Page 24 of I Think Olive You

Rage, white hot and piercing shoots through my body and I’d kill for a fucking smoke right now. Of course, my father had another little ‘fuck you’ lined up after death. Me getting an English degree instead of my MBA must have enraged him.

It’s not only the threat to my livelihood, it’s the fact?—

“And no one thought it was important to tell me that little detail?!”

“You weren’t supposed to find out. Like I said, he wanted you to rise to the occasion on your own. Thomas wanted more for you than to waste away in a haze of alcohol and parties. You need to grow up, Matt. You’re not a teenager anymore. So, suck it up, and get shit done. Or you might not have a way of getting home come October.”

As if I want to come back to that hell hole and face you after you gleefully screwed me over.

“Is that a threat, Alan?”

“It’s a promise. You have a little over two months. If you don’t have something for me by the end of September you are officially disowned.”

“I need more time! How can I gauge their profit margin or anything important if we haven’t even made it through harvest?” I’m desperate now, clawing for some other option, anything to buy me the time I need.

“Not my problem. It’s decided by the anniversary of his death. I don’t give a fuck about the harvest and neither will the lawyers. You’ll figure it out.” Alan hangs up, silence on the other end of the line and a sick swirl in my gut as I think about what just happened.

Two months.

Two months until I either ruin Giuliana’s life or my own.

Fuck.

My walk is enlightening, but not in the way I hope. Instead of gaining insight into the grove or Giuliana I find myself teetering on the edge of life as I know it. I don’t like to throw around the word hate. It has too much power, too much of a hold over people. But at this moment, the ground crunching underfoot as I make my way back to the house, I feel it well within me.

There’s hatred for my father and for the lackey who enjoys carrying on Thomas’s legacy… hatred at myself for being like them, unable to sacrifice or give up the comfort money provides.

Giuliana is tied up, dealing with the business or more fallout from Umberto’s departure. Chiara roams the grounds somewhere, and Nonna… well, I’m not going to seek out the shrewd-eyed old lady. The way she was watching me at breakfast… studying me, as if she can see under my skin into the person beneath, is deeply unsettling.

So, I close myself off in my room, pulling the contract out from its hiding spot and poring over the words that have the possibility of changing my life forever. It’s slow going translating it all—and Google isn’t the best for it—but I get the gist.

The clause was put in place near the end of the document, stating Tommaso fronted Lorenzo’s decision to change the cultivar. Per the agreement, Tommaso would pay for the planting costs and float the farm until they could produce a satisfactory harvest. Lorenzo would then either have to pay the investment back over ten years, or relinquish the majority share.

If the company (under Lorenzo’s management) didn’t produce a consistent profit for at least five continuous years after the initial payback period, Tommaso took it all. The grove was collateral.

The way my father left things alone until now leads me to believe either they met the first part of the agreement, or my father stopped caring.

I flop onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling—at a total fucking loss.

If he was still alive… none of this would be an issue. Of course, my father is more involved in death than he’d been in life. Thomas Palmer was a cold son of a bitch. Not the kind of man who showed up to parent-teacher conferences, or graduations. The company that paid for our lives was the child he fostered into the success it became. I’m just a loser who does a disservice to the Palmer name.

I check my phone, having ignored the calls and messages since my impromptu plane ride. The only one I answer is my mother to let her know I’ve made it here fine and will be staying for the summer. The rest are a shitshow. Some are invitations to events, parties and the like. A lot of them are “friends” sharing multiple articles of me with the senator’s daughter.

Brandon even went as far as to rank a list of my past hookups by level of scandal.

The Palmer Playboy. So original.

Chucking the phone onto the bottom of the bed, I cringe a little when it bounces and hits the floor. A shout of frustration builds behind my breastbone and I fight the urge to let it loose. None of those people give a damn about me as a person. I’m a headline, an in to another party. Hell, for some it definitely is the appeal of my money. What kind of asshole can’t even conjure up one real friend?

What do you expect? If you smell like shit, act like shit… then you’re definitely a piece of shit.

Shut up. For one fucking day.

I wish the voice in my head would give it up for a little while. Reminders are unnecessary since I’m painfully aware. The inside of my cheek is raw where I’ve taken to chewing on the flesh when the nicotine patches don’t do enough to diminish my cravings. Never thought I’d end up quitting, but leaving the grove for something as small as a vape is stupid. At this point, I’ve taken it as a personal challenge to piss the voice off and prove it wrong.

I don’t need to smoke. I am more than my vices.

But there are no true friends I can turn to, no one I can unburden myself to who would understand. They all see a charmed life. The business waits—and the grove if I have the guts to go through with it. I should be grateful. Instead, I feel trapped, destined down a path I never intended to walk in the first place.

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