CHAPTER THREE
Thorn
The moment the door closed, a long exhale escaped my chest. Shit, I didn’t expect the girl to look like that. When Pat Evans called about wanting to send his daughter up here, I expected a troubled teen sporting colored hair, a lip ring and goth makeup. So I googled that shit, doing some online research.
But Minnie wasn’t that girl. She wasn’t trouble. The female wasn’t a rebellious teen, up to no good. Nor did she look like a bad girl wannabe. Instead, her beauty was simple. Curly red hair, natural and loose. A light layer of make-up at most, nothing like what she did on her friends. Sure, those other girls were gorgeous, made up to the nines. But my new charge kept things simple, with a beautiful peachy pout and sparkling brown eyes.
So why would Pat want to send his daughter to reform school? Minnie clearly didn’t belong here. Not getting straight A’s doesn’t exactly qualify you for Forest Hills.
But she was here.
Under my hand.
Ready to do my bidding.
And I was going to make the most of it.
But when Minnie walked into my office, I was caught off-guard. Because the female was even better in real life. Curves in all the right places, with giant, luscious Double Ds. And those wide, swinging hips were meant to tantalize men, to bring us to our knees.
Frankly, the female would look amazing in that gray jumpsuit. She wouldn’t look like a prisoner at all because nothing could hide those generous hills and valleys. For a brief moment, I was glad this was a school for girls. The thought of other men seeing her enraged my soul.
Besides, the jumpsuits served a function. Putting on a show was important, and nothing screams reform school like a gray jumpsuit. When parents see it, they open their wallets, convinced that this place is going to make a difference. They think their girls are going to change and become model citizens overnight. So the uniform was a marketing tactic, a costume for our audience.
“Mr. Thorn?” a receptionist’s voice burbled from the intercom.
Sighing, I pressed a button.
“Yes?”
“Your father would like to speak to you.” Her voice was quiet. She knew how much I hated speaking to my father. “He says it’s urgent.”
Urgent meant that it was something about my brother. Urgent meant that my brother needed help. And help meant money. You see, Adam would never approach me personally. I was supposed to be a loser, the other brother, but instead I’ve built an empire. And Adam hated that because he was supposed to be the one on top, a corporate titan with anything and everything at his fingertips.
Life is so ironic.
Because it never turns out how you expect.
Memories of my brother razed my mind.
“Checkmate,” Adam grinned wolfishly from across the chessboard. My brother was the walking embodiment of a preppy college jerk. From the carefully waxed black hair, shining blue eyes and smarmy smile, down to the khaki pants, button-down shirt, and perfectly polished shoes.
I sighed. I didn’t like playing chess with him. I wasn’t even remotely good at the game.
“Can we play Monopoly now?”
I was nine at the time, my brother ten years older. And yet he smirked and ‘tsked’ once more.
“Little bro, I told you, we’re not playing Monopoly until you beat me in chess.”
I clenched my jaw. Adam didn’t want to play Monopoly because he knew I’d win. It was sad. He couldn’t beat a nine year-old. So instead, we had to play chess over and over again.
“But—“
I wanted to argue. I didn’t like playing chess with Adam because he cheated. As a nine year-old, I didn’t know exactly the hows and whys. But my spidey sense told me it was happening beneath the table, some weird sleight of hand.
Adam shook his head.
“No buts, little brother. Again.”
I gritted my teeth in irritation. It wasn’t that I hated defeat. I just hated injustice. Competition was healthy but when it was against someone like Adam, someone deceitful and unjust, there was no point in competing at all.
And now my mind swung back to the present and the pending phone call from my dad. No. I couldn’t deal with my brother’s problems. Not now.
“Tell him to email me how much Adam needs,” were my curt words. It wasn’t because I had a bad relationship with my father. I visited William and my mother from time to time. But I hated how Dad did Adam’s dirty work for him. It should have been my brother coming to me, seeking reconciliation. But instead, he’d turned William into his personal messenger boy.
Because again, Adam’s been this way for a long time. He’s had my parents wrapped around his finger for decades now, and William and Susan just can’t see the truth about their first born. Not when Adam was accused of paying people to do his homework. Not when the professor reported him to the Academic Board. Not even when he was kicked out of college.
So yeah, my parents are still hoping. They want my older brother to clean up and get his act straight. But once a cheater, always a cheater. William and Susan just can’t see it.
It’s tough being a parent.
Within my own family, I can see the struggle.
When your child is no good, rotted to the core, what do you do?
Reform school, anyone?
