Chapter 9 Julia

The massive mirror-lined elevator chimes at the top floor, but I don't exit when the doors open. Immobile, I stare at the enormous Davenport-Ridgeway logo decorating the wall opposite the elevator. The thing must be eight feet tall at least, illuminated with white lights that accentuate the lines of the design.

Nice, dad. Real subtle.

I exit the elevator and pass a row of C-suite offices until I reach my father's in the corner. The walls are glass, so he sees me coming long before I get there. Still, he doesn't end his call until I've been in the waiting area for ten minutes.

My father is a parent to two twenty-eight-year-olds and a thirty-year-old, but he tries his damnedest not to let it show. Even in his sixties, he's still well dressed, lean, and has evaded male pattern baldness impressively well (but then again, a billionaire can avoid anything).

From my father, both of my brothers inherited strong jaws, great posture, and enviable height. But I'm the only one who inherited his complete and utter steeliness, and I wouldn't have it any other way. While I wait, smatterings of his conversation resonate through the glass. Whoever he's speaking to should be bawling because my father is casually rattling off a barrage of insults so cruel, so cutting, it has to be illegal.

Like any good professional jackass, my father ends his call, inhales before plastering a maniacally fake smile on his face, and greets me.

In his office, there are two cloches on the table adjacent to a floor-to-ceiling window. Once we're seated and I remove the cloche, I'm not at all surprised to find a kale salad. Ugh. I ordered a kale salad one time when I visited my father at work nine years ago. Ever since then, the man has associated me with this nauseating salad. I stare down at it and consider coming clean and telling him I would rather eat my own hand than eat this salad one more time. But he gives me a knowing smile and I just can't bring myself to take him down a peg. After all, he only offers to have lunch with me once every two years or so. This kale salad is about the closest thing he and I have to an inside joke.

"Good of you to stop by." He picks up the club sandwich he ordered for himself. Three layers with bacon and a fat slice of beefsteak tomato—it looks divine. "When was the last time we saw each other?"

"Your birthday," I remind him, glancing up to meet his eyes. "Remember?"

He doesn't, but he nods like he does. "That was a great evening. Your brothers did a wonderful job with their toasts."

My father clearly doesn't remember that Davis—his pride, his joy, his most prized possession—didn't give a toast this year. My father is also clearly unaware that his birthday was the night his daughter pissed off the wrong billionaire and nearly torpedoed an acquisition. But again, call me a closet softie because I can't bring myself to take this old man down a peg—no matter how much of a jackass he is.

"Well, thank you for joining me on short notice. I heard you were in town for once, so I jumped at the chance to see my only daughter," he goes on while he frowns, puzzling over how to lift his big, overflowing sandwich without any of the three layers falling out. Champagne problems as usual.

"No problem." I stake a bite of my salad and force it down.

"I talked to Davis."

I freeze with my hand gripping my fork, focusing on a leaf of kale to avoid looking at my father. Mortification flows through me like it has replaced the blood in my veins. Suddenly, it occurs to me that this random invitation to lunch may not be so random…

Does he know about the contract with Gus?

Guiltily, I glance up and realize he's not even looking at me.

"He said you were in Milan a couple days ago," my father continues—and he finally wrangles his sandwich, thank god. "How was it?"

Relieved doesn't even begin to cover it. Exhaling, I raise both shoulders. "Good. I went with Jay. I did a paid appearance at a nightclub to promote a vodka."

"Vodka," my father muses. "Which vodka? I invest in some liquor portfolios. Maybe I have a stake."

"You don't," I assure him, unwilling to admit it was yet another shitty, celebrity vodka that I wouldn't even use as rubbing alcohol. "It's new."

"Hm," he murmurs. "Well, I'm glad you had a fun trip. Any plans for the coming year?"

"Some traveling and brand work. Nothing out of the ordinary." The admission seems insignificant compared to everything I've done with Davis over the past few months. I'm almost embarrassed to mention my paid posts, especially to a man who is objectively one of the most successful businessmen of his generation.

"Sounds like fun. Glad you're keeping busy."

"I try."

We fall into silence, which isn't out of the ordinary for my father and me. Growing up, he tended to ignore me if one of my brothers was around. He was always priming Davis for leadership in the company and chastising Kieran for his bullshit. When we were alone, he always fell back into silence, like he never knew what to make of me. Maybe I was too defiant. Too independent. It was like he knew he couldn't trap me with the same golden handcuffs or short leashes that kept my brothers in check.

My attention drifts over his shoulder, where he keeps his impressive collection of books arranged on full-wall shelves. When I recognize one title in particular, my heartbeat stutters. I finished reading it last week: a book on unicorn startups with a sizable section on Gus and FundRight.

Just like that, Gus Winter reemerges as the preeminent squatter in my brain.

