Page 42 of The Enemy

“I heard it’s a great location. Up-and-coming. You shouldn’t let go of a great investment.” I shrugged it off.

He mumbled something, but I didn’t bother to work it out.

“Neo,” my father called out before he could walk out the door.

Why would he do that? I was trying to get the fuck out of here, I was even contemplating taking the stairs to make sure we wouldn’t be in the elevator together.

“Is there something I missed, Richard?”

I shut down my laptop and was determined to make a getaway while he was busy talking to my father.

“We should all go out tonight for dinner. What do you say, Lou?”

Fuck.

“I would love to, but I can’t. I’m meeting?—”

“You can bring that boy you're seeing… Cristobal, was it?”

Cristobal was just a friend. He wanted the connections that came with being my plus-one, and I got a gorgeous arm candy. We had met back in college in my Hispanic studies classes. When he moved to the East Coast, he looked me up. He was nice, very proud, and hardworking. In some aspects, he reminded me of my mother. Someone with no legs in my world, and when she got a chance, she left a strong foothold. It was my way of paying it forward.

“It’s a family dinner. Strangers shouldn’t be allowed to come,” Neo added instantly. “I just got back in the country, and I don’t want it splashed in the tabloids by whoever is warming Lou’s bed.”

“Cristobal is an attorney. Only one of us dates stupid airheads who can’t keep their mouths shut, and it’s not me.”

My blood sang at this moment. His eyes sparkled as I finally spoke back. He looked triumphant, and just as he opened his mouth, my father yelled at us.

“Enough!”

We both jumped back at my father’s outburst.

“We are getting ready to take on a new frontier in this company, and the last thing we need is someone getting a front-row seat to the two of you acting like children. We are Rivieres. Start acting like it!”

“Oh, honey.” Pricilla opened her mouth, and my father’s ire turned to her.

“At the end of the month, they are set to meet with Park’s team. They need to show a united front.”

This was news to me.

“What meet?” I asked.

“I thought you and Neo would be the ones going?” Pricilla asked.

“I changed my mind,” my father told her. “Gerald wants us to decide the future of this company, so I think it’s only fair they both get to go and show us how they handle themselves.”

That’s why he was back. He wanted the COO role, which had been unofficially vacant since my father took my grandfather’s CEO position.

He was determined to take it all from me. When I looked at my father, it was like seeing him for the first time. There was an ocean between us, and for the first time, I wanted to try to reach him. It wasn’t much, but he was giving me more of a fair shot than my grandfather ever had.

TWELVE

NEO

Thirty years old

The morning paper lay scattered,and I tried not to care about what it said but found that I couldn’t be as heartless as I wanted to be. The last three years away had been a blessing in disguise.

There was no family drama following me around, nor did I have my mother nagging me at every turn. Most importantly, I didn’t have Lourdes near to cloud my judgment.

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