I guess it’s made all the worse by my success. When I opted to drop out of college to start my business, Adam mocked me. He said it was dumb. He’d taunt me with a sneer on his face.
“At least I’m not a college dropout,” were his smarmy words
How is being a drop out worse than being expelled for cheating? But never mind, nothing makes sense in my brother’s brain. It was futile to reason with him.
And I could see why he was scornful. My business was so simple in the beginning. It was merely designing shoes, getting them made, and then selling them out of the back of my van. In the beginning, there were only a handful of sales, mostly to family friends. But I got lucky when a sports celebrity saw a pair of my high-top sneakers. That man was featured in ESPN Magazine within a week, and pretty soon, retailers were calling. By the next month, I was booked full, production going at a hundred miles an hour as cash rolled into my pocket.
And with the money I made from shoe sales, I built a shoe manufacturing plant. A few years later, I sold off the factory and invested in hotels. With the revenue from that, I went back to school to get the degree needed to start my true dream. To help troubled youth get on the right track. After all, I built Forest Hills with that goal in mind. And frankly, it’s worked. Students flocked to my enterprise, and slowly, I opened more and more schools until it became a mini-chain. So now I’m the CEO of a network of academies, traveling between locations constantly.
But getting back to my family. Ironically, I offered Adam a spot in one of my offices when the business started doing well. But he declined, scoffing at my success. If you ask me, he was jealous and secretly hoping I’d go bankrupt.
But that didn’t happen.
I’m a multi-millionaire now.
Because owning schools is better than hitting the jackpot. There’s no lotto that will pay you like this. Not with the constant stream of students and hopeful parents.
So years later, I grit my teeth and offered Adam work and stability once again.
“Take it,” I told my brother at one of our Thanksgiving dinners with the fam. “I could even put you in the home office, near where you live.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed until they were nothing more than blue slits. My brother used to be reasonably handsome, even if it was in a smarmy, oily way. But over the years, he’s gone to shit. Sure, his hair is still gelled perfectly, with the straight-as-a-razor part and visible comb marks. But everything else looked terrible. A flabby paunch strained at his pink button down, his face florid from too much alcohol.
And the man sneered from across the mashed potatoes. You would think I’d just offered him a position cleaning my bathroom, instead of a plush office gig that paid six figures.
“Naw, little bro. I like my job. It’s enough to put food on the table and pay the rent. Plus, who’s to say how long you’ll be around? You just got lucky,” he said condescendingly. “Who knows what’ll happen next? So no, little bro, but thank you for the offer.”
I turned away, face impassive. But inside, disgust churned my stomach. Because I knew my brother’s job didn’t pay him well. It was enough to put food on the table, but not to pay the rent too. As a result, my dad was always begging me for handouts on behalf of Adam. And most of the time, I obliged.
But then again, my brother had a family to come home to while I didn’t. I dunno, getting married never been a huge priority. I like my women a certain way, and it’s not vanilla if you get what I mean.
But my family didn’t know. They were working under the assumption that I was normal guy with normal tastes. So I could no longer count the number of times my mother asked if I was dating someone. Susan would tell me stories about my nephew and nieces and rhapsodize about my future in the same vein.
My reply was always the same.
“I’m too busy to date, Mom. And my business is doing well. Too well in fact. It’s hard to find someone who would put up with the constant traveling.”
Susan would wave her hand while pursing her lips in a frown.
“Tsk! You have hundreds of people working for you, Grayson. Why can’t one of them fill in once in a while?”
The truth is, they could. But the academies are my baby, so I travel constantly between the different sites, keeping an eye on things. My genuine belief is that while the cat’s away, the mice will play. Therefore, it was important for the boss to be around.
But at the same time, my mom wasn’t totally off. I dated every now and then but the women I went out with were superficial. They were more concerned about the number of likes they got on social media than actually having a substantial conversation with a human being. It was sad, really. There was no depth to anyone I’d met in the last few years. None at all.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t sleep with attractive women who crossed my path. I’m a guy with needs. Particular needs that can’t stay hidden forever. And Minnie Evans had just flipped that switch inside of me, reminding me of exactly what I’d been missing lately.
I rummaged through my drawers for my file on the girl. I have files on each student, and I pulled out Minnie’s again and read her profile. There was no harm in re-reading the information after all.
Let’s see. Her father sent her here because of bad grades. I flipped to her report cards.
They weren’t nearly as bad as most of the other ladies at my schools. At least she wasn’t flunking. They were mostly C’s and D’s and an occasional B minus. Her grades wouldn’t stop her from getting into college. They just weren’t Ivy League grades. So why had Pat called me yesterday, insisting that I enroll his daughter?
