Chapter 14
Kain
I had to get out. I had to leave the restaurant. Everything had suddenly become overwhelming, and all sorts of memories and emotions were crashing through my mind in a mad cascade. The day my brother had died suddenly seemed so recent, so real, as if it had been just yesterday – and all the terrible emotions associated with it came thundering back.
As soon as I got outside and could breathe a little fresh air, I felt a little better. Not much better, mind you, but there was a measure of relief there.
I couldn't believe how the words had just started tumbling out of my mouth as soon as I had started telling Mandy about what had happened to my brother. It was as if a dam had broken, and the water contained within had just been gushing out with a mad fury.
I still didn't know just what it was that had made me trust her so much, what it was about her that just made me feel as if I could totally open up to her but there was definitely something. That, I had always found, was rare for me – to have a connection like that with another human being. I couldn't decide whether this excited me or terrified me.
I stared up at the sky, bright with the lights of Los Angeles.
“Are you up there, Jimmy, looking down?” I whispered to the sky. “Are you proud of me? I hope you are... I really do. And I hope you know how sorry I am about... About everything. Not a day goes by where I don't think of you, where I don't regret what happened. And where I don't wish that you were still here with us.”
The few stars visible in the sky twinkled gently. I suddenly felt an eerie sensation – not a bad one, just a weird one – as if someone was watching me. Maybe it was Jimmy...
I stood quietly for a while, my hands in my pockets, just breathing and thinking. After a while, I heard some footsteps approaching. I turned around and saw that Mandy was walking toward me.
“Hey,” she said gently. “How are you doing?”
“I'm all right,” I replied.
“I waited a few minutes before coming out here because I figured that you'd need some time alone.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I did. And I'm feeling a little better. I uh, I had a little chat with Jimmy. And it almost felt like… like he was here.”
She nodded. “I understand. I talk to my dad all the time as well, and when I do, I also get that feeling, like he's here, like he's near me. It's a strange feeling but it's comforting.”
“Comforting... Yes, Mandy, that's the word I was looking for. I did feel comforted after speaking to him and feeling his... his presence, if you want to call it that.”
“Presence is definitely how I would describe it. But anyway, are you okay now? Do you want to go back inside now?”
“Yeah, let's do that.”
“Wait a second,” she said suddenly, stepping up to me and staring right into my eyes. I felt the surging electricity of a powerful connection flowing between us.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Thank you for telling me about Jimmy,” she said. “I realize just how deeply personal that was, and how painful those memories were, and how vulnerable you must have felt opening up to me like that. I really appreciate the fact that you put enough trust in me to open like that. Seriously. And if there's anything else you want to discuss, or if you just need a sympathetic ear, I'm here. Any time.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that. It wasn't easy for me to open up like that, and I'm not even sure why I did it... But thank you for being there.”
I said this with conviction, and I honestly did really mean it. I could see that she understood this.
“Come, let's go back inside,” she said. “The main courses should be arriving soon.”
“Yeah, let's do that,” I said, and together we walked back into the restaurant. I felt an impulse to hold her hand but decided that perhaps it wasn't quite the right time for that.
We headed inside and went back to the table, where the waiter was busy placing our main courses on the table.
“Ah, you guys are back,” he said. “For a minute, I thought that you were gonna do a dine and dash – although usually when that happens, it's after the customer has finished the main course.”
We all laughed.
“No dining and dashing going on here,” I said. “Just needed a breath of fresh air.”
“And it looks like we got back just in time,” remarked Mandy. “This food looks fantastic.”
“I hope you two enjoy it,” said the waiter with a smile.
“I'm sure we will,” I said as I sat down.
We were both hungry at this point, so we both tucked in and started eating. The food was amazing, and we both ate in silence for a while, simply savoring the flavors, but then we started to talk again. Once more, I felt as if I really could open up to her.
“You know,” I said, “taking over this company from my father has been one of the most stressful things I've ever experienced. Seriously.”
She nodded. “Just from the pressure on me in my position at the company, I can understand that. It's a very fulfilling job but the pressure to deliver and perform can be overwhelming. Is that what that phone call was about earlier?”
