Page 82 of The Producer: Aaron

“I have other plans for my future. If I can also make him turn in the grave, why not have fun?”

As I say this, I realize I don’t care about the company anymore. What for a lifetime was my goal soon became irrelevant, devoid of any meaning, and that doesn’t give me any emotion.

“Tell your lawyer to talk to mine. I will make myself heard.” He smiles at me.

The way Tim works, this is as good as a signature on the paper. He wouldn’t have bothered if he hadn’t already tasted the idea of getting his hands on my father’s company.

“Right now, they are both already in his office discussing the proposal,” I say with a smug smile at his surprise.

“You are a son of a bitch. Are you sure you don’t want to come and work for me?” he asks with a smile on his face.

I shake my head as I turn around. “As I have already told you, I have other plans.”

***

Dakota looks at me with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised when I show up at her hotel room door. She’s breathtakingly beautiful and reminds me of how stupid it was to let her go.

“I came here to apologize, but not to beg you to take me back,” I begin, earning a furrowing of her eyebrows.

“It’s not a good start.” She nails me with her gaze.

I smile. “What I mean is that you will decide whether to forgive me or not. No forcing and no epic gestures. Just a sincere apology.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

I smile at her determination and her pout.

“I was wrong. There are no excuses or justifications. I behaved like an immature kid when I should have just talked to you and tell you how things were. It is not true that you can’t understand. You are intelligent and mature, and you would have understood if I had told you that I felt humiliated and robbed of sixteen years of career.” I feel a weight that I had been carrying for quite a while lift from my chest.

Dakota looks at me, less sulky than before, but says nothing.

“I struggled to put up with everything that happened. I still struggle to get clarity on where my future will go, but that doesn’t justify the horrible way I treated you. If you decide to give me a second chance, I will be the happiest man on earth,but if you decide that you no longer want to deal with me, I can understand. I’m not going to sit here and tell you what I feel for you because a person my age would have come to terms with his feelings sooner and told you when it was time, not at the end of an apology. You deserve to hear it for real when there are no grudges or quarrels. You deserve to smile when I tell you what I feel for you, not hear it in front of a hotel door with a pout on your face.”

I look into her eyes and see the tears shining. I would like to hug her and tell her I am sorry, but this would mean dragging her to me in a moment she is weak. I want her to think about it and evaluate the idea of forgiving me because she trusts me and not on a moment’s impulse. So I leave the keys to the house in her hand, turn around, and retrace the corridor, hoping that sooner or later she will decide to use them.

***

“Are you sure you want it? It has been closed for years, and there is a lot of work to do. If you want, I have new ones in Burbank where you would spend a third to fix them as you want,” says the owner of the warehouse in front of me.

I observe it, noticing the peeling walls and the graffiti that can be glimpsed on the innermost parts.

“I’m sure.”

The man shakes his head and smiles.

“Your father asked me for years, but he wanted to have them for a cheap price, and I always refused to sell them to him,” he confesses.

I smile. I know that my father wanted this complex of warehouses because it borders the studios of his company, and he wanted to double the area on which to expand. He had to givein and take another complex in Burbank. That’s why I want it.

“I’ll pay you the market price if you give it to me quickly.”

The man studies me for a few more seconds. “You know your offices will face your old office, don’t you?”

I turn around and smile at him. “That’s why I want it.”

I want my father, from the hell he is in, to see my empire grow and become bigger and more prosperous than his. I want them to be close so that he always has a clear comparison from down here and can gnaw in the knowledge that I, too, can do something great. Perhaps even bigger and more important than what he built.

“So you decided to forgive him?” Tracy asks as she sips a Frappuccino while we walk along Venice Beach.

---