I ATE LUNCH BY MYSELF.
Growing up as an only child because my parents couldn’t afford to give me siblings (a decision I respected) meant that dinners weren’t a noisy event. Still, that did not make them silent.
I met true loneliness the day Luna stopped speaking. It happened days after her second birthday, and deflated my already shaky confidence regarding parenthood. Up until then, being a single parent was hard—but not impossible. I had the money and resources to hire the best nannies on the planet, my parents to rely on when I needed to get out of town, and my friends and their wives, who were always accommodating and treated Luna as their own. Bonus points—I was so used to being dealt every crappy card life had to offer, I was barely surprised when Val bailed out on our asses.
I’d been robbed my whole life.
Robbed of my football scholarship when a douche named Toby Rowland greased the floor under my locker, causing me to fall and break my ankle.
Robbed out of my freedom when Val broke the news about her pregnancy, though that was on me just as much as it was on her.
And, finally, robbed out of a happy child when Val fucked off and left Luna with me.
But this? This was the last straw. The silence. It ate me from the inside and my normal, quiet self turned into a raging asshole of massive proportions who just needed a good excuse to unleash my wrath.
I was quiet and resentful and a fucking mess—because of my daughter.
After lunch, I walked into my office on the fifteenth, ready to tackle my mile-long to-do list, freezing on the spot when I spotted Edie Van Der Zee waiting on the other side of my desk.
Sitting in my chair.
Legs on top of my closed laptop.
Heels pointing at me teasingly.
Arms crossed over her chest.
Venus in a dress. Smart ass. In need of fucking saving.
Not today, sweetheart. I’ve already got one girl to save and she is keeping me hella busy.
I threw my briefcase on my desk, loosening my tie. “You have three seconds to take your feet off of my laptop.” Before I spread them wide and eat you out for the whole fucking floor to hear, I refrained from adding.
“I don’t believe you.” Her eyes clung to my face like they were trying to peel away a persistent layer of a façade to get to a truth. “Last time you counted down the seconds, nothing happened. I may be a thief, but you, Mr. Rexroth, are a liar.”
Last time I’d let her off the hook because I’d needed to get home. I’d caught a quick lunch with my mother while my dad had watched Luna. Right now I had all the time in the world. Furthermore—I was her new boss until tomorrow morning, and she was begging to be disciplined.
I stepped over to the desk, grabbed her slim ankle, slid the heel off, and snapped the red Louboutin shoe, tearing the sexy heel from the beige footwear. Her eyes darted to me in horror. I pocketed the heel like it was sexy underwear, and nonchalantly slipped Cinderella’s shoe back in place.
“Balance,” my voice was grave, and so was I—she needed this lesson—“is everything in life. I try not to be a dick unless absolutely necessary, but I got a feeling you’re here to test boundaries, aren’t you, kid?”
Her cool evaporated like thin smoke, replaced with hot despair. She shot up from my seat and rounded the desk, hyperaware of her broken heel. Her hands were balled into fists.
“What. The. Hell!” Edie’s eyes were dancing in their sockets. Her rage was pouring out in buckets and I wanted to gargle on her sweet fucking wrath, drinking from her well of sorrow. “What’s your problem with me?”
“I don’t have a problem with you. You’re not even on my fucking radar. I walked into my office and found you here, all over my desk like a rash.” I dumped my loosened tie onto my desk, rolling my uncuffed sleeves up to my elbows.
“Well, I came here to tell you that I don’t want this job.”
“Good. Because you don’t deserve it,” I shot.
“In that case, I’d appreciate you telling me you’ll vote against me. I mean, I know you will, but hearing it from you would make me feel a lot better.”
“I’m not here to make you feel better. What’s so bad about working at Fiscal Heights Holdings, anyway?” I had no reason to humor her, but she was still standing there, for a reason beyond my grasp, so I thought I’d throw her a bone. She scrunched her nose, something I’d seen her do before.
“I can’t work here. I have things to do. Plans…different plans for my future. So, can you just tell the others to vote against me, too?”
“Do I look like I’d take orders from you?” I blinked slowly, only slightly amused by her brazen approach.
“Please.” Her voice was steady, her eyes afire on mine.
“Don’t,” I grunted, holding one hand in the air to stop her. I leaned a hip against my desk. “Never beg, Edie. Now, go make me a coffee.”
She threw her head back and laughed. Rather hysterically, I noted. Teenage girls were typically full of emotions and bullshit, and I had to come to terms with that because Luna was going to hit puberty in less than ten years. Great.
“I’m not making you shit.”
“I didn’t ask for shit. I asked for coffee.”
“I’m not your PA.”
“True. You’re lower than that. You’re the office bitch,” I retorted calmly, watching as Edie’s eyes followed the veins on my forearms like her life depended on it. I’d chuckle if it didn’t make me feel like a perv.
