Chapter 34: : Chapter 34

She fucking betrayed me.

I’m sitting at my desk, staring at the paper hand-delivered by my father this morning, gaping in utter shock.

Begonia exposed our agreement for the world.

My phone won’t stop ringing. Not my personal phone, nor my office phone, nor my office cell. Every line, lit up.

Merriweather brought coffee, doctored with sugar and cream and cinnamon, and I nearly threw up just sniffing it, which might’ve been the point.

Reasonably certain she’s on Team Begonia, that she’s sniffed out that we’re no longer together, and that I’m in the doghouse.

Winnie delivered today’s calendar and I wanted to crawl under my desk and hide like a five-year-old.

And then my father marched through my door, unannounced, with a tabloid in hand, and set off the biggest bomb of my Monday morning.

“While this has all the makings of a quality Razzle Dazzle film, I didn’t expect you’d do it in real life,” he says dryly, one ankle crossed over his knee as he sits across from me on my office couch as if this is a casual social visit and not a trip to tell me what a fuck-up I am for getting caught with my dick out in public before being exposed for Begonia being nothing more than a pretend date. “Maybe next time, use a digital document instead of paper. Especially if your fake girlfriend isn’t tech-savvy enough to forward it.”

She fucking betrayed me.

But what did I deserve?

She told me she loved me, and I told the pilot to turn the plane around.

“I’ll issue apologies.” My voice is hollow in my own ears. “If you need me to resign—”

“We’re held to a ridiculous standard, Hayes. If our family looks merely mortal in the press from time to time, we’ll weather the storm.”

“This isn’t mortal. This is embarrassing.” And it hurts.

It fucking hurts.

“It will blow over,” my father says.

As if this could possibly just blow over.

I glower at him.

I get a mild smile in return.

It makes my ears want to pop off the side of my head to let the pressure out. “For nearly forty damn years, I’ve bent over backwards to keep from smearing our family’s name, and now, with a photo of me getting a goddamn blow job on the front page of every tabloid, accompanied by a goddamn fake relationship contract, all you have to say is it’ll blow over?”

He tilts his head as if he’s contemplating the question. As if he didn’t hear the part where I said a photo of me getting a goddamn blow job. As if there’s actually any doubt that he’s not taking this seriously enough. “You don’t enjoy working here, do you?”

“Did you fucking set me up?” I’m on my feet, shouting at my father for the first time in my adult life. My head is pounding even harder, my fingers half-numb, half-twitching, my chest getting hammered so hard by my heart that my lungs are in danger of being collateral damage when it bursts. “Did you set me up so I’d have to step down?”

He doesn’t react to that either, but instead waves his hand casually as though he’s inviting me to take a seat and have a cigar. “Of course not. But since Thomas passed…you’ve been different. Some good. Some not so good. I don’t know what makes you happy, and your mother and I have been negligent by failing to ask.”

Begonia.

Begonia made me happy.

Until she betrayed me.

One good thing to come of this—I can be as unpleasant as I want, reject any potential date as rudely as I wish, and it can’t possibly be as bad as the front page of every last gossip magazine and website in the known universe today.

“It’s been a difficult time,” I bite off. “I’ll be fine.”

He nods to my desk, where the offensive newspaper glares at both of us. “That’s quite the balance sheet collection.”

“I like puzzles.”

“Especially when you’re unhappy.”

“I’m not—” I cut myself off with a curse.

While the show my family puts on for the world is fake, and they annoy the ever-loving shit out of me on occasion, my parents’ concern for Jonas and me has always been real. I’ve never doubted that.

They ask for too much—not because they want to, but because of the world we live in—but they worry in equal amounts.

It’s why my mother came to Maine—because she worries. It’s why the whole family stayed longer than they should’ve at the house in Albany.

I’m the one they worry about. Even at almost forty years old. And for as much as I don’t like people, I know I need them, and I know I can count on my family.

I sink back into my seat and meet my father’s gaze. “I don’t know that I’m built to be Razzle Dazzle’s CFO.”

“Because…?”

Fuck it. What more do I have to hide? “Interviews. Shareholder meetings. Managing a team. People. And I hate every goddamn movie this family has ever produced.”

He purses his lips thoughtfully. “They’re dreadfully repetitive, aren’t they?”

And now I’m gawking. “You don’t like them either?”

“Oh, no, I enjoy them, but we haven’t taken a risk since we opened Razzle Dazzle Village when you were a baby. And you’re getting old.”

Jesus.

Who is this man, and what has he done with my father?

“What would make you happy, Hayes?”

Begonia.

A private island with no one but Begonia.

Food.

Her damn dog.

My father sighs. “Son, life’s too short to spend it doing nothing but making other people happy. And god knows we parents get it wrong on occasion when it comes to guessing what that might be. If you’re under the impression we expect you to pay us back for anything we’ve ever given you in life, let me assure you, all we want is for you to do what makes you happy. Not what makes us happy. And it’s time I put my money where my mouth is, so consider that this offer is as much for me as it is for you. If you’re not happy, if you want out…now’s the time to take a leap.”

He looks like my father. He truly does. “Are you ill?”

“No, merely disgusted with myself for taking the easy path for far too long.”

I lift my brows and wait.

“Our first film featuring a queer couple is nearly finished.” He points to my desk again. “We’ve done the same thing for so long that we’ve convinced ourselves the audience wouldn’t follow us if we added additional paths, and it’s time we move away from the fear and embrace the possibilities of truly living up to what our reputation should be. Not a surface-level happy family, but a family of love and support and acceptance. The account sheets will be corrected when we announce it next week. Thomas was aware and had signed off on the various accounting tricks we needed to use for developing the project in complete secret. The rest of the board is ready to handle the media requests we would’ve had him do, as we’ve wanted to give you time to settle in before fully feeding you to the sharks. But Hayes, if this isn’t where your heart is—and I don’t mean the company’s growth and expansion into new markets that we should’ve ventured into before this, but I mean you, in this chair—no one will think any less of you. I’d hoped this job would be an opportunity, but I fear I’ve actually put you into an obligation instead.”

Begonia would be thrilled at this news.

I don’t want that to be my first thought, but I can’t stop it any more than I could stop her from smiling at the sun rising over the sea, or at a small private violin concert, or at her ridiculous dog pretending he could fish for crabs and take them home and cook them himself.

“Think it over,” my father says. “If you’re not happy, Hayes…let us help you find what would help you get there. And in the meantime, don’t let anyone else walk through your door with tabloids in hand.”

“You just walked through my door with that infernal tabloid in your hand.”

“I’m your father. It comes with privileges.” He smiles as he unfolds himself and rises. “But the biggest is worry. The biggest is always the worry.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“As can be.”

He looks at my desk one more time. I snag the offending paper and hold it out to him. “Toss this, would you?”

“Never thought she’d be the type to take that to the press,” he muses. “Her dog, though…”

I’d point out he barely met her at Sagewood House, but I know my father, and I know he pays attention to more than we think he does. “We’re not discussing this.”

He shrugs. “Happiness isn’t something you can plan, son.”

“We’re not discussing this.”

He nods once.

And when he walks out my door, I get the most infuriating sense that he’s disappointed in me.

Not because I’m failing at what I’m supposed to do for my family.

But because I’m letting fear stand in the way of the one thing that might finally make me truly happy.