as she completes numerous tasks behind the shield of her white-marble-topped and gold-legged desk.
She’s a hard worker and even thicker-skinned, and she runs such a tight ship, sometimes I wonder who’s really running the company—her or my dad.
“He’s ready for you,” she says, touching her ear with a nod, but I hesitate.
Is she talking to me?
Someone else?
God, Bluetooth technology is fucking unnerving. I never know if people are talking to me or the person in their ear.
“Trent,” she says, and still, it doesn’t really clear anything up.
My dad and I share the same name, and ever since we started working together, it’s been a point of confusion on many occasions.
She snaps her fingers and points at me, clear as fucking crystal, and I feel like a fool for not responding earlier. “Get in there, kid.”