I breathed out deeply and turned to her, wrapping my arms around her, my forehead pressed to hers. “Let me take your stress from you,” I said softly. “Let me carry your burdens. Let me do what should be done for you. For both of you.” Give in to me. I know what’s best.
She shook her head, extricating herself from my arms. “You wouldn’t want that from me, Edward. I’d be Marion, and you’d be unrestrained. I am who I am, and either that’s good enough, or she is. Maybe neither of our ways are, but it can’t be both.”
She had a point, didn’t she? There was no pleasing me. I wanted her to challenge me, and I wanted her to bend. I wanted her to have her own thoughts and opinions, and I wanted her to accept when I was right without question.
She couldn’t be all of those things. No one could, and by that logic, that meant that the someone who had to change in our marriage was me.
Except it wasn’t that simple. Our dynamic wasn’t that black and white. I could let her win. It just couldn’t be this.
But she was already gone. Without waiting for me to reply, she had grabbed the route slip from my hand, and I was once again staring at a closing door.
Four
Celia
“I’m going to name Edward as CEO of Werner.”
My father’s words startled me more than his presence in the kitchen, which was unusual. He was a conventional type man who, though he firmly said otherwise, believed that there were duties best-suited for women, as well as the rooms associated with those jobs.
In my parents’ house, the kitchen belonged to Lupita. She was the only one who spent any real amount of time in this area of the penthouse. Undocumented and paid under the table when she’d first begun to work for them nearly twenty years before, she was now not only a citizen (with the help of my father’s lawyer), but also practically “family,” according to my mother anyway. I would echo her sentiments if I thought that paying someone a low-end salary to clean toilets and scrape dinner plates was how a person treated family. I supposed, in some ways, it wasn’t any more humane than the way some members of my family treated blood—throw some token gestures of love and then put the rest of the person in a neglected box and you had a Werner daughter. Shower her with affection and then misuse her trust and her body and you had a Werner niece.
I often thought I might prefer the measly salary and a scrub brush.
Whatever she was to my parents, Lupita had always been one of the realest people in my life, and I frequently found myself huddled in her spaces when I visited. Even when we didn’t speak, I enjoyed her mutterings, half English, half Spanish, as she dusted and straightened and brought order to the luxurious life Madge and Warren led.
I’d officially moved to the Park Hyatt when Edward came from London, and while he spent his days in the rented-out event space he used for his office, the suite would become small and unbearably quiet. Not that we spoke much when he was there with me. In some ways it was a worse form of captivity than when I’d been on his island. I had free rein here, but on Amelie I’d had care, and the only reason I didn’t run back to that paradise prison now was because of the lack of prenatal care.
So instead, I found myself coming regularly to the apartment under the guise of wanting time with my mother, but more truthfully, it was for Lupita’s companionship. Today, Mom had her weekly mahjong. Dad had been at work, presumably, and with no need to pretend to be there for them, I’d gathered my newly purchased stationery and set up a spot at the kitchen high top while Lupita organized the grocery delivery. My task was to write thank-you letters for the charity gala Accelecom had sponsored the week before. Hosting the event wasn’t my favorite of assignments that Edward had given me, but it had done its job to distract me, as I was sure its real purpose was, and writing the obligatory notes now was strangely engaging.
Until my father’s unexpected pronouncement, anyway.
I set down the Montblanc rollerball pen I’d borrowed from his desk and spun on the stool to face him. “What?”
“When I retire. I’m giving it to Edward. My position.” He leaned against the side of the table, propping himself with his elbow, and waited for my response, which he obviously expected to be gratitude or praise or some combination of the two.
I glanced at Lupita, wishing for help that she couldn’t possibly give me. She wasn’t even looking my way. As if the mention of business was her cue—or perhaps just the presence of my father in general—Lupita shoved the last of the groceries in the pantry and disappeared from the kitchen, leaving us alone in her space.
I let out a slow breath, my heart pounding at my insides as I tried to manage my panic. There was no way I could let my father try to hand over his command to my husband. Hudson would never allow it, and the secret I’d managed to keep for years would come barreling to light—my father no longer owned the majority shares of his own company. Hudson did.
Changing my father’s mind about anything, though, was something I’d never been good at.
Nevertheless, I had to try.
I attempted a smile. “That’s so very thoughtful. But is that really what you want to do?”
“I know this business stuff is all over your head.” He reached over to steal some fruit from the plate Lupita had put out for me earlier. “Trust me. It’s a power move,” he said around a mouth full of berries. “Merging the two companies. Werner will be bigger than ever. I’ll go out with a bang.”
My neck tightened as I swallowed back a bitter response to his patronizing tone. “I see why combining efforts with Accelecom can be attractive. And there are many ways to do that without a formal merger.”
“I’m surprised at this reaction. You don’t want Werner to stay with the family?”
“You still own the same stocks, whoever is at the helm, and Edward is not a Werner.”
“He’s your husband and the father of my grandchild. That’s close enough. I don’t understand why you’d be opposed to building a bigger and better Werner Media.” His tone was stern now. He was losing patience with what he considered ignorant thinking on my part.
I leaned forward, trying not to lose my patience with his ignorance. “I’m being practical, Dad. Not letting my emotions get involved. For decades, Accelecom has been your enemy. This is a real turnaround from that. It’s one thing to drop your rivalry but quite another to get in bed with him simply because he’s married to your daughter. What if something happens to us? If we broke up or something.”
“Are you saying there’s trouble between you?” The way he looked at me I understood clearly that it wasn’t going to be my side he took if there was. Ironic considering he’d been opposed to our marriage in the first place.
“I didn’t say that.”
Before I could expand, he jumped in with a lecture. “You have a baby on the way, Ceeley. This isn’t the time to get wishy-washy about your vows. Be the daughter I raised and act responsibly. Hold on to your man no matter what the cost.”
I was so infuriated I almost told him right then and there the real reason he couldn’t give the company to Edward.
But then the slightest flutter happened in my belly, a feeling similar to what I’d felt when we’d seen our daughter moving on the ultrasound a week before, and I paused to let the joy of the moment sink in.