“I’m the what?” she mouthed.
I nodded. “General Assistant. That’s your title. Your father just sent the contract to HR and CC’ed all of us ahead of the board meeting tomorrow. GA is just diplomatic wording for an office bitch. I can ask you for anything within reason. So I’m asking you for coffee. No sugar. Black.”
If nothing else, I was a fucking asshole for loving the look on her face. Like she’d been broken—but just for now. Just for this moment. Just for me. Realization washed over her, making her straighten her spine and slant her chin up.
She was going to do it. Take my orders, make my coffee, burn my time, and be a welcomed distraction.
A maelstrom of emotions swam in Edie’s eyes. If they could speak, they would scream. But they couldn’t. So all I saw was an extremely irritated girl who’d recently grown a new pair of tits and had just discovered life was not a picnic.
“Chop, chop.” I clapped my hands twice.
I wasn’t the nicest person in the world. I liked to think I was good enough to at least warn her to take her shoes off before she walked away. But before I had a chance, Edie turned around and stormed toward the door, falling flat on her ass.
The only solace in her unfortunate scenario, as I leaned against my desk, watching her pull herself up on unsteady feet, was that I didn’t laugh.
Then again, I didn’t spare her the humiliation because I liked her. I hadn’t moved to help her up for a different reason.
I was hard as a stone, and moving would have given that away.
“You failed your first lesson at balance. Big surprise.”
“You’re failing at life, Rexroth!” She galloped out of my office, her face red with humiliation.
I rearranged my package as soon as she left and shot a text message to Sonya.
Edie Van Der Zee had started to feel like an itch. Luckily, I was going to scratch her out of my life first thing tomorrow morning.
And then the morning arrived. It was the kind that reminded me why I fucking hated talking to people. One where everything was chaotic, everybody was loud, and everyone was on my ass, firing questions, begging for attention, and asking for shit.
“Mr. Rexroth, you have the Duran-Dexter file on your desk. Can you sign it for me?”
“Trent, you have a conference call at three.”
“Can you go to a charity event in Palo Alto next week? Someone needs to, and Jaime is too busy with Mel and the new baby.”
“Trent—why is Luna here?”
“Rexroth—are we still on for drinks on Saturday?”
“Rexroth.”
“Hey, T-Rex!”
“Trent, darling…”
I came to a stop in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the throng of colleagues, and squatted down to Luna’s eye-level, my voice rusty from lack of talking. She was clutching Camila’s hand, a faraway look in her eyes. Dragging her into the office with me every Tuesday was a terrible idea, but Sonya seemed hell-bent on it and I wasn’t the fucking expert.
“How about tacos for lunch?” I brushed my thumb on her cheek and handed Camila some cash. “Take Luna to pick up some bagels and meet me in my office.”
“Why? Where are you going now?” Camila’s thick, Spanish accent made a cameo, which meant she wasn’t pleased with me.
I’m going to get an eighteen-year-old kid fired because I’m too selfish to trust myself not to fuck her raw in her father’s office if she gets anywhere near me.
“Board meeting. Should be quick. Just voting on something and then I’ll be out.” I patted Luna’s head and pressed a kiss to her forehead before rising up and gently squeezing Camila’s shoulder.
Turning on my heel toward my office, I saw Jordan Van Der Zee appearing from the sliding residential glass elevator doors, his daughter shadowing his steps. He was holding her like she was a convicted criminal again, and I tried not to lose my shit over it—again. Today, Edie was wearing a navy sailor dress a size larger than her tiny frame. At knee-length, it was conservative, but still highlighted her killer calves. A little gymnast that could bend to a man’s every need.
Whoa. Backtrack this shit, fast, Sir Perv-a-Lot.
She seemed to be a completely different person around her father. Away from him, she was confident, feisty, and a fucking headache. But now? Her eyes were on the floor, and her two nose rings were the only faint glimmer of her black, rebellious heart.
Badass, my ass.
Jordan nodded me a hello, and I returned the gesture. We met at the custom designed gold doors leading to the boardroom. I saw my three friends behind the fishbowl walls, hunched over the long, bronze table, discussing something among themselves.
“Reconsider.” Jordan smoothed his Armani tie. A statement, not a request. Not a fucking chance. I didn’t trust this man with a plastic spoon, let alone my company. In the six months since we’d been in business together, he’d killed four out of the five big deals I’d brought to Fiscal Heights Holdings. He’d slacked off on all of my big accounts—purposely—and blatantly tried to designate the greenest, least-experienced brokers for my clients. A week into our work together, I’d had my first unfortunate encounter with him. I’d overheard him talking on the phone on my way out from the office.
