I want the kind of loving relationship my parents have. I want a man who will stand in front of me when I need strength. Someone who will stand behind me when I need encouragement, and stand beside me when I need support. I want a partner, not someone who dictates everything from what I eat to whether I’m allowed to have an orgasm.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening for Victor and me, but I had to see if there was any hope. Three days ago, he gave me an opening, and I took it.
“What would you like for graduation?” he’d asked from the doorway of the bathroom.
“Just you.” I winked at his reflection in the mirror.
“You already have me.”
I turned from the mirror to face him. Nervous butterflies danced around in my stomach, and the words poured from my mouth. “I want the man I fell in love with.”
I don’t know what I expected him to say, but I didn’t expect silence.
For a solid minute, he just stood there and stared at me. Then he grabbed his bag and left for his business trip. He never called or texted even once.
I thought maybe he was punishing me for my comment by pretending I didn’t exist.
Judging by his behavior now, he’s still angry.
Victor’s not a violent man, but that doesn’t mean he won’t hurt me.
Chapter Three
Cannon
“I think you should come work for Davis Corporation,” I tell Heather. “It’s what Dad would’ve wanted.”
My parents divorced right after I graduated college. They were high school sweethearts, but over the years, they grew apart. The divorce was amicable, and they remained friends. Two years after the divorce, my father married Heather’s mother, Julie. They were married seven years before they were hit and killed by a drunk driver. Heather and I weren’t all that close, mostly due to the fifteen-year age gap between us, but that all changed after the accident.
At thirty-one, I took over as CEO of Davis Corporation and became the legal guardian of a grieving teenager. To be honest, running a multimillion-dollar company was a hell of a lot easier. Heather’s father died overseas when she was four, and both sets of grandparents lived in Ohio, where her parents were originally from. My mother drove up from Boca and stayed with us for a while, which helped a lot. Because of my mother’s easy friendship with my father, she was also friends with Julie, which was the anchor Heather needed to feel close to both our parents.
“What about you?” she asks.
I raise my brows. “What about me?”
“Do you want me there?”
“Of course I want you there. I didn’t put you through four years of college so you could make dance videos on social media.”
“Don’t knock my twerking skills.” She snickers. “What’s the job?”
“I’ll start you out as my assistant.”
Her lips curl. “You already have an assistant.”
“Beth gets me coffee, handles my calendar, and answers the phone. You’ll work beside me and learn the business. I’ll start you off with smaller projects until you work your way up.”
It’s exactly what I was doing before I took over as CEO, and I was thankful for all my father taught me. I’m also thankful for his assistant, Beth, who is now my assistant. If it weren’t for her, the transition wouldn’t have been a smooth one.
Heather nods. “I’d like that, Cannon. Thank you. I think I would be a great asset to your company.”
I grin proudly. “I know you will.”
“How much are you gonna pay me?”
I wave her off. “We can discuss your salary next week.”
Our waiter approaches the table. “Would you like some dessert, coffee, or tea?”
Heather pats her stomach. “No, thanks. I’m stuffed.”
The waiter swings his gaze to me, and I give a slight shake of my head as I slip my hand inside my jacket pocket and retrieve my wallet. “Just the check, please.”
He pulls the leather ticket holder from the pocket of his apron and places it on the table before collecting our plates. “Thank you for dining with us today. It was a pleasure serving you.”
“Thank you,” Heather says as she checks her phone.
After lunch, I drive us over to Magnolia Park so I can present Heather with her graduation gift.
“Tell me about Makayla,” I ask as we make our way through traffic, giving her a side glance.
She lifts a shoulder while scrolling through her phone. “I don’t really know much about her. Like I said, we had a couple classes together. We worked on a couple projects, but we weren’t friends outside school. I’m pretty sure that guy with her was a guest speaker in our Business Strategy class first semester.”
I stop at a red light and look over at her. “His name is Victor Martin.”
She lifts her gaze and quirks a brow. “You know him?”
Nodding slowly, I tell her, “We were in the same fraternity.”
“Small world.”
“He’s also a member of Veil.”
Technically, that information is confidential, but if I want things to go as planned, I need Heather on my side. I opened Veil a year prior to my father’s untimely death. It had always been a goal of mine to own a club by the time I was thirty, and I’d visited nightclubs all over the country looking for inspiration. Aside from the decor and the name of the deejay, they all had the same common denominators: music, flashing lights, alcohol, and long lines outside the bathrooms. I decided nightclubs were too much work, that the shine would eventually fade and the patrons would move on to the next “it” club. I needed