My blood nearly boils when I remember him in the nightclub in Milan. His hands on my body. His low, rumbling voice in my ear. His middle finger flipping me off and then disappearing between his lips.

I want to break shit. Burn shit. Break his shit and burn his shit. To come all the way to Milan just to humiliate me, leaving me with my tits out and my pussy wet with an order to go to Montana to fulfill my obligations? The audacity is palpable. I want to choke him with it.

"Is everything okay?" my father asks, snapping me back to attention.

He startles me, but I don't flinch.

"I'm fine," I lie.

"You've been glaring at my bookshelf for half a minute."

"Reading titles," I answer—a partial lie, sure. "Anything you'd recommend?"

Immediately, he shakes his head. "You wouldn't like any of them."

My eyebrow shoots up. All throughout my childhood and teenage years, my father brought home stacks of books for Davis to read every month. Unconquerable stacks. Nonfiction shit. The Art of War. Old treatises on game theory. Apparently he wasn't concerned if Davis would like any of them.

Well, the joke's on him because I've read nine of the books on his shelves this year alone: three while learning about Gus, and six more to answer all the questions those books about Gus raised for me.

Except it's not a joke. It's the truth—and his assumptions remind me that my father has never cared about my role in his empire. Ever.

I push aside my salad and lean back in my chair, taking in his unassuming silence. He inhales another big bite of his sandwich—unaware that he just sent me on a mini-brain spiral. "Can I ask you something?"

He nods, but also says, "Julia, never ask if you can pose a question. Just ask it."

"Noted," I reply, committing the advice to memory. "Dad, should I start learning more about Davenport-Ridgeway?"

Surprised, my father raises both eyebrows. He straightens his spine and fiddles with the edge of his suit jacket before he clarifies, "Like a tour of the building? Or…"

"Actually, I was thinking I could work on a project here," I mention. "Something to get my feet wet."

He lowers his eyebrows, but pulls them directly into a frown. "An internship? You have to be in business school to get an internship."

"Not an internship—god no," I clarify hastily. "More of a short-term contract. Maybe there's something I could shadow Davis on, or—"

"Davis's work wouldn't interest you," he interjects, waving his hand towards the window. "He does MA. Mergers and acquisitions."

He defines MA like I have no idea what it means.

Clearing my throat, I say, "I know what Davis does. He's been telling me about it, and I think it's fascinating. He—"

"What has Davis told you?" my father snaps. "Because anything he does is strictly tented. He could lose his job if he told you about a pending acquisition."

My lower lip drops a fraction, but I quickly catch my bearings. I can't very well tell my father how I'm (literally) intimately familiar with Davenport-Ridgeway's current pending acquisition.

"He hasn't told me anything."

My father visibly relaxes. He cants his head to the side—the look he gives when he's trying to wheel and deal. "Trust me, Julia, you wouldn't enjoy what Davis does. The kind of pressure he works under is…" He trails off and glances to the side. "This deal he's on…I can't say much, but can you imagine bringing in fifty billion dollars in value? And that's just at the onset. The long-term financial upside is enormous."

This has to be a joke.

"No," I answer flatly, not doing much to rein in the indignation in my tone. "I have no idea what it would be like to bring in fifty billion dollars."

My father chuckles like he's enjoying this silly little conversation with his silly little daughter who got this silly little idea that she might be remotely helpful at his big, scary company. "Leave the dicey stuff to Davey. You should enjoy yourself. It's all I've ever wanted for you."

I've never felt so small in my life. My mouth draws to the side in a pinch and I poke at my discarded salad, trying to rationalize the dejection coursing through me. It's not like I came to lunch expecting my father to give me a job. I just never thought he would be outright dismissive. My own father: the guy who sent me to the best boarding school in the country and paid for my Yale degree. I thought he would have at least entertained the idea of me working at Davenport-Ridgeway.

"All you want is for me to enjoy myself?" I'm skeptical, naturally. The man did send an enforcer to Europe to retrieve me from my post-college debauchery tour, after all.

"Sure. You've had wanderlust since the day you could crawl. Why would you want an office job when you can wake up every morning in a different city? Eat at the finest restaurants. Meet a hundred new people every week. Have millions of adoring strangers think you're elegant and fascinating." He bites into his sandwich and shrugs. "People would kill to live your life, Julia. But you're the only one who gets to."

For some reason, all I can think about is vile supermodel vodka and late nights in a hotel room, getting myself off with a vibrator because nobody scratches my itch the way I want—the way I need.

Once again, I nod. "You're right, dad. Thanks," I force out.

As I wait for the elevator, my stomach tight and my spirit deflated, I shoot off a text to Gus.

Me: I'll be there in three days.

Gus: Make it two.