35.
Levi
I was a little late when I finally made it down to BCM, but Cal was on a call with a client, so I was able to slip into the office without having to hear it from him. I’d be joining him for a meeting later today with the research team to go over new asset selection. For right now, though, I could enjoy my coffee and read over the Wall Street Journal, which I was still having trouble getting totally interested in.
So when my phone started ringing, I happily dug it out of my pocket, eager for the distraction. I hesitated, though, when I saw who was calling.
It was Ella. But I picked up the phone, because I didn’t like the way we’d left things in Ibiza, and part of me hoped she was calling to say she had calmed down and that everything was all good.
“Hi,” she said, in a tone much softer than I’d ever heard her use before. “Levi, it’s Ella.”
“I know who it is,” I
said. “How are you?”
There was a long pause and then a sigh. “I’m terrible, actually. I haven’t been
able to stop thinking about you, and the way we left things in Ibiza. Are you
back in New York?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I am. Can we . . . can we meet up?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Ella.”
“Okay, fine. I can say this over the phone, too. I just thought it might be better to do it in person. I’m sorry about everything I said to you. It was out of anger. And shock. I . . . I’m hoping that you’ve had some time to think things over and that maybe we can just put all of this behind us.”
I smiled and plucked a pen out of the container on the desk. I doodled on the corner of a yellow legal pad. “I’m so glad you called to say that,” I said. “There’s nothing I’d like more than to be able to do that.”
“I knew all that was just a big mistake,” she said, laughing a little. “I knew you didn’t mean it. The two of us—we’re meant to be together.”
“Wait—what? I thought you just said you wanted to put this behind us.”
“Right. Like, I want to
forget that whole conversation even took place. We can pretend it never
happened. You just said yourself that you’d like nothing more than to be able
to do that.”
Shit, she was persistent. I knew why, though: She wasn’t accustomed to hearing
no. She wasn’t used to not getting exactly what she wanted.
“We definitely can put it behind us,” I said. “But I don’t mean pretend the whole thing never happened. I’d like to be able to continue to be friends with you, Ella, but so far as us being together like we used to be . . . I’m with Isla now. So things can’t be exactly how they were. You have to be okay with that, Ella. Otherwise, I don’t think that we’re going to be able to be friends.”
Silence.
She was quiet for so
long, I thought she’d hung up. “Hello?” I said. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“Look, Ella, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. But—”
“My father’s going to be
coming down there to talk to you.”
I stopped doodling. “Really? Really, Ella? You’re sending your dad down here because you don’t like
what I’m telling you? That’s a little unnecessary, don’t you think?”
“No,” she said icily. “It’s not.”
“It is, though. He’s just going to be wasting his time. It’s not like your dad is going to come down here and say something that’s going to make me change my mind.” Maybe I needed to tell her to fuck off. Maybe that’s the only thing she would understand.
“I beg to differ,” she
said, and then she hung up.
I tried not to think about what she might actually mean, though I was having a
hard time wrapping my head around the fact she was basically refusing to break
up with me. And she had sounded so certain that her father would somehow be
able to change my mind. Frank could be persuasive and charismatic when he
wanted to be, of course, but what the hell did she think he was going to say
that would suddenly make me decide that I wanted to be with her?
It looked as though I was about to find out, though. Frank showed up less than an hour after I got off the phone with Ella. He breezed right in, not bothering to stop at the front desk, all but ignoring Cal. “You,” he said, pointing at me. “We need to talk.”
“Sure,” I said. “Come on into the office. We can talk in there.”
He followed me in and I shut the door. “So, Frank,” I started, but he interrupted me.
“What I’d like to know,”
he said, “is why I get back from California only to find my daughter at home,
more upset than I think I ever remember seeing her. She didn’t want to tell us
at first, but she finally did. What’s the matter with you, Levi? And she tells
me that you left her to be with your stepsister?
Are you out of your mind?”
I took a deep breath. “Frank, talking with you about this in the first place is
a little weird.”
“I know. Trust me—it’s not like I want to be having this discussion with you right now. What the hell happened to your face, anyway?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It was an accident. It’s fine.”