“No, not Rexroth. Let’s send someone else to try to save the Drescher and Ferstein account,” he’d said. An account I’d brought in, thank-you-very-fucking-much. I waited, loitering behind his office door like a General Hospital character and hating it. “He’s too…you know what. Too hood. Too angry. Not very talkative. I don’t want him anywhere near this account. Ask Dean to talk to them. He’s the kind of pretty boy charmer their CEO, Helena, would appreciate.”
And that was it. That’s when I knew Jordan Van Der Zee wasn’t only a racist, but that he wanted to push me out of the company. He had another thing coming, and it was going to boomerang straight into his face.
Vicious, Dean, and Jaime were already halfway out the corporate door, showing up to work three or four times a week and spending most of their time with their families. But me, I only had Luna. Though to be completely honest, even she seemed to prefer spending time with the nanny.
“This is where you part ways with Daughter Dearest.” I tugged at my collar, because Edie motherfucking Van Der Zee made the temperature in the room rise by at least ten degrees.
“Gladly.” She plucked her phone from her purse and walked away.
Jordan entered the conference room, and I snapped my fingers, smiling. “I need to sign off on a contract for the D&D account. Be right back, Jordi-boy.”
“I never saw this account.” His brows dove down. He hated when I called him that.
“Exactly,” I said, a bounce in my steps as I went to my office to fetch the contract. After signing it—taking pleasure in the fact I made Jordan wait in the boardroom for me like a little bitch—I walked over to the main reception area of the floor, where it split into two corridors with the huge boardroom in the middle. Deciding to make him wait a little longer, I took a sharp right into the break room to brew myself a coffee with the fancy machine I’d never tried before. Was it petty? Yes. Did inconveniencing Jordan by making him wait on me for an extra few minutes make me smile? Hell yes.
I was about to push the glass door open when I stopped on my heel, watching the girls inside the kitchen.
Luna. Camila. Edie. Standing together. Looking…excited? What the…?
Edie threw her arms around Camila and hugged her, burrowing into her shoulder. Luna was standing beside them, observing the scene, doe-eyed. For the first time in a long time, she was interested in something that wasn’t seahorses. Edie cupped Camila’s cheeks, before wiping her tears with the back of her hand. She wore her emotions like jewelry. Proud and unapologetic. It made me hate her a little less for trying to steal my mother’s handbag a few weeks ago.
Then Edie did the unthinkable, and yet what every girl her age would have done.
She crouched, ran her hand over Luna’s curly piggy tails, and smiled.
Almost in slow motion, she pointed at Luna’s fluffy blue seahorse, her mouth forming an O-shaped wow.
Luna’s face broke into a timid grin. She never smiled at me like that. I blinked away my shock, trying to wrap my head around her reaction. Edie must’ve asked Luna something, because Luna nodded.
Nodded. She never nodded. Nodding was one step away from vocalizing your needs, and Luna was all about keeping me in the dark.
My daughter looked alert and attentive and invested in that moment, which was something I couldn’t say about her ninety percent of the time. And I stood there, rooted to the floor, not wanting to step into the moment and pierce the fog of magic they were cocooned in.
“Yo, assface, is the weed eating at your memory? We’re all waiting for you in the boardroom.” Dean killed my trance by slapping my back from behind, chewing his gum deliberately noisily in my ear. “Come join us before Jordi hangs you by the balls and Vicious skins you and makes a new ottoman out of your flesh.”
Reluctant, I followed his steps, moving toward the boardroom, my eyes still on the break room.
I took a seat at the conference room, sandwiched between Dean and Jaime. Jordan was sitting across from me, looking one argument away from a heart attack.
“Nice veins.” I pointed at his forehead, fishing my cell phone out and dumping it onto the table.
“You’re very funny, Rexroth. Your charm has brought you a long way, to Beverly Hills, to Todos Santos. But I see underneath it, and I’m less than impressed.” A hiss slid between his thin lips.
I shrugged. “Thanks for the analysis, Dr. Strangelove. Now let’s do this as quick and as painless as possible, so that Jordi can go back to admiring the reflection of himself on the four-grand mirror in his office. Shall we?”
“We shall.” Jaime slapped the desk, dark circles framing his eyes. His wife, Mel, had just given birth to their second daughter, Bailey. He looked as happy as a pig in shit and as tired as the person hired to clean up the pigpen.
The poll had started off with Jordan, who obviously voted for keeping his daughter employed. Then came my turn, and I surprised everyone, including myself, with the answer.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Vicious blinked, giving me his what-the-fuck-is-your-game look. “Yes means you vote for her employment,” he explained slowly, like I was an idiot.
“I know what yes means, dickbag.”
Vicious, Jaime, and Dean exchanged puzzled looks. They were going to go with my plan, but now, I’d changed it. Jordan appeared out of sorts, looking among all of us, searching our faces, trying to make sense of it all.
