Chapter 4
Zane
I’d sat through awkward dinners with my in-laws before, but this one was the worst. They had arrived home with Samantha an hour and a half ago, and I was already counting down to the moment they would leave. Or at least the moment that I could slip away and get a little peace.
My father-in-law had wasted no time in hinting how much he wished his daughter had married someone of higher social status, someone with more money and better breeding. And my mother-in-law gave her typical quick greeting and then proceeded to ignore me, except to stare at me and make me feel self-conscious, like I had something stuck between my teeth or a prominent stain on my shirt.
I spent a lot of time clearing my throat while we sat in the formal living room, avoiding eye contact and sitting on the edge of the couch so I wouldn’t risk making it look like it had been sat on. Luckily, we didn’t spend long there and went to the dining room before half an hour had passed, but things didn’t get any less painful.
In addition to my judgmental in-laws, I had to deal with my spiteful wife. To hear her talk, you’d think I was some vagabond she’d taken in and taught to thrive in a rich culture, though I still had far too many habits and mannerisms from the street, which meant she was constantly telling me what to do and how to do it, just to keep me in line.
The second part of that had come to be true, but it had nothing to do with me not having any culture or social skills. I could rub elbows with people from every walk of life while walking circles around her selfish introverted nature. But I couldn’t say anything to defend myself. It would be the worst offense, disagreeing with Sam and disrespecting her in front of her father, the only man whose opinion truly mattered. I cringed just thinking about the way she yearned for her father’s approval and yet, in her attempt to gain it, did so many things that would have only earned his shame.
I wanted to be anywhere but here, but mostly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how good things would be if I could just go back to Kathryn and spend the evening with her instead. With Kathryn, I didn’t have these rich, snobby people looking down their noses at me as if I was some bum by comparison, and I wasn’t faced with a million questions about how I spent my time.
I’d been sure they knew about the nightclub. The Machine was everything in my life, and I was successful at the business. It was one of about three premier nightclubs in the entire city, and I had a lot of pride in what I’d created. But after all this time, I realized Sam had lied to me as much as she had to them, and they had no idea I’d done anything with my life so far.
We sat in the formal dining room with appetizers on the table that I wouldn’t touch – escargot, caviar, and other delicacies that even Sam didn’t eat when her parents weren’t around. Honestly, knowing Sam’s old man had come from Texas stock and built his fortune in oil, I didn’t think they particularly cared for the food, either. They would probably have rather been served rat toes and alligator tails. But they had to keep up appearances.
I was anxious for the entrees to be served, hoping that filling our mouths with some surf and turf would stop the conversation for a while. But it seemed to be taking forever. The more anxious I grew, the slower the hands on the clock moved, and I was thinking about excusing myself to the bathroom, where I could at least get a moment of silence to calm myself down. I couldn’t say any of the things on the tip of my tongue, and if I got any more riled up, I might make a huge mistake.
“So, Zane, while my daughter took us around for the day, how were you filling your time? I’m sure you weren’t in the gym all day. You look good, boy, but not that good.” My father-in-law chuckled in a condescending, judgmental way. After ten years, I should have been used to it, but it still grated down my spine. “I’d like to think you weren’t just sitting around here, twiddling your thumbs, or out with friends, pissing money away.”
Rather than letting me answer, Sam cut me off with one of her passive-aggressive responses. Laughing a bit derisively, she said, “Oh, Zane is still researching. He’s stuck on the idea of property investments because his parents spent so much time in real estate. I keep telling him we have to at least look at industrial or commercial property if we’re going to make any money. Either way, he’s always got something he claims to be busy with. Besides, I don’t think he has a lot of friends. He’s not much of a people person, you know.”
I clenched my teeth in resentment. I should have mentioned the nightclub. Hell, I could probably have told them I held a job as a bartender and been better off. The way Sam put it, I sounded like a leech, draining away their daughter’s money.
