I took a step back, studying Ophelia. “How much has my mother pumped you for information about my company?”
Ophelia lifted a shoulder in a subtle shrug. “Only as much as I wanted to tell her.”
“What did she promise you in return?” I sneered. “A ring on your finger?”
Ophelia watched me, then lifted her chin. “I see you’re still hung up on a woman that’s so far below you. She’ll ruin your life, Jared. She already has. Did you know she refused to work for the Monks? So not only is she a social climber, but she’s also an idiot to boot.”
Rage momentarily blanketed over me, but one thing Ophelia said stuck out. “She refused to work for the Monks?”
A touch of victory entered Ophelia’s gaze. She sighed and said, “Crazy, right? Trying to sabotage your biggest deal because you broke up with her. It’s pathetic. She should have kept her legs shut and stayed in her place.”
Ice descended over me. I blinked slowly, tamping down the urge to throttle the woman sneering at me. I lifted my chin. “You’re fired, Ophelia. HR will be in touch by the end of the day.”
She arched a brow. “On what grounds?”
I turned on my heels and stalked away.
“On what grounds!”
Her words chased me out of the room, but I didn’t turn.
Because I knew the truth.
Iris hadn’t refused to work for Roseanne Monk because she was trying to sabotage my deal. She did it because she was trying to save it. Even after everything I said to her, the way I treated her-she still put me first.
A woman with that much integrity wouldn’t be able to lie to Roseanne about me, so she gave up the opportunity of a lifetime for the sake of my company. My reputation.
For me.
It was just like her standing up for me at the gala honoring my parents. Just like the hours of research and preparation she did for events where she could have just as easily stood beside me and said nothing.
Iris cared. She’d cared about me, about my company, about her work. And I’d thrown it back in her face the moment she tried to ask for something honest for herself.
I was a colossal asshole.
I cut across the room toward the exit, but my mother accosted me just outside the door.
“What do you think you’re doing, Jared?” she hissed, her nails digging into my elbow as she dragged me out of the room.
I tore my arm away. “You’ve been spying on me,” I told her, my voice oddly flat.
“Don’t be dramatic. She wanted to play the rebel for a few years, but Ophelia is a good girl and she’s ready to come back into the fold. I think you’d be good together. Her parents?-“
“I don’t give a shit who her parents are or what they can do for you if I date their daughter.”
My mother’s jaw hardened. “If this is about that girl?-“
“This is about me, Mother. I’m done.”
The words came out of me before I really understood what I was saying, but once I spoke them out loud, the clarity they provided put my entire life into sharp relief. I’d spent so many years being torn between resentment and desperation for affection. I hated my parents for their rejection, yet I jumped at every phone call, answered every demand.
I was so desperate for a scrap of love that I really thought it was okay to be treated like an accessory in their lives.
Maybe it was the sight of Will vowing to love and cherish a woman he had no interest in marrying that did it. Or the realization that my parents would go as far as to plant someone in my own organization to get information on me. And then, the cherry on top of the shit sundae-to try to set me up with her! As if a bit of family espionage was just par for the course when the eldest son decided to build his own company instead of dancing exactly to the family tune.
I was done. Utterly and completely. I no longer cared if these people approved. I no longer craved their attention, their affection, their time.
Truthfully, I hadn’t even realized I had craved it-not until that need was gone.
Or maybe, I realized how empty my familial relationships were when even at a distance, Iris gave me something that meant so much more.
“She isn’t good enough for you, Jared,” my mother hissed, accurately reading the direction of my thoughts. “You think a girl who came from nothing can stand at your side? You think she can actually help you get to the next level?”
“What level is that, Joanne?”
“Don’t you call me by my first name. I am your mother
?
–
“
“You aren’t. You haven’t been that for a long time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice jumped up an octave as her arms fell to her sides.
“It means exactly what it sounds like. I’m not rushing over every time I get a summons. I’m not entertaining your opinions or your judgments. I’m not answering your calls. As far as I’m concerned, my family is dead.”
Her face went white. “Jared?-“
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.