My mother appeared in the doorway and trekked across our huge kitchen to the fridge. She had on a pair of black Nike leggings and matching hoodie, and she looked every bit the role of wealthy soccer mom.
Except I’d never played soccer.
Even if I’d wanted to, there wasn’t time. During the height of my Olympic run, I’d trained five times a week, sometimes going through a thousand rounds per day, and the shooting range was a twenty-minute drive from Cape Hill. There’s been competitions on the weekends and the travel that went along with them.
And there’d also been my mother’s fight with breast cancer.
She was tougher than a lot of people gave her credit for. She’d survived a double mastectomy, kicked cancer’s ass, and had come out the other side stronger. Her reconstructed and upgraded breasts helped complete a body few fifty-year-old women could have.
She looked fan-fucking-tastic.
But as strong as she was, Colette Alby still had her weak moments too, and I wasn’t sure if I could ever get past them. Maybe I just needed a few more years.
My father would disagree. She could do nothing wrong in his eyes, and he always took her side. He’d say I needed to move out of the house and try living on my own. He’d use every opportunity to get rid of me.
It wasn’t like I was attached to my parents or the house I’d grown up in; it was more that moving out didn’t make sense. Why should I leave the nest where it was warm and comfortable and rent free? I lived in the far end of the house, the in-law suite, and rarely saw my parents unless we crossed paths in the kitchen or the Wi-Fi went down.
It was just us three here in this big ol’ mansion.
Colette and Stephen Alby only had one child, and my father was heartbroken that I’d been a girl. The Alby family line that had come to America on the Mayflower would officially die when I married. Even if I kept my maiden name—which I wouldn’t—I’d never pass the Alby surname on to my children.
Cape Hill was steeped in tradition. Sometimes I wondered if the biggest one was every family had some form of dysfunction.
“You’re addicted to that thing,” my mother said, gesturing to the phone in my hand.
I shrugged. “I’m working.”
She brushed her light brown hair back out of her eyes and poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher in the refrigerator that had lemon slices floating on the surface. As she set the pitcher down, her gaze zeroed in on me. “I don’t think Macalister Hale is paying you to play on Instagram.”
“I’m watching for notifications about him.”
She didn’t like my new ‘job.’ And my dad? Oh, he hated it. I’d been treated to a long lecture about Macalister being his biggest client and how this was going to cause problems for him when I eventually screwed up and got fired. I’d told him it was too late, a done deal. It’d reflect worse on Stephen Alby if he was the reason Macalister’s newly hired assistant quit and left him in the lurch.
“I know you don’t want to hear it—” she started.
“I really don’t.”
“But this job is beneath you. You have a degree from Columbia, for Chrissake.”
I didn’t look at her as she chastised me. Nothing I said was going to change her mind, so why bother? I’d done everything they’d ever asked of me, and it still wasn’t enough.
So, I stopped.
I’d watched Marist, with her green hair flying in the face of all the Cape Hill conservatives as our newly appointed queen, and found myself strangely inspired. I’d figured out what I wanted, and now I was going after it.
I doled out the platitude to my mother in an indifferent voice. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”
Just imagine how fast I could climb in HBHC’s ranks if I became invaluable to the owner of the company. I’d be a brand manager by thirty, maybe even the director of marketing by forty. Plus, there was the nice five-million-dollar bonus if everything worked out.
“Your father and I have talked about it some more, and we think you should try to find a replacement for Macalister. That way, you can quit, and he won’t be upset with any of us.”
More specifically, with my dad. I lifted my gaze from my screen and glared at her. “I just started, and I don’t want to quit.”
“And I don’t want you working for a man who killed at least one of his wives, Sophia.”
My breath caught. “What? I thought his first wife died in an equestrian accident.”
She took a drink of her water but held my gaze as she did it. “That’s how he said it happened, but you know, I never saw Julia ride without her helmet. And after what he did to Alice, a lot of us have been talking. Is it possible he had something to do with Julia’s death too?” She said it in a patronizing tone. “Or could he really just be that unlucky?”
He’d told me he held himself responsible for both of his wives’ deaths, but he hadn’t meant it literally. It was because he thought he was cursed.
Right?
I shook my head like it could rattle the question away. “It was an accident.”
My mom frowned, and an emotion washed over her. It was something so rarely seen from her, it took me a moment to place. Was that honest-to-God concern?
“That man has a temper, and I don’t want you to end up on the wrong side of it.”
I opened my mouth to tell her she was overreacting, but my phone vibrated with a text. My stomach flip-flopped at the words.
Penelope: He kissed her & she just left.
Three dots blinked to tell me more was coming, but I didn’t get a chance to read her next comment. The screen went black as my phone rang, and I tensed at the name displayed.
“Hello?”
Macalister sounded fucking pissed. “You will be waiting for me in the foyer when I arrive home.”
It was followed by chilly silence, and by the time I could form a response, it was too late. He’d hung up on me.
“Who was that?” my mom asked.
My mouth went as dry as a desert. “Macalister.” Shit. I’d have to change out of these clothes and back into the teal dress. “I have to go.”
“Go where?” She glanced at the clock on the microwave. “It’s ten o’clock.”
“It’s an emergency,” I said.
It wasn’t a lie. I knew he’d be upset when he found out what I’d signed him up for, but I hadn’t expected him to be this level of angry. It made worry puddle in my stomach. At least he hadn’t fired me over the phone. Meeting him at his house would give me a chance to plead my case.
Unless his legendary temper prevented him from listening.
Maybe I wasn’t going to get a word in. He’d spend twenty minutes berating me until there was hardly anything left then cut me loose. His plan might be to send me home in tears, as he was known to do when he was CEO.
I slipped my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and hurried toward my bedroom. I’d spent years toughening up my skin from all the online haters. Whatever Macalister threw at me, I was pretty sure I could take it.
The Hale house was silent. There were no ticking grandfather clocks or fires going in the fireplaces. Macalister had told me he didn’t like to see his staff unless they’d been summoned. Even the cat—what was his name? Lucifer. He wasn’t sitting defiantly on the couch in the front room like last time.