He had been a protégé of her father during her first year of college. At least, that’s when she’d first met him. It was only a year later, that she stopped talking to James Brunswick altogether, after his latest affair with a partner at the firm, but she remembered Aiden Carmichael now, clear as day.
He was wearing a suit that looked a little too small on him; as if he hadn’t had the money to get it tailored after he’d outgrown it. She had met him after bursting into her father’s office to ask him for help with one of her classes, only to be stopped mid-sentence by the appearance of the handsome young man, who stood in the middle of the office, laughing over something her father must have said.
Her father’s face was a mask of anger, though, as he turned to her and yelled for her to get out before he called security. She knew that he wouldn’t have done it—not to her, even as cold as he was—but she still slipped back out, upset. Her father could be cruel, she knew, but she never expected him to be like that when there was somebody actually watching the two of them interact. Especially somebody as handsome as that young man.
The eighteen-year-old Melanie had refused to speak to her father for the next week—not that he tried very hard to converse with her—and had only come around when he brought his young…friend over for dinner one night, later that week. Melanie had been on her best behavior as she listened to her father talk business with the younger man, who was cordial and gave her small grins across the table when her father attempted to make a joke.
And then failed miserably. Naturally.
Aiden had always been nice to Melanie, even when her father was not. When she showed up at his office during her breaks from school, he was the one that offered her advice in her mathematics and English courses. He was quite skilled in literature, it seemed, and could quote some of her favorite novels. They would have talked symbolism for hours if her father had let them.
Sadly, though, he had not, and Aiden was always called back into James Brunswick’s office, sooner or later, for another lesson in finance. Now, Melanie wondered how old Aiden had even been at the time. He was older than she was, for sure, if he had the time to spend working at her father’s firm almost 24/7 whenever she visited, but he was at least two decades younger than her father was.
She imagined he was about Ian’s age. Maybe younger.
Oh, his presence must have pissed off her brother to the highest degree. She took some pleasure in knowing that, now that she had seen what a pompous ass her brother was capable of being. She was glad to know that at least the man her father had chosen to take under his wing was at least somewhat deserving of the designation.
Melanie couldn’t believe that she had forgotten about Aiden. It hadn’t been that long since she’d last seen him; less than a decade, even! But the fact that he now worked as the boss of one of the largest companies in the financial world must have thrown her off. After all, he had come so far from the young man she used to know. The man that, as a young student, she wasn’t ashamed to admit she had had a tiny crush on. After all, why wouldn’t she like somebody who had always had nothing but kind words to say to her? Why wouldn’t she have a crush on a man who helped her with her homework and whom her father so obviously approved of?
However, she doubted now that her father would have been okay with his nineteen-year-old daughter having a relationship with his business associate.
Melanie shook the thoughts off in an attempt to focus on the task at hand. She had to figure out who had swooped in and taken advantage of that loophole in her contract. No matter how much she Googled it, however, she couldn’t find anything about the ‘new owner’ of her firms. There were no articles about it and no sign of the purchase anywhere in the finance world. Even when she asked her colleagues, Melanie couldn’t seem to find anybody with any inkling of who had made the multi-million dollar purchase.
It was like the person—whoever they were—was a ghost.
Melanie found herself getting frustrated hours after she had begun her search and had to take a pause to relax. She chose a bottle of white wine this time, pouring herself half a glass and leaving her laptop in favor of lounging in her living room with the lights turned down low. Closing her eyes, she took a few moments just to breathe deeply, relaxing fully for the first time in two days.
When she opened her eyes again, Melanie reached for her phone, taking a sip of her wine as she opened up her email application and pulled up the old contact information for Aiden Carmichael that she had forgotten she had. His phone number, she quickly found, had been disconnected, so she deleted that. Instead, she sent him an email, using the same address that she had once asked for help with her homework. She hoped that it was current, because she didn’t want to explain to any of her colleagues why she needed Aiden Carmichael’s email.
God forbid anybody else ask her why she was asking for the address of a man who used to be so close to her father. She didn’t want to admit that she had forgotten about him, lest it make her look less professional.
She shot off a relatively quick email, asking him when he would like to meet with her to go over business. Her plans had never included a business partner, let alone somebody that might be able to feasibly call himself her boss, but she wasn’t about to let her only business opportunity pass her by over something as menial as her pride. Especially when it seemed that Aiden Carmichael could really do so much for her career.
She placed the phone down on the arm of the sofa and finished her wine with slow, languid sips. Once the glass had been drained, she thought about getting a refill, but then remembered her mother and the last time she had seen her, hooked up to I.V.s, with her cirrhotic liver. She had been two years sober by then, but it was too late.
As much as Melanie didn’t want to become her father, she didn’t exactly want to follow in her mother’s footsteps, either.
When she got up, Melanie placed her wine glass in the sink and dumped the rest of the wine down the drain. It wasn’t the most expensive bottle she owned, anyway. Maybe, in the future, she might have to resort to selling them in order to stay afloat. This time, however, was purely ceremonial.
Wine wasn’t as important as her liver.
She made a mental note to visit her mother in the hospital when all of this was figured out.
By the time she returned to the couch to retrieve her phone, Aiden had written her back with an invitation to meet him at a wine bar in Midtown, to discuss ‘business matters’.
The irony of that was not lost on Melanie.