And that was confirmed when dear old Dad scowled at me. “You know, boy,” he said, taking a deep breath. I hated that he called me ‘boy’. It wasn’t a term of endearment like ‘son’. He did it to let me know he didn’t consider me a ‘man’ and still didn’t accept me as part of the family. That was fine; I really didn’t want to be part of his family anyway. He continued, “You should think about going into the oil business. It’s a no-brainer.”
I let the snarky comment that came to mind slide. Sam, however, had other intentions. In the thick southern drawl she’d worked so hard to remove from her speech pattern through voice coaching in college, a drawl she only used when her parents were around, she said, “That would be perfect for Zane!”
I turned and glared at her, and she simply gave me a blank smile and batted her long, fake lashes at me. She knew that, above all else, insulting my intelligence triggered my anger.
“I’m serious, though,” her father insisted, banging his fist on the table so the fine crystal goblets full of wine clinked and threatened to spill. “If you get in now, you can only profit. That president of ours isn’t letting the pipeline run from Alaska, and we can’t count on the Middle East to work with us forever, so it’s up to us to provide the oil we need for fuel. We’re about to make a ton of money on that.”
I gave him the most grateful smile I could muster. I’d catch hell from Sam if I told them about the nightclub, although it was a temptation to risk her wrath and do it anyway. “I appreciate that, sir, and I’ll take it under advisement. But I don’t know the first thing about the oil industry.”
“It’s not what you know, boy, it’s who you know,” he laughed. “Saying you don’t know it is just an excuse to keep slacking around and wasting your time. Listen, I have contacts all over the place. I didn’t make millions of dollars by walking around looking stupid. I met people. I can call around at Shell and BP. They always have room for someone I recommend. I can’t guarantee you’ll be making as much as you’d like when you start, but you have to get the ball rolling if you’re gonna get anywhere.”
“Remember, Daddy, Zane’s family isn’t like us. I’m sure he’d appreciate anything you could get him at this point. It would be more than he’s used to.” Sam’s little quips at me were going to backfire if she wasn’t careful, and I gave her a warning glance. I couldn’t tell what she was actually thinking. She never smiled, not really, even when she was happy. And she wasn’t smiling now. She was crossing and uncrossing her arms, as was her habit when she was bored or nervous. I knew her quirks well enough after all this time.
I found myself thinking about what it would be like to sit at dinner with Kathryn and her parents. Would I be taking cues from her? It was doubtful. She’d told me about her humble beginnings, and it sounded like her parents were still back in Louisiana. I’d probably be laughing and joking with them in a kitchen, boiling up some crawfish and potatoes in her mother’s secret recipe for a spicy finish.
“It’s settled, then,” I heard the old man say. “I’ll start making some calls as soon as we get home. I hope you have plenty of suits, boy. You’re going to want to look the part if anyone’s going to take you seriously. And I’d like to think you’d want to make your father-in-law look good, so I expect you to bust your butt and work your way up the ladder fast.”
I grinned, knowing it was more of a snarl. “Like I said, I’ll keep it under advisement.” I already ‘busted my butt,’ and it had nothing to do with making someone else look good. I knew my business, and I was good at what I did. Unfortunately, my fascist wife wouldn’t let me express how successful I was for fear of her father’s reaction to the chosen profession.
After that, I suffered in silence through my steak and shrimp, knowing that once the food was gone, the Hennings wouldn’t stay very long. They never did. This was just a way for them to stick their noses into our lives and make sure we weren’t squandering our money on frivolities. I got the impression my father-in-law actually enjoyed tormenting Sam by making her work so hard for his approval and threatening to take away her precious money. It was sadistic, and I hated him for it. I was almost sympathetic to Sam for that reason.
As they left, my father-in-law threw one last right hook my way. “I suggest you develop a work ethic, boy. I don’t want to waste my time on these calls and recommend you if you’re just going to keep messing around with your life and my daughter’s cash and embarrass me.”