“Some accident. Anyway. I want to be talking about Westport, and I want to be hearing from you that we’re going to move forward with it. But, as a father, I don’t feel as though that’s a conversation we can be having until we get this little bit of business sorted out. This was the plan, Levi. You don’t get to back out of the plan now.”
“What are you talking
about?” I asked. “Just because things between Ella and me didn’t work out
exactly how you hoped doesn’t mean that you get to come in here and tell me who
I’m going to date. Come on, Frank. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Your father never told you?” Frank said.
“Told me what?”
“That you and Ella are going to get married.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s up for my father to decide.”
Frank shook his head.
“Alex wanted to just let things happen naturally. Which it seemed like they
were. Don’t tell me before your stepsister came back into the picture that you
weren’t thinking you’d eventually settle down with Ella. To the degree that
someone like you is capable of settling down.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“That’s not surprising.
Your father had a bit of a blind spot when it came to you. I told him that it
would be better in the long run if he talked to you about it, but he thought
that it would only make you more resistant. He thought that if he told you,
you’d purposefully start seeing someone else. Which you have. Because you can
be a jackass like that. That’s no secret to anyone; I knew it, your father knew
it.”
I sat there, feeling my brain trying to assimilate everything that Frank was
telling me. Was he just bullshitting me? Trying to shock me into dating his
daughter again? “So if I’m to believe what you’re telling me, you and my father
had arranged for Ella and me to get married?”
Frank’s gaze didn’t waver. “That’s exactly right.”
I nodded slowly. “And the
reason my father didn’t tell me this is because he thought that I’d refuse.”
“Right again.”
“Not because you’re just
making all this shit up on the spot because you don’t want your daughter to be
upset. Which is commendable, Frank, really, but also sort of . . . I don’t
know, creepy? And why would you want your daughter married to such a jackass,
anyway?”
“You can say what you want, Levi, but it’s the truth. The only reason you don’t
know that it’s the truth is because
your father thought it would be better not to tell you. Clearly, he was wrong.
Alex wasn’t right about everything. Most things, yes, but there were some
things that he wasn’t right about. This was one of them.”
“I still don’t believe
you,” I said, though I was starting to wonder if my father had made some sort of arrangement like that. “Why would he do
that?”
“Because when you were too young to even remember, BCM was a struggling little
financial company that was going under because your father took some risks that
he shouldn’t have. I was the one to provide the money he needed for the
purchase of Sowa Bank, which basically turned everything around. Despite
everyone telling me that it wasn’t worth it and I should keep my money where it
had been for generations—at Peterson-Wendig, which I’m sure you’re unaware of—I
listened to what your father told me, and agreed that though it was a high-risk
investment, if it worked out, the dividends would be unbelievable. And you know
what? They were.”
“So in exchange for this,
my father told you that I would marry Ella,” I said. “That sounds so
ridiculous, Frank, I can’t even believe that you would be sitting here, asking
me to believe it. This isn’t India. We don’t have arranged marriages here.”
“You can choose to believe it or not. Your father, unfortunately, is not here
to corroborate the story.”
“Let’s say I was willing to believe this bullshit. If we were so young when this deal was made, how did you even know that we’d get along? That we’d like each other? I know Dad liked to take risks and everything, but that seems like a pretty big fucking agreement to make.”
Frank looked at me incredulously. “It wouldn’t matter if you two liked each other or not. That is beside the point. Completely beside the point. What’s more important is protecting the family’s wealth? Let’s not fool ourselves, Levi: You’re no businessman. You’re not going to follow in your father’s footsteps, not because you don’t have the ability to, but because you don’t have the inclination. You might be fooling everyone else, dressing up in a shirt and tie and coming in here and sitting behind your father’s desk—and maybe you’re even fooling yourself—but I can see right through it. This will last another couple months, at most—you coming in here and playing pretend—and then you’ll hand the reins over to Cal, which is exactly what he’s been waiting for.”
“Sounds like you have it all figured out.”
“So let’s just keep things the way they are. The way they should be.”
