Home > Net Worth(6)

Net Worth(6)
Author: Amelia Wilde

I almost make it out without looking back.

Almost.

But even now, even in my hurt and embarrassment, I don’t want to slam the door in front of Mason Hill’s secretary. I put my hand out to catch it, turning my head, and—

Mason smiles at me from behind his desk, standing up tall and unflustered and perfect. “I’m done with you,” he says. “Until you beg.” Then the weight of the door meets my hand and pushes me away from him.

 

 

4

 

 

Charlotte

 

 

This could not be worse. He could not be worse. The rain. Mason Hill. The falling-apart car. The falling-apart life. What am I supposed to do?

It takes forty extra minutes to get home. The rain comes down in bucketfuls, too fast for my shitty wipers to keep up with, and I crawl along the highway and into the suburbs. Storm clouds have sunk down to street level. It’s probably all the rain that keeps coming through the vents and hitting my cheeks. Definitely not tears. Not over Mason Hill.

Our driveway is overflowing when I finally rattle onto it. Water collects where it’s not supposed to, drowning the grass on either side. Ditches are starting to form in irregular places in the yard. The lawn service stopped coming last August. The landscapers before that. I never knew that lawns could deteriorate like this.

Nothing I can do about it today.

Hot tears threaten at the corners of my eyes, but I’m done crying for today. I’m done. Done forever. I’m never going to think about Mason Hill again. Never going to think about the suit that fit his body so well it made my mouth water. Never going to think about those green eyes. I caught a bit of every shade in those eyes. Striations of dark forest and new leaves. The kind of color pattern that calls for a simple garment because it’s so complicated.

The adrenaline goes out of me as soon as I pull the car into the garage. Rain beats at the roof. My hands are sore from gripping the wheel. My hair’s wet from the walk to the parking garage. Worst of all, I imagined that night in his luxury apartment. How forbidden it would be. How wrong. The things he might do before the sun rose.

I’ve never done anything like that before. Nobody has ever made me feel breathless or needy enough to do it. And with Mason Hill…

I didn’t hate the idea. For a second, I didn’t hate it.

What is wrong with me?

The car door slams behind me—too hard, Charlotte—and my cardboard shoes squeak against the concrete on the way into the kitchen. It’s bright in here. Cheery. Recessed lights under the cupboards shine down on pristine countertops. They’re naked countertops. Bare. Every kitchen appliance that could be sold has been, all except the coffee maker.

My heart sinks at the pile of bills, waiting right where I left it. No one else has gone through them. Why would they? Neither of my parents are in a position to do anything about them. My mother’s observatory is empty. She’ll be upstairs, taking a nap. The sound of rain gives her migraines, she says.

“Are you home, sweetheart?” My father’s drunk. Four words is all it takes to know it. He thinks he’s hiding it by making his speech more precise and not less, but it’s a dead giveaway. He might as well be slurring and stumbling from one room to the next. My father doesn’t slur, and he doesn’t stumble. Maybe it would be better if he did. Maybe then someone else would have noticed.

Someone did notice. Mason seemed to know plenty about it today.

“Yes,” I answer. “I’m back.”

“Come talk to me.”

I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to anyone.

Too late now. I’ve already had the worst conversation of the day. I kick my shoes off and gather them into my hands. “Hi, Daddy.”

He’s sitting behind his desk in his office.

According to the house plans, this room was meant to be a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves. He left the shelves but made it a private office instead. I used to think this was the best room in the house. I’d find excuses to be here on the weekends. I’d work on sketches of dresses I wanted to make, and he’d work on real estate deals. Never mind that half the time those deals ended in raised voices and threats to ruin the other person.

My dad looks up from the laptop perched on the desk in front of him. “How was the office?”

“Good,” I lie. “Things are going to be back on track soon.”

His eyes are too bleary to care one way or the other. He lifts a heavy glass from the desk and uses it to gesture at my outfit. “You make that one, too?”

“Last night. I thought it might be nice to wear for meetings.”

A sip out of the glass. He can pretend he’s not drinking the whole bottle when he does it a little at a time. I’ve never seen him with more than a finger or two of alcohol in front of him.

It’s exactly why he doesn’t go to the office. Doesn’t go to any of these meetings. He might not look blackout drunk, but he is. He signs things without remembering them later. He didn’t notice that the foreign investor had backed out of Cornerstone for two months.

It’s better that he doesn’t remember.

“You don’t have to make your own clothes, Charlotte. It’s small time. Your talents are better used at Van Kempt.”

I take the seat across from him.

Up close, it’s even worse. His hand has a subtle tremor around the glass. Unlike Mason Hill, he couldn’t insist on standing for a meeting. He’d have to sit down to cover up the times when he forgets he’s standing at all.

“I’m using all my talents all the time,” I tell him. “I wanted to ask you a question, actually.”

His dark eyes gleam. Another sip from the glass. Here, in his office, he’s not a failure who’s let his family down. He’s a businessman who’s taking time to plan. “Which manager do you want to fire? Give me his name, and I’ll place the call myself.”

I put on a smile I don’t feel. “It’s not about firing anybody, Daddy. Have you ever heard of a man named Mason Hill?”

His lip curls back, eyes narrowing, and for a split second it looks like he might snarl out loud. By my next blink, it’s gone, and my father’s sipping at his drink again like nothing happened. My heart thuds. What the hell was that? “I’ve heard the name before. Mason Hill.” He tests it out, his eyes sliding to the left. “Someone in real estate?”

“I think so.”

“Why do you ask?”

I could say that someone brought up Mason’s name at the office, but judging by that change in his expression, that would get someone fired. “His name was in one of the magazines we get at the office. One of the architecture ones.”

“He wouldn’t know a damn thing about architecture.”

So he does know about Mason.

The glow from the lamp on my father’s desk doesn’t seem bright enough to combat his mood, or the gloom in the office. I get up and go around to the other side of his desk. Lean down to kiss his cheek. There’s so much alcohol in the air that it stings my throat. “I’m sure he wouldn’t. I’m going to go up and get changed. Want me to bring you anything?”

“Look in on your mother.”

He’s glowering into his glass when I leave.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)