A sour taste formed at the back of my mouth at the mention of that phone call. It seemed as if my father wasn't content with controlling my life in terms of work – now he even wanted to control it in terms of who I was going to marry. Tracy Hendrikson. This was who my dad wanted to set me up with. He was pretty adamant about it, too.
To tell the truth, I had seen it coming for a long time. He and Tracy's mother, Marsha Hendrikson, had been friendly rivals for many years now. Marsha was CEO of a company similar to ours, and it had been going almost as long as my dad's. The two companies had always been neck and neck in terms of profits over the years, with our company coming out on top as often as Marsha's.
Tracy was a few years younger than me, and she was your stereotypical spoiled rich girl. She had been brought up with every demand catered to, every whim indulged, and I doubted whether anyone had ever said no to her in her life. She was really pretty – she had done some modeling, not because she needed to work but just so that she could say that she was a model.
Beyond her good looks though, there was very little to her. All she cared about was her looks and money. The reason my dad wanted to get me and her together was almost entirely political, like some sort of medieval king consolidating his power and influence by wedding his son off to a foreign princess. I think that he had a dream that somewhere down the line the two companies could merge, obviously with his being the dominant one that would absorb Marsha's. My being married to the heir of the company would almost certainly make this dream become a concrete reality.
The problem with this, however, was that neither I nor Tracy seemed to be permitted to have an opinion on our impending wedding. Well, to be fair, I was pretty sure that she would be down for it regardless of what I felt about the whole thing. She had always been into me; I could tell from the way she looked at me, from how she spoke to me.
Me? Well, she was hot, yeah, but that was all there was to her. And I hadn't done anything with her because I didn't want to encourage anything. And anyway, there had always been plenty of hot women who I could entertain myself with without consequences such as marriage.
Now, however, it seemed that my father's plans for me were finally catching up with me, and I didn't imagine I could evade them for much longer now that I was the CEO of the company. In fact, now that I had been CEO for a month, it seemed that my days of freedom were almost certainly numbered. After all, my dad had set up a date between Tracy and me, and he had made it very clear that there was no way I could get out of it.
“Uh, Kain?”
I snapped out of the daze of thoughts I had drifted into, and jumped back to the present. “Oh, sorry Mandy,” I mumbled. “I was just, uh, just drifting off there.”
“I was asking you about that phone call,” she said.
“Ah, yes, the phone call,” I replied. “Um, no, it wasn't about work stuff. Well, uh, it was but not really...”
I kind of trailed off, unsure of what else to say here. I didn't want to tell her about this situation with Tracy, and the pressure my dad was putting on me to get married, to settle down and become a family man. She didn't need to know about all of that just yet.
“What do you mean?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, just, more kind of family stuff,” I replied. “Just stuff between my dad and me. It's not really important, and I don't really want to get into details about it right now. Let's just say that there are many things that he and I don't see eye to eye on.”
“Okay,” she replied. “We don't have to get into it.”
I was thankful for that.
“So,” she said, “I guess now is as good a time as any. Since we kind of talked earlier about what happened between you and I the other night, I guess what I wanted to talk about was this: where do we go from here?”
Ah. I knew that this question was going to come up but to tell the truth, I wasn't really sure how to answer it. All sorts of things had been going through my mind but the bottom line for all of them was that I wanted her to be in my life in some capacity. I wasn't sure how she felt about the idea of a relationship, and hell, I wasn't even sure what I felt about that. It was difficult to communicate such uncertainty without coming off sounding flaky. Still, it had to be talked about.
“I like you, Mandy,” I said. “I really do. And obviously, there's some really powerful physical chemistry between us. But then we're both really busy at the moment, and we both have a lot of pressure on us. I don't know if going forward... being closer... is a wise or practical decision for either of us at this point.”
A strange look crossed her face as I said this. Was it anger? Disappointment? Relief? All of those? I couldn't really tell.
“I think that you're probably correct,” she said. “I don't know if either of us is ready for... for a commitment. Not just yet, not with all this work and pressure.”
I nodded. “It looks like we're on the same page then.”
“I guess we are.”
“So... we can be friends then?” I asked, not sure that it was what I actually wanted but not knowing if now was the time to ask for more.
Again, that strange look came across her face, and I couldn't really tell what she was thinking. But then the look passed, and she smiled at me.
“We can be friends,” she said. “Or, at least, we can try to be friends.”