The Tycoon

When I looked back at his face. His smile was gone. So gone it was like I’d imagined it.

“I’m here.” I did an awkward arm flap thing and immediately wanted to vanish. I’d told myself I wasn’t getting dressed for Clayton. That I didn’t care what he thought. But I was still wearing my best skinny jeans and the new black leather booties Bea had insisted I buy. My green cardigan was long and drapey and hid all kinds of flaws.

A phone rang, breaking our awkward spell. Trudy pulled her cell out of her pocket and excused herself, going back outside to take the call.

Leaving me alone with Clayton.

Suddenly this giant house—this monstrous ranch—seemed too small. I needed miles between us so I could keep him forgotten.

So I could be this person I’d created who’d never been hurt the way he hurt me.

“Once you’re settled, meet me in your father’s study,” he said. It was not a request and I remembered how he used to do that sometimes. Forget that I wasn’t his employee. Someone he could just demand things of.

“No.”

He sighed and smiled briefly. “I’m sorry. Could you please meet me in your father’s study when you get a chance?”

This was the thing about Clayton. He was a bossy boss man. But his apologies, when they came, were sincere.

And I was always a sucker for his apologies.

I swallowed and glanced over at the wall of shitty glass art.

Why did they all look like penises?

“The answer is still no.”

“Veronica. There are things we should discuss before tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “We have nothing to say to each other. I’m here for my sisters. That’s it.”

He stepped toward me, his hands in his pockets like he meant me no harm, but I backed myself up anyway and nearly tripped over my suitcase.

Great. Awesome. Super-sophisticated. Exactly the vibe I was going for.

“You used to have plenty to say to me. Endless conversation. Remember?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

I was.

But I forced myself to look at him. To look right into him. Of course I remembered. I remembered everything I wished I could forget.

“You called me once about two birds fighting over what was left of your sandwich.”

I did. I did do that.

“You were sitting on a patio, remember? And this bird—”

“I remember.”

This bird had come out of nowhere and stolen my BLT, and then another bird swooped in to try and take it. They’d fought over it right in front of me.

I’d called Clayton and given him the play-by-play.

And he’d pretended to be interested. Even laughed once or twice.

Because I was a task. Always a task. A check mark on his way to something he wanted more.

The taste of humiliation was sour in my mouth. Like bile.

“I’m here for the funeral. My sisters. That’s it. Stay away, Clayton. Just…stay away.”

I turned and walked away, leaving him there in the shadows, watching me go. And I was so freaking proud of myself, proud of how I slowly grabbed my bag and took it with me. How I climbed the steps one at a time, carefully and methodically.

Like I didn’t care.

Like he wasn’t even there.

My sister Sabrina threw a party like it was her job.

Even funerals.

And maybe it was; I’d never really understood her reality TV show. After the nightmare of my engagement party, she’d moved to Los Angeles, and within a few years she was the Cowboy Princess with billboards for her show all over Texas.

A real-deal celebrity.

The show seemed to consist of her shopping, throwing parties, and riding horses in terribly inappropriate footwear—all while perfectly dressed and made up. Making it all seem like she was having just the best time ever. Her Instagram account verified that. Nothing but parties and rock stars and actors whose names I didn’t know.

Sometimes I caught her show late at night and I’d see her familiar, beautiful face, but I’d see the familiar sadness, too.

The Cowboy Princess was, beneath all that beauty and frivolity, a little broken.

But not when it came to throwing parties. When I came back down, the ranch was totally different. Gone was that ugly glass art and instead there were pictures of the family I could barely stand to look at. Bea with her two front teeth gone. Sabrina as a roly-poly preteen. Me with my mother. There were servers and small cocktail tables. A cellist in the corner.

A black limo took Bea and me out to the family plot, which was in a pretty corner of the property. A small hill surrounded by lilacs in full, perfumed bloom.

There had to be a hundred people there. None of them were people I wanted to deal with. Clayton stood next to Sabrina, talking to the minister, but when I got out of the car, he looked over at me.

I turned my back on him and went to go find my mother, who was buried under a big oak tree.