Jaime was the first to recover, rubbing the dark bags under his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
Dean’s turn. He tossed his tennis ball onto the table. “If Trent’s fine with it, I don’t give a damn if she works here.”
Then Vicious. He looked up at me, shaking his head slightly in warning.
I don’t want to fuck her, asshole. I mean, I do, but I won’t.
Then again I’d never had a serious girlfriend in my thirty-three years, and the one thing I did have was a runaway ex-stripper whom I’d knocked up in a dirty hookup and who’d left me with our kid. So maybe I did deserve that warning.
But even though Edie Van Der Zee was definitely trouble, Luna seemed to like her.
Maybe.
Probably.
Goddammit, hopefully.
I knew I was making zero sense. I didn’t give a damn. Let them think I was crazy. More power to me. No one liked to mess with crazy. Ruthless? Why not. Powerful? Sure. But crazy was unpredictable, the worst attribute in human nature.
Vicious opened his lips, relishing the power of having the room. “It’s a yes from me.”
She was in.
My friends were my tribe, my custom-made, hand-selected family. Saying we had each other’s backs was an understatement. Nearly twenty years and counting, we were still blindly loyal toward one another. When one of us jumped, the others gladly took the fall.
Dean stood up, collecting his shit from the table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call my wife. She had a doctor’s appointment today. Mazel tov, Jordi.”
Vicious and Jaime got up and started discussing a conference call with Japan they had tomorrow at the butt crack of dawn.
Van Der Zee and I found ourselves alone in the boardroom, surrounded by nothing but the white noise of the air conditioner. Jordan tapped his finger on his thin lips, his foot mimicking the irritated movement.
He was waiting for me to explain. Foolishly, I might add. Volunteering information to the enemy was a rookie mistake, one I’d learned not to make long before my rich, sheltered friends had learned how to wipe their own asses.
“Feeling indecisive today?” His long, bony, Voldemort-like face twisted in displeasure. He looked like a tsar and acted like a tyrant. Jordan thought he was intimidating, and maybe he was, but not to me. To me, he was all bark, zero bite.
I shrugged, resting my legs on the table, knowing it’d drive him nuts. “Nah, I was always okay with your daughter working here. Just wanted to make you sweat a little. Cardio is important at your age.”
“How considerate of you. You’re not one to waste time, and you just wasted plenty of ours, so I am guessing there’s a plan behind your change of heart. Let me be clear—my daughter is completely off-limits for you. You will be wise to stay far away from her.”
I couldn’t get butthurt over his comment, because no matter how wildly insane and sick it was, I did find his teenage daughter good enough to eat. At the same time, I knew better than to even think about it. She acted like a child. I had one at home. They weren’t much fun, and were ridiculously hard to tame.
“I expect the other guys won’t be getting the same warning?” I tipped my chin down, averting his warning. Not that I was going to fuck little Edie, but he didn’t have to know that. Pulling at his strings was my version of a hobby.
“Your colleagues are gentlemen.”
My colleagues had fucked enough women between them to populate a medium-sized country, but I wasn’t going to argue this point. Not with him, anyway. I stretched in my seat, yawning. I may have been The Mute—I was the one to never, ever talk. Not at meetings, not at company functions, and not to mingle with anyone—but when the situation called for it, I was happy to fight for what I wanted.
“You know, Jordi, I sometimes feel inclined to pull the race card on you. You seem to approach me with a bag of prejudice that doesn’t apply to my fair-skinned partners.” My voice was breezy, and so was I. I really didn’t care if Jordan was a racist, as long as he stayed out of my way.
Van Der Zee snorted, shaking his head. “Don’t even go there, Rexroth. You’re practically white. You look like you’re working on your tan.”
“A simple, ‘I’m not a racist’ would have been more sufficient,” I pointed out.
“At any rate.” He stood up. “Stay away from my daughter if you want to survive a year in this company.” A year ago, Jordan had agreed to buy forty-nine percent of the shares in the company, with us four splitting the remaining shares. We did it so we could all move to Todos Santos and live close to each other. But we never knew Jordan would be such a pain in the ass.
“Color me bored at your idle threat. Besides, I heard you the first time.”
“Heard, yes. Acknowledged? No.”
“I’ve got your acknowledgement right here, sir: Fuck. Off.” I slid my hands out of my pockets and showed him my two middle fingers before getting up and grabbing my phone and wallet. I dialed Sonya’s number to give her the good news about Luna nodding. She answered after the first ring. “Sonya, hold on one sec.” I shot him a smirk, pressing the receiver to my chest. “Word to the wise, Van Der Zee—next time you get into business with someone, make sure they are a gentleman. Because I sure as hell am not, and I don’t care how many shares you have in my company. Let it be known—if you threaten me one more time, I will leave you to collect dust and a string of financial losses. We’re done here, partner.”