Because I met Pat Evans a few months earlier at a yacht party of one of my associates. Pat and I wouldn’t normally cross paths, but hey, this is New York. Anything can happen. And when the man found out that I ran a couple reform schools, his questions became pointed. He mentioned he had a daughter that might qualify. I had asked him if the girl was into drugs or alcohol, or if she’d been to juvie for any reason.
But Pat shook his head at me then, eyes mournful.
“Worse. She’s becoming like her whore of a mother.”
Wow, how many guys talk about their wives like that? Or ex-wives?
Even worse, how many guys talk about their daughters like that?
So I assumed that his daughter was sleeping with every guy in town. Had to be. But the more Pat talked to me about Minnie, the more I realized that it was just bitterness. The daughter reminded him of the mother and his own failed marriage, and his own shortcomings.
I pitied Minnie then. Her dad simply wanted to get rid of her. Even if it wasn’t Minnie’s fault.
My eyes scanned the part where the girl had written about her interests.
I like doing make-up because it can transform a woman’s life, giving her confidence and boosting her self-esteem. As a result, I’d like to be a professional makeup artist one day, working with everyday women to help them look their best.
Not bad. There was nothing wrong with that. But Pat’s motivations were vastly different, and unfortunately, Minnie was caught in their undertow.
So yeah, the girl wasn’t here because she was dumb, or because her grades weren’t high. It wasn’t because she was a troublemaker or had had run-ins with the law. She was here because of her dad’s flawed character. Pat’s inability to deal with his own problems and his own life.
It was sad, really.
How many times have I seen someone else take the fall for another’s faults? It happens a lot when you run a reform school. These kids are victims sometimes, pitched here because of someone else’s problems.
But I respected Minnie’s motivations. The female was someone who was passionate about her dreams, which is unusual for an eighteen year old new adult. Most girls her age were still unformed, half-child, half-wild animal, with no direction whatsoever.
But Minnie was different. She had tenacity. She had goals. And it was clear that being sent here wasn’t going to stop her. It takes a hell of a lot of focus. A thing I knew all too well.
It reminded me of...well, me.
I thought back to the day I told my parents I was leaving college.
“You’re dropping out?” Dad repeated the words, looking at me like he didn’t know me. You’d think I’d just confessed to murder. “Dropping out?” he repeated awkwardly again.
I winced at the tone of his voice. A faint snickering sounded through the wall, the laugh of my brother in another room. No doubt he could hear this conversation with my parents, and was delighting in my alleged failure.
But even my mom looked worried.
“Honey, did you think this through?” she asked a mild tone tinged with concern. “Is there anything we can do to change your mind?”
I fidgeted in my seat. I’d been preparing a speech in my mind of what to say to them. But I couldn’t really settle on what to say, exactly. So instead, I pulled out my phone and showed them all the designs I’d sold.
Mom’s eyes glinted with pride looking over the colorful sneakers. And when I glanced at Dad, he looked confused but somewhat understanding.
“Well, it’s your call,” he said slowly. “The student loan’s in your name after all, we’re not on it. But I warn you, son. I’m not picking you up when this all goes to pieces.”
I nodded. That was expected. I was a grown man now, and able to manage my own life. So with no safety net, I moved forward with my first goal. And I truly believe that having nothing to fall back on motivated me even more, incentivizing me to succeed. Most people would hate their parents for refusing to provide a financial safety net. But I saw it differently. I saw it as a tremendous gift, a kick in my ass to propel me on my way.
Because I made it, big time. Sure the business didn’t flourish right off the bat, but not every business booms right away. It takes blood, sweat, tears, and time, plus a healthy dose of luck. And fortunately, I caught a headwind, propelling me to the top.
And now, I could see the same look in Minnie’s hazel eyes. Determination. Persistence. The will to make things happen.
Thinking back, her animated face appeared in my mind once more. When I asked why she wasn’t wearing makeup, the girl brightened.
“I don’t typically wear cosmetics myself,” was her explanation. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t do make-up for someone else. Sometimes, what we want for someone else is different than what we want for ourselves.”
Of course. But even more interesting was how she came alive discussing a topic she loved. The spark and fire were immediate, the way her voice leapt up and down, her gestures animated. And I let the female go on for a while. I liked the way her face beamed. I liked how her hazel eyes brightened, widening somewhat. There was something about this girl that drew me in, captivating me in ways a lot of women had tried but ultimately failed.
But this was wrong. She was a student at my school. So I turned back to the computer, trying to read an email sent to me by one of my partners. But I couldn’t seem to get past one measly sentence because my mind kept running back to Minnie. Her red hair, those gorgeous hazel eyes. The way her curves enticed my hands, begging to be touched.