I ignored it, and Sam ushered them out the door. I could tell she was ready to be rid of them. Her lifeline – the trust fund – had been threatened. With so many stipulations on how she could use the money and the conditions she had to meet to access it, she was right to be worried. One mistake, and it was out of reach.
Sam had made a few mistakes. In fact, if her father knew what she’d been doing with his precious pennies, he’d be a lot less worried about how I spent my time or that money. . Then again, I might just get the blame for allowing her – or even coaxing her – to do the things she did.
I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on that, though, and I didn’t even get a chance to reassure Sam that her doting father wasn’t going to relinquish the funds we’d worked so hard to access. Instead, I was instantly confronted with my wife turning to me and crossing her arms. “Well, that went well.”
“Right,” I said sarcastically. “They seem to love us both just as much as always. Like hell I’m going into the oil business.”
“I can’t lose access to the trust fund, Zane. We made a deal, remember?”
I remembered. Neither of us wanted to get married in the first place, and we figured we could make a bargain. The convenience of Samantha getting access to her trust fund would give her, well, everything she wanted in life. And I, as payment, would get the money I wanted to open my club. All I had to do was play the doting husband until she made her parents happy enough that we could move on.
Unfortunately, it had become clear early on that they were never going to be happy enough to take all the stipulations off the trust fund. “The deal didn’t include me going into your dad’s line of business, Sam.”
She uncrossed her arms, looking frazzled, and crossed them again, shaking her head. “You could at least consider it.”
I was not going to work for her dad or any of her dad’s friends. “When are you going to stop letting your parents run our lives, Sam? When are you going to just be whoever you want to be, and let me do the same?”
I knew from the spark in her eyes I’d just lit the fire, and we were going to fight. “You didn’t seem to care what I did when you signed up for this! You were more than happy to take the money and build your little playground downtown where you do goodness knows what.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you remember coming to me with the proposition? I never asked for anything. You offered the money for the club because you knew it was the only way I would marry you! And you had to marry someone, didn’t you?”
But she wasn’t done. “Well, it worked out great for you,” she said, waving her arms. “How else were you going to find your way out of the middle class?”
I resented that one. My parents had each made six figures, and my mom still pulled in enough to keep herself afloat. While they hadn’t been wealthy, they had pulled themselves out of virtual poverty and created a lifestyle in the upper middle class that had suited me just fine. I’d just let my impulsive nature and dollar signs get the best of me when Sam had made her little offer.
Gritting my teeth, I hissed at her, “You need to leave my family out of this. And I’m not stupid. You didn’t exactly choose me. Any Harvard man would have turned your offer down flat, and none of the guys you liked to slum it with would have passed the test under your father’s microscope. Too trashy, not white enough, not Methodist, too poor, not smart enough. You were desperate when you came to me, and you would have done anything.”
“You disgust me, Zane! You think you’re so perfect! Listen to you, coming down on me. You’re just as big of a liar as I am. You owe me and my parents for what you have. Maybe you would have eventually made something of yourself. Who knows? But you would have been old and gray and too tired to care anymore. The least you can do is show a little appreciation and deal with the situation. We’re both stuck here.”
“I’m not doing this,” I said, turning to go.
“But if you do this, Daddy will take away the rules related to the trust fund, and we can go our separate ways. I’ll have all the money I need. You can wash your hands of me and go live your life, as soon as those purse strings are permanently loosened.”
I didn’t believe I would have my freedom, and I couldn’t listen to anything else tonight. I was exhausted from pretending to care what my father-in-law thought, pretending to like my wife, and arguing with a woman I’d never loved so we could both get our hands on our futures a few years quicker.
“We’ll talk about it later. Excuse me.” I pushed past her and went to my bathroom.
I stared at my reflection and told myself I was going to find a way out. I couldn’t handle this anymore. If I could have run to Kathryn’s apartment, I would have. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk her finding out I was sleeping with someone else. I’d hate to see the beast that ripped through the gorgeous façade if she learned about Kathryn.