I’d thought he was different.
He’d seemed like a scared child playing dress-up in his father’s clothing. The kid had gone through his first three years at Yale like someone living two lives. I’d catch him studying his ass off alone in the library, the cafeteria, or under a shade tree on campus during the week, but on the weekend and over the summers at the country club, he was every party boy acting like an entitled asshole with his friends. It wasn’t all that rare for students to live these two lives, but with Ellison, it had seemed the party part of his personality had been all for show or maybe to fit in and be considered one of the cool kids.
I’d mistakenly thought the “real” Ellison was the guy grinning to himself while reading Don Quixote while chowing down on a burrito between classes at a table by himself in the corner. The guy who’d run in every charity race held near campus and who’d volunteered one rainy weekend at a fundraiser for homeless youth. I’d only noticed because the charity had reached out to me once to offer me help when my mom and I were close to needing it. I would rather have died than had him discover I knew who they were.
But then he and his fucking friends had set me up. I’d lost every promising opportunity I’d worked so hard for. The men in that room had made sure my name had been smeared all over the industry before I’d even graduated from school.
I’d heard, of course, that Ellison had followed his father’s plan for him. He’d dutifully gone to Columbia Law School and then jumped right into working for the family business. Instead of fighting for any of the worthy causes I’d thought he’d believed in, he’d gone to work making more money for his already obscenely wealthy family.
But now his family was going to lose everything, because Warren York was a selfish bastard who’d tried to avoid taxes by hiding his personal assets in the company.
And now I owned the company. And I owned Warren York.
Whether he’d begun to understand the full scope of his loss yet, Warren York had just lost their home, their cars, their vacation properties, their private jet, the charity foundation that they used to hide payments to their daughter, an extensive and extremely valuable art collection, and even some of Mrs. York’s jewelry.
“You may tell your son to have at it,” I said as coolly as I could. I’d be damned if I would allow Warren to see a speck of emotion from me besides extreme satisfaction. “But I would suggest he start with my one-time-only offer.”
Warren’s teeth clenched, and his jaw tightened. “And what is that?”
“Tell him if he agrees to be my personal errand boy throughout the transition, I’d be happy to consider letting you and the missus keep your house in Greenwich.”
Seeing the whites of his eyes was more satisfying than it should have been. The last time I’d seen such shock and horror on the man’s face had been fifteen years ago when he’d witnessed his precious baby boy and heir to the capital investments throne on his knees for another man.
The only thing better would have been seeing the look on Ellison’s face when he discovered who he now worked for. The man who’d taken everything from his family.
2
Ellison
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The teacher’s lounge at the academy always smelled like microwaved feet. I opened my reusable lunch bag and peered inside, trying to remember what I’d thrown in there before dawn that morning.
Protein bar, small bag of almonds, two fresh apples sliced up in a baggie, an overripe banana, and bag of generic cheese curls.
I reached for one of the apple slices and took a big bite.
“Are those from that cute orchard we passed the other day?” Gigi asked, reaching over me to take a slice. “Sunday Brothers?”
“Pfft. Too rich for my blood. These are from Price Chopper.” I glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow. “And they’re not organic.”
Instead of gasping and tossing it back, she just laughed and popped it in her mouth. “Welcome to the way the other half lives, brother. I stopped eating organic five years ago. I might die young, but at least I’ll go to heaven.”
I didn’t need to wonder what had happened five years ago. That was when she’d finally made the decision to leave her consulting job in the city to come work for Warrington Academy full-time. After spending both of our trusts to purchase a private boarding school in financial trouble just after I’d graduated college, we’d hoped we’d be able to take hands-on roles at the school right away. In reality, though, it had taken us ten years to get the academy funded well enough through charitable donations to sustain the financial hit of losing even one of our big-city salaries. Since Dad had manipulated me into an employment contract with York Capital as a condition of allowing the company’s charitable foundation to support the academy programs, I’d been the one to stay in the city while Gigi had moved to the academy’s campus in southern Vermont.
But now here I was. Finally. With only two weeks left on my employment contract at York, I’d put in for a two-week vacation, put my apartment on the market, and cleaned out my desk three days earlier.
When I’d left York, my father had made it very clear that I would no longer be able to “sweet-talk” my “girlfriend” into giving “all of our money away” to the academy. Never mind that I hadn’t dated Nessa in fifteen years, or that the money she managed for the York Foundation wasn’t endowed by my dad’s personal wealth but his company’s, or that the foundation donated to lots of nonprofits besides Warrington Academy.
He was right that it wasn’t going to be easy keeping the fundraising up from Vermont, but I was determined. This school was my heart, and seeing our first high school graduates were already finding spots and scholarships at some of the highest graduate programs in the country in addition to coveted internships and postgraduate jobs made me proud in a way that corporate law never could. Like I’d finally done something good with my wealth and connections.
“You look significantly happier than most teachers on the first day back,” Gigi said with a laugh. “Maybe it’s because the kids won’t be here for another week.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m not a teacher,” I said, tossing an apple slice at her.
“Yet,” she corrected, tossing the slice into the nearby trash can. “Just wait till our first callout emergency. You’ll be conscripted in no time. It’s one of the hazards of our rural location. Substitutes are thin on the ground.”
My phone buzzed for the third time in as many minutes, but I ignored it. My father and others from the office had been trying to get in touch with me all morning, and I was having to practice tough love. The number of interruptions to my weekend for stupid questions anyone in the legal department should have been able to handle had been enough to make me consider getting a new number. If it hadn’t been for the valuable fundraising contacts who had my current number, I might have actually done it.
“As long as I don’t have to teach Calculus, I’ll be fine,” I assured her.