“Fine,” Jordan bit out. “We’ll take it to the boardroom.”

Trent’s gaze cut to mine and stopped when his grays met my blues. The fading noise of Vicious barking at people to move along, and my father finally letting go of my arm to move toward Jaime and Dean—probably trying to gain both allies and sympathy—died down.

“I don’t like you,” Rexroth whispered under his breath, his voice harsh.

“I never asked you to.” I shrugged.

“You won’t be working here.” His arm brushed my shoulder, but I didn’t think it was by accident. I let loose a sugary smile, scanning his face and torso for no other reason other than to taunt him. “Good, you’ll be doing me a favor. My father is the one forcing me to work here. He’s pissed I turned down five Ivy League colleges. Remind me, Mr. Rexroth—which top tier university did you attend for your degree?”

The low blow was supposed to retrieve some of my lost dignity, but bile burned my throat, shotgunned from my stomach. Trent Rexroth was known in Todos Santos as an exhilarating success story, rising from the gutters of San Diego. He went to a shitty state college that accepted even the illiterate, working as a janitor on campus after hours. Those were given facts he’d recited himself in an interview for Forbes.

Had I really just tried to make him feel less worthy because he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth? It made me sicker than wearing my mother’s designer garbs.

Trent smiled, leaning into my body, into my soul. His smirk was more frightening than any scowl, frown, or grimace I’d ever seen. It threatened to tear me apart and sew me back together however he pleased.

“Edie.” His lips were dangerously close to my ear. A delicious shiver moved down my spine. Something warm rolled inside of me, begging to unknot and flower into an orgasm. What was happening, and why the hell was it happening? “If you know what’s best for you, you will turn around and leave right now.”

I elevated my head to meet his gaze and showed him my version of a grin. I was born and raised in a world of intimidating rich men, and I’d be damned if I go down like my mother—addicted to xanax, Gucci, and a man who paraded her on his arm for a short, glorious decade before keeping her solely for public appearances.

“I think I’m going to go find my desk now. I’d wish you a good day, Mr. Rexroth, but I think that ship has sailed. You’re a miserable man. Oh, and one for the road.” I fished for a Nature Valley bar in my mother’s purse and plastered it to his hard, muscled chest. My heart slammed into my neck, fluttering like a caged bird.

I hurried after my father as he glided down the vast, golden-hued hallway, not daring to look back. Knowing I’d started a war and arrived unequipped. But I also knew something else that gave me a surfer’s rush—if I could slam the final nail in my employment coffin and make Rexroth vote against me, I’d be off the hook.

I had just the plan for it. All I had to do was act like a brat. Game on.

I ATE LUNCH BY MYSELF.

Growing up as an only child because my parents couldn’t afford to give me siblings (a decision I respected) meant that dinners weren’t a noisy event. Still, that did not make them silent.

I met true loneliness the day Luna stopped speaking. It happened days after her second birthday, and deflated my already shaky confidence regarding parenthood. Up until then, being a single parent was hard—but not impossible. I had the money and resources to hire the best nannies on the planet, my parents to rely on when I needed to get out of town, and my friends and their wives, who were always accommodating and treated Luna as their own. Bonus points—I was so used to being dealt every crappy card life had to offer, I was barely surprised when Val bailed out on our asses.

I’d been robbed my whole life.

Robbed of my football scholarship when a douche named Toby Rowland greased the floor under my locker, causing me to fall and break my ankle.

Robbed out of my freedom when Val broke the news about her pregnancy, though that was on me just as much as it was on her.

And, finally, robbed out of a happy child when Val fucked off and left Luna with me.

But this? This was the last straw. The silence. It ate me from the inside and my normal, quiet self turned into a raging asshole of massive proportions who just needed a good excuse to unleash my wrath.

I was quiet and resentful and a fucking mess—because of my daughter.

After lunch, I walked into my office on the fifteenth, ready to tackle my mile-long to-do list, freezing on the spot when I spotted Edie Van Der Zee waiting on the other side of my desk.