Chapter 1
“When are we going to hear wedding announcement?” Daniel McGregor dabbed the corner of his mouth delicately with the snowy white napkin and stared at his only child and heir to the vast McGregor fortune quizzically. “You have been going out with Rachel for the past three months.”
“Three months is certainly not enough time to propose to a woman,” Alan McGregor sliced into his salmon and speared it with the fork, his dark blue eyes landing on his mother who was waiting for his response. “We are just having fun, that’s all.”
“You are at the age where you need to settle down with a wife and start having children. We need heirs to carry on the name. Rachel is a suitable…. “
“That’s just it Dad,” Alan tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. “You and Mother deciding who is suitable and who is not. I am not over the hills yet. As I said before, we are just having fun. There is no need to put the pressure on.”
“We are just looking out for you darling. Rachel’s family is a very respectable one. They have money of their own and she certainly will not be into you because of your money and position. Her bloodline is pure…. “
“Excuse me.” Alan scraped back his chair and got to his feet, his appetite disappearing.
“Where are you going?” Deidre McGregor asked him.
“To my suite. I have some things I need to do.”
“Darling we love you….! “
“I know.” He forced a smile to his lips and hesitating only briefly, walked over and pecked his mother’s smooth white cheek. He had inherited her classical good looks with the honey blond hair and dark blue eyes. His father had dark brown hair and green eyes that had been handed down from his Irish descent. Alan was tall, six foot four inches of finely toned muscles that had been honed to perfection because of his athletic abilities. He was an excellent swimmer, a two times long distance champion. He had a black belt in jujutsu and had done some boxing in his college years. He was on the cover of several magazines as one of the most eligible bachelors of the twenty-first century and had been approached by producers who wanted to put him in their movies. But he had refused. His place was at McGregor’s Enterprises, a multi-billion-dollar company that owned stocks in several movie studios as well as several advertising companies. The company was diversified, having interests in pharmaceutical companies, real estates, which included hotels and Air BNB, shares in major airlines as well as owning several luxury yachts that catered to the rich and famous. He was thirty-two years old and came from old money, his family line dating back to the early eighteenth century. He had been coached and prepared since he was a child. There were lines drawn – he was not allowed to venture far from ‘their own kind’. He was a member of the Elite Club as was his dad and grandfather before him and they had seen the changes in the membership of the club. Daniel McGregor had frowned on the changes and the fact that they allowed ‘minorities’ as he called people of other races to infiltrate their spaces, but Alan had never agreed with him. He had been especially furious at the members who had up and married ‘black women’ when there were so many of their own kind to pick from. Daniel had told his son in no uncertain terms that he would not tolerate anything like that from him.
The words: ‘bias’ and ‘racial prejudice’ had never left his parents lips but Alan was aware that they barely tolerated people of another color and way of life. He had grown up with that chokehold of racial discrimination throughout his life but had never allowed it to take hold of him. He had friends who were Asian and black and was determined not to allow his parents to influence his way of thinking. He knew that eventually, he would have to settle down. But it was the fact that they were determined to choose for him that was making him hesitate. Rachel Barrows was a beautiful well-bred woman. An accomplished lawyer, who had money of her own, and had made no secret of the fact that she would like nothing better than to become Mrs. Alan Theodore McGregor. But Alan knew that taking things further would only serve to fall in with his parents plan for his life and he balked at that. She was a lovely woman and they got along fine. The sex was not bad, even though there was something missing, but he enjoyed her company.
Deidre McGregor held his arm as he was about to step back. “Don’t stay up too late darling. We have a board meeting in the morning. Plus that Ad campaign needs your personal touch.”
“I really don’t have time to go and sit in on an Ad campaign mother.” He said impatiently.
“It is for the new advertising agency we acquired just a few months ago. They landed a very lucrative deal with the beauty line- ‘Self-absorbed’ and I would like to know firsthand how they are handling it. Just show your face, and make your observations - that’s all.”
But he knew that was not ‘all’ as his mother so diplomatically puts it. He would be required to see if they were operating as they should and if the millions of dollars that had been invested in the company had been essentially worth it. His parents always thought about the bottom line and even though that made them excellent business people, it also made them bureaucrats who were more interested in profit than the people who worked for them. “I understand that the line is taking the country by storm and I want to make sure that the campaign is tailored to the needs of women.”
“In that case, why don’t you go and observe?”
His mother waved a delicate white hand. “You know how I hate that sort of thing darling. The line was created by an African American couple and geared towards women of color. They have employed several women of color to represent the product….“
“And of course that gets to you.” Alan said dryly as he stepped back.
“I am not prejudiced….”
“What your mother is trying to say son - is that the beauty line should have included people from all walks of life, not just the minority….” His father’s tone petered off at the look on his face.
“Right…!” Alan said with a cool nod of his head. “Goodnight.”
His long strides took him out of the vast dining room and along the passageway. A maid materialized out of nowhere and bobbed a slight curtsy, something that he hated.
“Mr. Alan would you be requiring anything else for the rest of the night?” She asked politely.
“No thank you,” he forced a smile before moving past her and bounded up the staircase. He made his way to the set of doors that led to his rooms and entered inside his olive and cream bedroom suite. The manor had been in their family for several generations and had seen various renovations. It was set on a slight incline and surrounded by hundreds of acres of lush green lawns, blazing flowers and stunning landscape; all of which was carefully maintained by a team of landscapers. They did not have any neighbors for miles, something that had been orchestrated when the family had bought the lands adjacent to their property. The grounds comprised of a stable with thoroughbred horses that were used exclusively by the family. There was an indoor and outdoor pool, a tennis court, large enough to hold matches, a basketball court and a winding trail that led to a lake and a cottage – pink tinted structure that was rustic and endearing. Alan had spent a lot of time there when he was growing up and wanted to escape the stuffiness of his upbringing and used it as a sanctuary whenever he had things he was battling with.