Arranged love

Two days ago

Sitting on the floor in the middle of my Chicago apartment with boxes surrounding me, I have one open between my legs. I’m shoving scarfs into it when I hear my phone ring in the other room.

I let out a long breath, blowing the loose strands from my ponytail off my face as I debate whether I want to answer it or not.

I’ve been avoiding my friends and their endless questions that will come when I answer. I went home to Vegas a couple of months ago and was told that my mother is dying. My time is limited. I had to come back to get a few things in order and pack up my apartment while putting it up for sale. While I was there, one of my best friends, Jasmine, had called me, and I told her what happened. I should have kept my mouth shut, but it was like vomit. I was unable to hold in the emotions that flooded me. I told her. I know she’s spoken to our other best friend Haven by now. She’s been blowing up my phone, but I just don’t have the words. I don’t have the energy to talk about it.

It quits, and I feel relieved. But then it immediately starts up again. Getting to my feet, I step over a few tubs full of clothes and make my way down the hallway to my bedroom at the end. I pick up my phone off my queen-size bed and frown when I see the number.

It’s my father’s business partner. “Hello?” I answer.Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

“Emilee …” He sighs, and my heart begins to pound.

“Is my mom okay?” I rush out. Maybe my father had to take her to the hospital, and that’s why he didn’t call me himself.

“It’s not her,” he says quietly, and a knot forms in my throat. “You need to get home. Something has happened.”

My father had died.

That was the something. In the middle of a meeting, he stood from his chair and fell to his knees, then went down face-first from a massive heart attack.

“Emilee?”

I jump back from the glass and drop my phone. “Yes?” I sniff, wiping my face once again. Turning around, I see my father’s assistant standing before me. She can’t even give me a smile to comfort me. What little makeup she wore today is smeared across her face. She has worked for my father for over twenty-five years. She took the news as bad as I did because he was like a brother to her.

“He’s ready for you,” she says before turning her back to me and walks over to her desk.

“Thank you,” I mumble so low I’m not even sure if she can hear me. I kneel, picking up my phone off the white marble floor where I had dropped it and bite my bottom lip, trying to calm my breathing. Nervously, I run my hands over my hair. I have it up in a tight bun, and my stomach growls as a result of not eating since … I don’t know when. Food has been the last thing on my mind. And what little I have eaten; I can’t keep down. My nerves keep getting the best of me.

The fear.

The sadness.

The deep fucking hole in my chest.

It’s all too much.

I’m not a stranger to death. My mother’s mom died when I was eight, and I remember her service. How my mom was too weak to stand. My father had to practically carry her back to our car. She couldn’t get out of bed for weeks.

Nanny’s death crippled our family. Literally. My grandpa died three months later, and my mother swore it was from a broken heart. And it put her back in bed for longer than when she lost her mother. Both of her parents were gone, and she had no one else. She was an only child. Nanny and Pappa had her when they were in their mid-forties, so all her aunts and uncles were already gone. All she had left was my dad and me. But at times, I didn’t think we were enough. She never seemed to have recovered from the loss.

The older I got, the more family members passed away. My father’s parents died when I was sixteen in a fiery car crash. But he didn’t crumple like my mother did when she lost her parents. No, he didn’t miss a beat. He went on with his life as though nothing ever happened. He was strong; the exact opposite of my mother and me.

“Emilee?” Mrs. Williams asks, noticing my hesitation.

Nodding, I turn, walking down the long hallway past the photos of my father and his business partner that hang on the wall. They own a construction company and have built more structures than I can count over the years here in Las Vegas.

I try to calm my heavy breathing as my heels clap on the floor. Pulling my shoulders back, I grab the door handle and push it open. Stepping into the office, I pause. It’s empty. “I thought you said he was waiting for me?” I manage to get out, poking my head out of the room.

“He is.” I hear her voice travel to me from the front. “He’s in your father’s office.”

My head whips around. “He’s what?” This time, she doesn’t respond.

Shutting the door, I walk to the next one and shove it open. “Why are you …?”

“Here she is.” George stands from my father’s seat, and my heart stops to see him there.

