Only Helen and my mom can get away with calling me “kid” without it boiling under my skin. At thirty-three years old, I’m not exactly old and gray, but after a decade in the business, I feel like I’ve earned my stripes. Anytime anyone says anything to suggest I haven’t, it grates.
Confident and quick, I stride into the office and shut the door behind me with a click.
My dad is going over a report and retucking his shirt into the waistband of his pants. He’s always worked sloppy, but he’d never let that show to anyone else. Not even me.
Look put together, feel put together, he always used to say. I apparently took the words to heart because my black suit is one of twenty just like it hanging in the master closet of my loft in lower Manhattan, and I’ve never worn flip-flops in my life.
“Have a seat,” my father orders, and I do. I’d rather stand, since I don’t know the nature of this meeting and being on my feet makes me feel quicker on them, but I’m not in control here.
My dad’s obsessive need to control everything is the ultimate trump card in every conversation or meeting I have with him.
And that’s exactly what he’s trying to tell me as he rounds the desk and leans into the heavy wood so I have to look up at him. His stormy gray-blue eyes sparkle behind his glasses, highlighting the silver flecks in his black hair. We don’t look particularly alike other than our bodies—slender hips and broad shoulders—because as far as my features are concerned, I heavily favor my mother.
“How’s construction going?” he asks without preamble, and for once, I appreciate the omission of bullshit.
“Fine. George gets lazy if you don’t push him, but we’re on schedule so far.”
“You need to be in New Orleans,” he huffs. The fact that I’m still living in New York, working remotely and only traveling to New Orleans when absolutely necessary, is a huge point of contention between us. He knows damn well why I’ve stayed, but it doesn’t matter. If the time you’re living on isn’t his time, it’s wrong.
“I know. I’ll be there by the end of the week.”
“You should have gone two months ago.”
I grind my jaw against his insensitivity. Every time he pushes me on this, I get a little bit closer to feeling like we’re not even related at all. I cannot comprehend why can’t he understand why I’ve stayed. She may be his wife, but she’s my mom, and she’s sick.
“Mom—”
“Would have understood. She’s been with me long enough to get it when work comes first.”
And this is a perfect example of where his bullheadedness and indelible work ethic go too far.
It takes everything inside me not to offer up a rebuttal to his fucked-up mind-set, but I take a deep breath and stand up from my chair. I move behind it and lean into the leather back pointedly.
I’m done lying on the ground and taking my licks. If he wants to continue this meeting, we’re at least going to do it on the same level.
“What do you need?” I ask, hoping to speed up this painful process.
“I just wanted to let you know I’ll be finishing up staffing for the New Orleans team today.”
He is going to finish up staffing for the hotel I’m in charge of.
Fucking hell.
My eyebrows draw together, and tension pulls my spine straighter. This is the first time I’m hearing anything about his involvement in the staffing for my hotel, and apparently, he’s already almost done.
“I thought I was doing the interviews.”
My dad shakes his head, but he doesn’t make any excuses. It doesn’t matter what the plan was, this is the way it is now. Period. “You thought wrong.”
“Dad—”
“Staff is important, Trent. You should know that by now.”
My jaw aches as I clench my teeth together in an effort not to say something I’ll regret. “I do.”
“Your track record says otherwise.”
The urge to toss poison and bullshit right back at him is so fucking strong, I can taste it. I’m tempted to tell him about the woman from the gym the other day. The one who said his pride and joy was ugly.
She was attractive, even beneath that baggy Metallica T-shirt of hers, but rude as fuck. And her opinions of the Vanderturn Manhattan were obnoxiously bad.
But the mere idea of her pisses me off too much and repeating what she’d said to my father would result in the opposite of satisfaction. The criticism that came out of her pretty but vile mouth was a fucking slap in my face too.
And my track record? Really? The only track record I’ve established is a strong work ethic and a willingness never to rest until the job is done.
“I think you might be forgetting about what I did in Tokyo. Or Paris.”
“Those were small projects, Trent,” he retorts, like all of the time and effort I put into those was bullshit.
“They’re five-star, highly successful restaurants.”
“Yeah, but they were restaurants inside the hotels, not the entire hotel,” he retorts with a smugness highlighting his jaw. “Not to mention, they have nothing to do with the actual hotel you’re working on. The one you’ve already delayed development on by sixty days.”
Nothing is ever fucking good enough for him.
After thirty-three years, I thought I’d be used to my dad’s thinly veiled insults, but it never gets easier.
Trent Turner Senior is one of the most liked men in the hotel business. His smiles come easy, his employees are valued, and he’s smart enough to stay down-to-earth despite growth and wealth.
He’s “the best”—as long as you’re not his son.
I’ve been trying to crawl out of the shade of his shadow for the better part of the last five years, but every time I think I’m getting close, he gets up and moves.
I’m dying to tell him what I think of his domineering bullshit, but if there’s one thing he really hates, it’s back talk. So instead, I stand tall against the onslaught and bear it. It won’t do me any good to get into it with him now. I’m on the cusp of finally being far enough away to do something without him, to make a name for myself, and I don’t need my impatience to derail it. “So, you’re finishing the interviews today.”
“Yep,” he responds. “We’ll have a meeting when all the staffing is finalized, and then it will be your project.”
My project with a staff full of people he chose.
“Great.”
He purses his lips and shakes his head before rubbing at the tense skin between his eyebrows and taking a seat in his chair. In my effort to keep things civil, I’ve taken my concise responses too far.
“You don’t have any idea, Trent,” he chastises, “what it takes to run a multibillion-dollar company like this.”
I clench my fists in my pockets and prepare for the speech he can’t stop himself from giving me. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times, and I don’t know that there will ever come a time when he thinks he can stop.
“It’s more than strong-arming and thinking you know what’s best. It’s collaboration and humility. Listening and learning instead of ordering people around. Sometimes you’re not the expert, and you have to be okay with that.”