Chapter 3 – Maxim
I look at my watch for what seems like the hundredth time this afternoon, as my father and my business partner, Steve, order another drink at the Palacio bar, which is located in the lobby of the bank building where our offices are. It’s been a hell of a day and I just want to get out of here. But my dad’s not a huge fan of where I’m going so I need to find a way to sneak out without incurring his wrath.
“So, how is the merger with Adams Capital looking?” my dad asks.
Great. This is the second subject of conversation I had wanted to avoid. In addition to the one about where I’m headed next.
“Fine,” I tell him, even though I had just gotten into a shouting match with Adams Capital’s lawyer about the due diligence work.
I don’t like to tell my father things that will upset him. He has a bad temper. And he thinks that because he started our finance company that he’s the boss and that because he’s the boss he can do and say what he wants. He fails to realize that as the Chief Operating Officer, I’m in the trenches all day, doing the dirty work that needs to be done so that our company continues to flourish.
He has no respect for me, but that’s okay. I know my worth. It’s over four billion dollars, last time I checked. $4.3 billion, to be exact, in my share of equity and stocks. Not to mention a huge house, three vacation houses, a private jet and a Lamborghini.
But the problem is that it’s all tied up in company interests and attached to my dad’s name as much as mine. So, I have to be careful to always stay in very good graces with him.
I watch the things I say— and don’t say— to my dad because the things that matter the most to him are image and status. Then, once I’ve made sure I’ve said— or not said— all the right things to please him, I turn around and do what I damn well please.
I know my dad has been through a lot. Mom left him when I was little and I spent most of my time with her, although I summered with my dad at his Cape Cod estate and then started working in his New York City office when I was in high school, which meant spending part of my time at an elite boarding school. It all added up to great work experience and now, many years later, I’ve helped my dad build our expanding Southwest and West Coast branches of the firm, including this one in Phoenix where we’re now headquartered.
My mom put my dad through an expensive divorce and tried to smear his name in the society papers but he has always lived a lifestyle beyond reproach— she is the one who cheated on him and left him for the fucking pool boy.
He had the upper hand morally but he still can't get over the stigma of the scandal. That's why he cares so much about where I go and who I see in my free time.
By the time the divorce was finalized I was fourteen and the courts were happy to let me choose which of my parents I wanted to live with. I chose him. My mom acted righteously indignant but I think that was just because her pride was hurt. She seemed happy enough to ride off into the sunset with the ridiculous pool boy.
I could never really forgive my mom, on my dad’s account. You’d think she’d at least pick someone who didn’t look like a teenager everywhere except for his bulging steroid- induced muscles.
How she went from my dad to the pool boy is beyond me. I suppose once she cashed in on her alimony she was set for life and didn’t need my dad anymore. That’s why I’ve always avoided gold digging girls; they remind me too much of my mom.
Sure, I’ll have my fun with them but they are not worthy of settling down with. I don’t want to settle down at all, but certainly not with someone who was a gold digger like my mom was.
I admire my dad’s strength although sometimes I wish he’d get down off his high horse. Just because Mom cheated on him doesn't mean that everyone has to act like a fucking altar boy.
He remarried a nice church girl who came from a family with a lot of money. My stepmom is all right and they have a solid marriage. But I don’t think he ever got over my mom and I for one have learned that commitment is for suckers.
I don’t know how he could ever re-marry again after what my mom put him through. I certainly don’t plan to follow in his footsteps in that regard. He has taught me everything he knows about business and finance but he doesn’t even try to teach me about relationships and that’s good because I don’t want to be in one.
I’ve learned from him that relationships aren’t for me. Dirty, kinky sex with strangers is more up my alley. I like to use them, abuse them and leave them.
I especially like to turn good little girl virgins into my sex slaves for a night or two. They might not have their hymen intact when I’m done with them but at least I’ll still have my heart and my head and my dignity— unlike my poor pa.