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“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 M&A. Mergers and acquisitions.”
He defines M&A 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.
Chapter 10: Gus
I drag the last bundle of firewood through the easternmost side door of the cabin and let it drop onto the hardwood floor with a resounding thud. Lingering bits of snow slide off the bundle and onto the immaculate heated floor, where they immediately melt into water spots. I toe at one with the tip of my boot, reminding myself that a floor’s job is to be stepped on, dripped on, dropped on, etcetera. But I laid every plank in this mudroom by myself; it’s hard not to be finicky about it.
Once I’ve got my jacket in the closet and my boots off, I heft the bundle once more and balance it on my shoulder. Julia’s room is the last one I need to stock.
I set up the bundle by the stacked stone fireplace and untie the rope binding it so I can arrange the wood more…I don’t know. Artfully or something. Pretty. Halfway through, when I’m switching two logs around so the pile looks neater, I pause. What am I doing? I shouldn’t worry about how nice a stack of firewood looks for the spoiled billionaire princess I’ve summoned to my home. She’s not going to notice or care. If she wasn’t impressed with my penthouse in London, she’s obviously not going to be impressed with my stupid pile of firewood.
Good enough. I pick up the rope and a loose piece of bark that came in with the bundle and head back downstairs.
My phone buzzes with a message from Brent: Her flight landed an hour and a half ago. The trip from the airport in Bozeman is about an hour, give or take, so she should be here by now.
She’s late. I’m not surprised.
I send Brent a thanks for the update, and he responds with, Have fun! It almost gets a laugh out of me, but the anticipation is too heavy for laughter. Instead, I sit on the sofa by the biggest window in the living room and stare out at the snow-covered expanse surrounding the property. The season has been colder than usual and residual snow from the last storm two weeks ago still dots the Douglas-Firs and the ponderosas. Not a bad backdrop for the holiday season. If I celebrated Christmas, I could have even enjoyed it.
My phone pings again, this time with an alert from the security camera at the base of the property. There’s a car headed up the road to the security gate—surely Julia. I input the code to open the gate and head to the front door.
A minute later, two unprecedented sights greet me when I step onto my wraparound porch.
The first: a white Toyota Corolla rolling up my driveway. Good lord. I told Julia I would send someone to pick her up, but she insisted on driving herself—and this is what her stubbornness resulted in. Whichever car rental company gave someone a white Corolla, of all things, in the middle of December in Montana should be sued and put out of operation.
