Owen
There were times in my life when I truly loathed my mother. Oh, I loved her in that sort of obligatory way that we love our parents, but there were times I actually loathed her.
How dare she butt into my life? As of this past August, I was a bloody adult. This was a long-standing habit of hers, deciding who I could be friends with, deciding who I could date, deciding what was best. I lived for summers when I returned to London, met my friends from around the world, had a taste of freedom I could only ever dream about.
But back in New York, ever since she’d established Preston Media here in the city, God, it was like I was being choked. And not in that fun, dirty kind of way.
I would deal with her.
The devastated look on Tanith’s face hadn’t gone away since we’d returned to Pembroke. Nothing I said to assure her was working. She thought she had to choose the internship or me, and she would have to make her gut-wrenching final decision in a week.
You twat. This was all my fuckup. She was hurting because of me.
All Sunday had been like that. Then Monday, she somehow managed to avoid me. There was no way I was letting that stand, though. She was mine and I was going to fix this for her.
Luckily on Tuesday, I only had one class in the morning, which gave me a chance to get into the city before the end of the workday. My mother thought she was the only game in town when it came to publishing. Preston Media was the extra fluffy cream on top of the cream of the crop. The thing was, for every industry event I’d been forced to attend with her, for every party where I’d been forced to smile, I’d made my own contacts. And if she was willing to dick with me, I was going to dick with her back.
Once I’d set my appointment, had my meeting, and pulled a few strings, I returned to campus late that night via car. I found Tanith downstairs in the study after hunting for her for over an hour.
She lifted her gaze to meet mine and I was struck by how exhausted she looked. “Oh, hi. Where’ve you been? I’d been looking everywhere for you.”
“I had something to do in the city.”
Her eyes flared. “Oh my God, your mother? She made you go all the way into the city on a Tuesday? Did she give you a . . . talk too?”
I knew what “talk” meant and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was letting Tanith go. I clamped my jaw shut so I wouldn’t curse; that was what I wanted to do every time I thought about my mother. About what she’d done. What she’d tried to do.
Sorry, Mum, but you don’t get to do this, this time.
“No, not my mum. Something else, actually.”
Her body sagged. “Oh.”
“No, it’s good. I’ve figured it out.”
“What did you figure out? Did you talk to your father or something? I thought Preston was run by your mother?”
“It is. And Dad, as much as he would try to help, doesn’t run the show. When Mum sets her mind about things like the running of Preston, she won’t budge. He has no say, so that’s the wrong tactic to take.”
“Okay, then, what were you doing all day?”
I grinned at her. “Well, I sorted it because I won’t give you up.”
The corner of her lip twitched. I reached out and rubbed my thumb over her bottom lip, that full bottom lip, thinking of the dirty things I’d done to it and had her do to me. The blood rushed south, then I groaned as I quickly snapped my hand back. “Jesus, I can’t have a serious conversation with you when you look like that.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “Look like what?”
“Edible. That’s the word. Edible.”
She shook her head. “I’m not edible, okay? Stop keeping me in suspense. We don’t want this to end, but your mother was very clear. It’s either you or my job. And I just, I’ve worked so hard, Owen.”
“I know. I know. Look, I met with a friend. My mother loathes her, but she works for Teen Vogue. She’s a senior editor there. I’ve arranged for her to give you an internship.”
Tanith blinked slowly. “What?”
“Yeah. I’ve known her for a while. She’s been trying to get me to leave Preston. Offered me several jobs. And she and my mother? They had a falling out. Anyway, I told her that I wasn’t available, that was going to cause the kind of war she wasn’t ready for. But I had another option for her. Someone even better than I was.”
I waited for it, the clapping, the squealing, the excitement that would light her eyes and the way she would look at me as if I were the most important person in her life. Someone who had saved her, someone who had fixed everything.
But that wasn’t the look she was giving me. Instead, she kept doing a slow blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. “You went to Teen Vogue about me?”
I nodded. “It’s all managed. You can even have your same schedule. She’s waiting for you to call her. Once you do, it’ll be all set.”
“You arranged it? I would call this woman and I would just start an internship somewhere else?”
“Yes. My mother can’t control us.”
“Your mother?” Her brows furrowed as she spoke softly.
“God, she’s the worst. She’s always been controlling. Selected my friends, determined who I could see, who I couldn’t see in a way that left me no room to grow. And if I didn’t do things exactly as she wanted, there were consequences. If I ever fought back, she’d use her influence to get that person out of my life. I’m bloody sick of it. She’s not going to run you off. No way. No how.”
“So you called in a favor and got me a job, doing God knows what, somewhere else?”
Why didn’t she look happier?
“It’s publishing. I explained to her your duties, what you did for my mother. She was excited because clearly you know what you’re doing. She doesn’t have to train you. You can hit the ground running.”
