Page 5 of Matrimonial Merger (Lakeshore Empire #2)

Cal

“Mom, can I pull you out for a minute to chat?” I asked.

Mom’s face dropped. She turned from where she was speaking with Tim and said, “There is nothing to say. I regret?—”

“There are things to say—things I need to say. Follow me,” I said.

She relented, following me through the back entrance to the kitchen, then down to the ground floor and out a back door that connected the store to the company’s tower.

With Daphne’s keycard, I had access to everything.

We took the executive elevator up, nostalgia hitting immediately.

Mom said nothing. She was on-edge—aware she’d fucked up, but also not sure how to fix it.

I walked down the hallway past the assistants in the center of the c-suite area. I nodded and said, “Just using Daphne’s office.”

They nodded back, not batting an eyelash.

We ducked into Daphne’s office. Mom popped down on the sofa in the corner, seething, while I tried to find the words to tell her how hurt I was.

“Does it have you all nostalgic?” Mom asked. “Or did you just bring me to humiliate me?”

I chose my words carefully, looking out the plate glass wall, across to David’s old office.

I expected to see the company’s late patriarch popping in.

Now, it was changed, full of Davey’s sports memorabilia these days.

The view remained the same, but much had changed.

I thought about my old office up the hall.

I thought about everything I’d learned and felt here.

It was overwhelming—like a ghost town left behind.

I leaned on Daphne’s desk, “I brought you here because it’s the busiest shopping day of the year, Mom, and I wasn’t about to lay into you in front of a crowd. Nor can I let you and Daphne share oxygen right now without worrying about what will happen to her.”

“I am not going to hurt her, Calvin. It was Danna?—”

“Let’s leave Danna out of this,” I said. “She’s a grieving widow. This entire family is grieving—and that includes me, Mom. Have a heart.”

She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. “In retrospect, I should have let up on the girl.”

I rubbed my temples. “Mom, she’s not a girl. She’s a woman. And I wish you would treat her like she is an equal. She’s a business woman, just like you. Why can you not just let it go? What is your beef with Daphne?”

“She’s nothing like me! Or you! All of these people are robber barons.

This entire place was just handed to them.

They’ve always had it easy. Always! They aren’t like you, Cal.

And you? You deserve someone who understands that.

Daphne is lucky she was born into wealth and always had an easy time of it. ”

I approached, sitting on the couch across from her. “Mom, she was born into privilege but you don’t get to choose your parents. Why would you take it out on Daphne?”

“Because it is people like Daphne—and Danna before her—that have always spat and me and all I did.”

“Mom, Delphine’s has given you a killer brand deal.

Your stuff ended up on the faces of the richest women in this town in Q4.

Daphne did that. Chloe and Daphne together, in fact.

Would you like me to bring you to Chloe’s office and show you what the Chief Influencer’s office looks like?

” I asked. “Because Daphne did that. And if you’re into eating the rich, just remember that Chloe has never wanted for anything in her life.

Is she less capable? I’d hate anyone to describe her that way—to infantilize her or suggest she was less-than—and I’m pretty sure you agree. ”

Mom shook her head, gaze dropping. “Calvin, you do not understand anything about these people.”

“I have lived my entire life trying, so I think I know a bit .”

“Do you? Because you deserve this—all you’ve worked for—and you have the satisfaction of it.”

I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

Mom stood, walking to the bookcase behind Daphne’s desk.

“You struggled with me. I gave you everything I could. I dedicated my life to making it out—for you—and you made it out. But you ended up in bed with people who don’t understand any of that. And now? Now I have to share grandchildren with that… that woman?”

“That woman is Daphne’s mother. And she just lost her husband and is suffering through the holidays without him—we all are.”

“Yeah, well no one gave a shit about the fact that your father ran off and then took his own life a year later in Florida,” Mom said. “No one cares about me and what I went through as a teenage mother—the type of person everyone loathes and judges. That is why Daphne’s mother went off on me.”

“It’s not,” I chuckled. “It’s really not.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “This is what I am talking about?—”

“Mother, she doesn’t think about you. Danna doesn’t give a flying fuck about you. You two may sometimes share air, but you’re right… you have little in common.”

“I have beat her in numerous tennis competitions?—”

“It doesn’t matter. She has her friends.

Those friends are… never going to be your friends.