“You don’t care that we don’t want to be together? It’s more important that some deal you and my father struck is upheld? This isn’t feudal England or some shit. We’re not fucking royalty.”
“Of course we are.” Frank
shook his head. “It may not feel that way to you because you didn’t do anything
to earn it, but we are. And when you’re as wealthy as we are, you have to do
certain things to ensure that the wealth stays within the family.”
“I thought that’s what prenuptial agreements were for.”
“What’s the matter with you, Levi? Ella’s gorgeous, intelligent, and she comes from a great family. You guys have been dating for, what, over a decade now? Cut the shit. Give her a call, take her out to dinner, go stay at our place in the Hamptons for the week. You can fix it. Just stop being a moron. You’re better than this.”
He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He was, after all, someone who was used to getting his way, one hundred percent of the time. Is this how I came across to people? Did Alfie see me like this? I could understand, all of a sudden, why he did what he did. If I had been in his shoes, I probably would’ve done the same thing.
“There is no deal,” I
said. “If my father made a deal with you, then it died when he did. I’m not
marrying Ella.”
Frank face contorted and turned several different shades of red. Was he about
to have a heart attack right here?
“I’ll give you one last
chance,” he said, “and that’s being far more generous than I should be.”
“You don’t need to give me anything. And if you want to take your money
elsewhere, then go ahead. I’m not marrying Ella, and we’re not going through
with this Westport deal. End of story. And guess what, Frank? I’m the one in
charge here. So there’s no one for you to go complaining to because you don’t
happen to like what I’m saying.”
“You’re a fool, son,” he said, shaking his head. “A fucking fool and you don’t even realize it. If your father could see what you’re doing right now . . .” He turned and stormed out.
“Yeah, well, he’s not here,” I said. I could hear Frank ranting and raving as he walked through the office, his voice getting quieter the further he got, until it finally ceased. Cal stuck his head in.
“What the hell was that
all about?” he said. “I probably don’t even want to know.”
“You probably don’t. Frank’s leaving.”
“I can see that.”
“No, I mean, leaving. Taking his money and going
elsewhere.”
Cal’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?” he said.
“You heard me. I’m sorry.”
“How could you let him do that?” Cal said. “Get him on the phone. Tell him to come back in here. We’ll fix this.”
“Frank isn’t going to change his mind,” I said. “And besides, I thought you’d be glad to hear he was going to take his business elsewhere.”
“Just because Frank and I don’t get along personally doesn’t mean that I want him to take his money somewhere else!” Cal shouted. “He’s got over two and a half billion dollars here! Do you think we want that money walking out the door and going to another firm?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I don’t think for a second that anyone wants that sort of money just going somewhere else—if there’s not a good reason for it. But there is. And . . . that’s just the way things work out sometimes. Besides, I told him that Westport is a no-go. Aren’t you glad about that?”
Cal glared at me. “Glad? Glad?! I am not even going to dignify that with a response! I shouldn’t have let you deal with Frank at all,” he said. “I knew that it was a bad idea. But you two had rapport—or so I thought.”
“I’m sorry, Cal. I know
this probably isn’t entirely what you want to hear. It wasn’t my plan either,
but . . . that’s just how it goes.”
“All because you wouldn’t go out with Ella.” Cal shook his head in disgust.
“It’s ridiculous. You spend your entire life cavorting around with her, but the
second you get wind that something is expected
of you, you’ve got to completely go and fuck it up!”
My jaw dropped. “You knew
about that too?”
“Yes, I knew about it.”
“Did everyone except for
me?”
“I don’t know, Levi. I didn’t agree with it, but that never mattered. Your
father did what he did, and that’s just how it was.”
I shook my head. “This whole thing is beyond fucked up. I love how no one ever decided to mention this to me.”
“Well, you’re hearing it
now.”
“Listen, Cal, I know Frank was a big account, I know he’d been here probably
longer than anyone else, but it’s better this way. And he’s not the only account.”
Cal grimaced. “You really have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. He turned and left. He was right, of course. I didn’t have any idea what I was talking about.