“I can hit the ground running.”
She kept repeating what I said. But then, also, the tone. It was off. Then I really looked at her. Watched her warily. She was unhappy. There were no bright eyes. No secret smile just for me. There was no climbing into my lap and giving me kisses like I had envisioned.
“Are you happy?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. Oh no, I’m decidedly not happy.”
My brows dropped down. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because you . . . after everything you said to me about everything we’ve been through together, about how much you cared about me, about how you can’t stand to be apart from me. After all that, the one thing I needed you to do, you didn’t.”
I shook my head. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem? Owen. God, how are you so brilliant but you can’t see it?”
“What? You’re angry with me?”
“Yes, Owen. I’m ticked the fuck off.”
“What is your fucking problem? You should be ecstatic. We’re together. You have the same exact job. Same responsibilities.” I frowned at her. “Unless you don’t want to be with me. Unless being with me was a ploy to get to my mother.”
More slow blinking. “Wow. So now being with you is a ploy to get to your mother?”
Fuck. That was a miscalculation. “Okay. I’m sorry.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I’m just frustrated, and I don’t understand what the problem is. I got you what you wanted. You wanted your job and me.”
“Yes. I want my job. The one I earned. The one I busted my ass for. Not one that you deemed would be good enough.”
“It’s fucking Teen Vogue. Do you know how many people would kill for that job? And I walked in there and got it for you.”
She stood then. “That’s the problem, Owen. You walked in there and got me a job with some chick you probably have shagged seventy-five million times.”
I frowned at that. “You’re jealous? Oh my God. Look, I’m sure Isabella would, but I’m not shagging her just to get back at Mum.”
“Are you shagging me to get back at your mother?”
I pushed in my feet then, too, towering over her, glaring at this girl whom I’d just wanted to make fucking happy. Why wasn’t she happy?
“Take it back.”
She didn’t back down, didn’t step away. She was forever my goddess, unafraid. “No, I won’t. Because what you should have done is gone to your mother and told her how you felt about me. Told her that her attempts to bully me to control you were not okay. What you should’ve done was fight for me, Owen. Instead, you slunk off into the shadows to try and squirrel me away so that maybe she wouldn’t notice I was still around. God, what is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with me? I’m not trying to hide you. God, you should be grateful. We get to be together. You get to do the same job that you had before.”
“A job I didn’t earn!”
“What, you think your fellowship and the work you’ve done doesn’t factor into doing something for Teen Vogue?”
“Oh my God. What I’m telling you is that all that work that I’ve done earned me a job at Preston. I walked in there and I pitched myself. Stood on my own two feet. Looked at the job application, knew exactly that I was a fit. You walked into Teen Vogue and were like, ‘Hey, hire my girlfriend.’ And so, they did. Which tells me that no matter what, nobody would respect me for my ability.”
“You’re putting too much focus on that. I did you a favor.”
“Wow, you really, really don’t get it, do you?”
“No, I fucking don’t. Seriously, I can’t believe you’re fighting me on this. You don’t have any other options, beggars and choosers and all that. This is the next best option and you’re fighting me?”
She flinched as if I’d hit her. A wash of heat hit me then, scalding all over my ice-prone nerve endings. I knew then something had gone terribly, terribly wrong and my instinct was to fix it. To get it back on even keel where I could come at it from a different way. I reached for her, and she jerked away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Tanith, come on. Let’s just keep talking about this and figure out where I’ve gone wrong.”
She shook her head. “No. Not if you can’t see how you hurt me, how what you just said plays into everything I’ve ever been told about how I should be grateful for the scraps that I get. Grateful that someone like you wants to date someone like me. You were supposed to go and fight for me. Not actually believe that you’re better than me in some way and that I should be beholden and/or grateful to you for getting me another job because you’re my boyfriend. I don’t want another job, I want Preston. That’s what I worked for. And instead of standing up to your mother, God, you did what you always do. Went around her. Hid. I should’ve known from the beginning when you said your mom shouldn’t know about us. And I was naive for going along with you, but I see now. You weren’t proud of me; you weren’t proud to have me as your girlfriend or someone you cared about. I’m temporary, so you hide me. You’re ashamed, when I’m the one who should be ashamed to be with you. We’re done, Owen.”
Shadows coiled around my heart, chasing away all the light as I stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m plenty serious. I know, me, the scholarship girl, is breaking up with you, the Preston-Montgomery. I know it’s a shock to your system, but since you don’t actually have feelings, I’m sure you’ll get over it.”
She marched out of the study. I whipped around to call her back, to wait for her to turn back to tell me she didn’t mean it. But instead, all I saw was her ash-blond hair bouncing in its ponytail along her back as she walked out of my life.