Shit.
Reading email wasn’t gonna cut it.
My mind was made up.
I called my assistant, who answered on the first ring.
“Hello Thorn,” came her business-like voice.
I’ve known Pamela since I sold the shoe factory. The woman desperately needed money at that time. She’d just had a kid and the father had walked off, leaving them destitute. Taking pity on her, I gave Pam an inconsequential position filing something or other. But the woman proved perfect for the job, and as the company grew, eventually she became my secretary and personal assistant. It’s a weird job. She knows me better than anyone else. Too well, if you ask me.
“Hey Pam,” I greeted her. “How’s my schedule looking for the rest of the year?”
“You’re awfully chipper,” Pam noted. “Especially given that your father just emailed me the amount of money your brother needs. I take it you asked him to do that?”
I let out a great exhale. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath.
“How much?”
“Half a million.”
It wasn’t surprising. Adam couldn’t keep a stable job. Two of his kids were in college. The pressure was on. I wanted to say no, but memories of my nephews as little boys tugged at my heart.
“Cut him a check,” was my grunt.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s admirable how you let your brother take your money without argument. Especially given how much shit he says about you,” Pam mused. Like I said, this woman knows my business too well. But she went on.
“I’ll tell your father the money will be delivered to Adam later this week.”
I didn’t reply. Again, this woman knew me way too well. So instead, I changed the topic.
“How’s Katherine?” came my voice.
Katherine was barely three months old when her mom came to work for me. Pam would leave the baby at her mother’s while she worked, but sometimes I let her bring Kathy along. I liked having the kid around, and it’d been years since I had seen the girl.
Because Kathy was enrolled in one of the finest private schools money could buy. I made sure of it, paying her mother well so that private school was an option.
And Pam laughed then.
“Kathy misses you,” she replied. “She keeps asking when you’ll be back in town.”
I chuckled. Kathy and Pam were like family to me, I’ve known them now for two decades. There was a time, way back when, when my mother tried to convince me to date Pam. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t see her as anything other than a sister. My feelings for her were completely platonic. Plus, she was dating Kathy’s soccer coach, a red-faced man named Tim. Pam was happy with her blue collar guy.
And there were always my predilections.
I like my women a certain way.
I enjoy training them.
Making them submit.
And only few girls fit that mold. Pam wasn’t one of them.
“About that,” I said smoothly, giving no clue as to where my thoughts had been. “What’s my schedule for the next couple of weeks?”
Pam sighed.
“Why do I feel that you want to stay at Forest Hills?”
“I think we’ve discussed about never answering my question with a question, Pam,” I answered. “So?”
“Well, you’re supposed to have a meeting in Seattle at the end of this week. And then next week you’re supposed to be in Maryland.”
“I’m booked solid for the next two weeks then?”
“Well, yes. Like always,” she answered.
“But I could simply let my people handle it,” I said with a smile. And that was that. “Clear my schedule, Pam.”
My assistant choked on the other line.
“You want me to what?”
“Clear my schedule for the next couple weeks,” I said calmly.
“I-. Yes, Mr. Thorn. Consider it done,” my secretary said. There was surprise in her voice, but she knew better than to question a direct order.
And chuckling, I replied.
“Have a good day, Pam. And take Kathy on a vacation. On my dime. I’m sure she’ll love it.”
Pam gasped.
“Thank you, Mr. Thorn. Will do. Goodbye.”
Hanging up, I turned back to Minnie’s dossier, idly perusing her schedule. It was more than a class schedule. It was a itinerary of sorts, down to when she woke, when she had breakfast, and when she went to bed. This is reform school, and we don’t leave anything to chance.
I saw that Minnie hadn’t been assigned a therapist yet. Each of the girls have a weekly appointment with a therapist to discuss various issues. Academic issues. Friend issues. Body image issues. Whatever floated their boat, it was important to address these concerns in a private setting with a trained professional.
But we only had two therapists at school and both of them were booked. A smile made its way over my lips then. Because I’m also a certified therapist. I have a masters and a Ph.D in social work. I could be Minnie’s designated therapist.
It was too good to be true. Weekly meetings in private. The girl baring her mind and soul to me, all her anxieties and concerns. I could handle it. And if I was lucky, she’d be baring her body as well.
It was wrong.
This isn’t what therapists do.
In fact, they go to jail for this kind of shit.
But I’m the Master at Forest Hills … and some one-on-one therapy is just what the curvy girl needs.