And I won’t ever understand it. Nor will Daphne, who isn’t like her mother in oh-so-many-ways, Mom.

Daphne isn’t pretentious. You’d know that if you ever sat down and had a conversation with her that wasn’t a series of questions in a deposition. ”

“Daphne’s mother?—”

“Went off on you because Daphne was feeling ill and she knew Daphne was pregnant. The only people who did were Danna, Jo, and myself. You set her off. Just like you go off when you think one of us is being sidelined, Danna went off to defend her daughter. And I get the impulse because you are testing every bit of my patience right now. Daphne is upset. She’s done.

She was done with you before she even knew you were going to be here. ”

“Why?”

“You’ve never said a god damn nice thing about Daphne!”

“I said she was well-educated.”

“Only to imply that she’s privileged as hell.”

“All she does is argue?—”

“She’s an attorney.”

“Doesn’t that get old?”

I smiled. “No. I love her. I couldn’t want anyone else if I tried, Mom. She’s fucking perfect. I’m as happy as I have ever been.”

Mom’s face dropped like I’d just kicked a puppy.

“Mom, I think you think she should have suffered more to deserve the success she got, right?”

She didn’t respond.

“That’s ludicrous. And it’s insulting. In two weeks, she’s getting on a plane to go testify in court about a man sending revenge porn tape to other cabinet ministers before leaking it to the media?—”

“And yet, that doesn’t bother you? That she?—”

“Stop it! The next words out of your mouth should be anything but a suggestion that she’s unworthy because someone abused her—the way my sperm donor did me before leaving.”

Mom’s gaze dropped again.

“I didn’t love struggling,” I said. “I didn’t love being the man of the house always.

I didn’t enjoy being an outsider who constantly felt the need to prove I fit in—that I was one of them.

I’m not. I never will be. That’s fine. I didn’t want to be.

But to think everyone should have to suffer and struggle?

I am fighting every fucking day to make things less of a struggle for people, Mom.

Childhood trauma isn’t a god damn badge of honor. ”

“It makes you a better person to come from something—to work.”

“And Daphne has. She has worked.”

“You had to struggle. You can call it trauma—call it what you like—but it made you the man you are today, Cal,” Mom insisted.

I stood and shook my head. “No, Mom. You did. David did. Life did. I worked my ass off—just like I watched you do. But it wasn’t without problems. It wasn’t without issues. You think Chloe and I are perfect for some ungodly reason?—”

“Because you are both wonderful.”

“And that’s sweet. You’re supposed to say that.

You’re our mother. But, mom, I’m forty-eight, unmarried, and have a job that demands my attention night and day.

I am sometimes emotionally unavailable and exhausted.

A normal woman—someone you’d probably prefer—wouldn’t put up with me.

Daphne? She is made of similar stuff, okay?

Leave her be. Or, so help me, you will have no access to our child.

Because for the life of me, I cannot imagine why anyone who cannot love their mother for all she is needs to be in their life. ”

Tears welled in my mother’s eyes. “Cal, don’t say?—”

“Mother, you have a choice. Back off of Daphne or deal with my silence,” I said.

“But Danna?—”

“Ignore Danna! You don’t have to ever say a god damn word to Danna.

I know things aren’t roses between you. I am not asking you to be best friends with Danna—even Daphne.

But Daphne? She’s going to be my wife. She’s the mother of my child.

So, you’re going to play nice and be nice to her or so help me, you won’t be in the picture at all. ”

“That isn’t fair?—”

“It is. It’s not fair to Tim, perhaps because Tim hasn’t done anything but welcome Daphne.”

“I will… try. But we have little in common.”

I groaned. “Mother, what do you mean? Other than a massive brand deal with her company? Yeah, you’re lucky that Daphne’s business acumen outweighs her revenge complex.”

Daphne

“Daph, are you feeling any better?”

“I just want to rest,” I groaned, looking up at Cal.

I lay on the couch in my late father’s study—the room no one dared touch. Cal stood over me, face sympathetic. He sat a mug down on the coffee table. “Hot cocoa—with extra marshmallows, per Dora.”

“Thanks,” I said, sitting. A warm beverage and chocolate sounded good. And—unlike the coffee I craved deep in my bones—this was technically safe to drink.

Cal sat next to me, unfurling his arm across the back of the couch.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “Other than I am profusely sorry that my mother acted like a monster. I feel so shitty, Daph.”