My father wanted this office for the view. He loved Las Vegas. It’s on the corner of the building, on the thirty-fifth floor. Fifty percent of the large room has floor-to-ceiling windows. He said there was not a better view in Nevada. When he would have to work late, my mother would bring him dinner. We’d have a picnic on his office floor as we watched the city light up the sky, and he would show us where his next project was going to be.

This was his space. His home away from home. And now George is going to take it over as if it were always his.

That’s what makes me so nervous about this meeting. George insisted that I come here after the service. He said he needed to see me, and that it was important. “Mr. Yan, this is Emilee York.” He introduces me to my father’s attorney.

The man stands from his chair and reaches out his right hand, and I take it in mine. “I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances,” he offers. His dark eyes seem saddened by the situation, but I don’t trust him.

I had just met him at the funeral. We didn’t speak, but I knew who he was because George had pointed him out to me. I didn’t pay much attention to him then, but now, as I take in his Armani suit and welcoming smile, I don’t like him. If he’s my father’s attorney, why am I just now meeting him?

I give him the weakest smile I can muster and take the seat across from the desk, pushing my black dress farther down my legs. It’s not short by any means. It falls just to my knees in this position, but sitting here with both of them makes me uncomfortable. Too exposed. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m in this room, knowing my father won’t be walking in anytime soon. To hug me. To hold me. To love me.

I do a quick scan of his desk and see all his pictures of my mom and me are gone. The few boxes over in the corner give me an idea of what happened to them.

I blink, trying to hold the tears that sting my tired eyes at bay.

George’s creamy brown eyes look over my face, lingering on my lips, and I shuffle in my seat. Wanting to get the hell out of here, I clear my throat. “You needed to see me?”

Yan hands me a piece of paper, and I read it over. It’s all bullshit words that I can’t even pronounce let alone know the meaning of. It’s in fucking attorney lingo. I blink. “I don’t understand.”

George sits back in his seat. “It’s simple, Emilee. Your father had a will. Well, a trust.”

I nod. “Okay.” I’m not surprised. My father was always preparing for the unexpected, and he understood that death was a part of life. He wanted my mother and me to be taken care of. “Are we going to have a get-together for a reading of the will?” That’s what we did when my father’s parents passed. They were billionaires and had two kids, my father and my uncle Jack. We had to fly to Texas and meet with their attorney, and he named off every asset that they had left to their children. It did not go over well. They left my father over seventy-five percent of their fortune. My uncle was pissed. I haven’t seen him since.

“That’s what this is.” George points at the papers that I still hold.

“I don’t understand.” I look back down at it. I don’t see my mom or me mentioned anywhere on it.

“He has made me the executor,” George announces.

“And?” I lick my dry lips.

“And I’m in charge of everything.”

I swallow the lump that forms in my throat. “What do you mean? Everything?”

“We were fifty-fifty partners in York and Wilton Construction. We started it together right out of college,” he rambles.

Yeah, with my father’s money. He acts like I don’t know him. “The house?” That’s what I care about. Making sure my mother has a place to stay is the most important part.

George looks over at Mr. Yan and then back at me. “Also mine.”

I stand. “I don’t see how it can be yours,” I growl, getting pissy. “It’s in my father’s name.” He built her that house five years ago. It was exactly what she always wanted. She designed everything from the mosaic tiles and the crystal chandeliers to the color of paint in the closets. She had rugs flown in from Paris that she designed, for God’s sake.

“No. It’s in the company’s name.” He opens a desk drawer and pulls out an envelope. “And your father and I had an agreement.”

“What kind of agreement?” I ask, trying to catch my breath.

He slides it across the surface, but I make no move to pick it up.

Sitting back, he crosses his arms over his chest. “If one of us passes, the remaining partner has first dibs at their shares of the company for a pre-determined amount.” He nods at Yan. “It’s stated in that document. Black and white.”

I pick up the envelope and hold it in my hand. The room falls silent as I gently pull the tab back and look inside with shaky hands. “It’s a dollar.” I look up at him.

He nods. “That’s what we agreed upon.”