Chapter 18
POV Ashton
7 YEARS AGO
TUESDAY, JULY 4, 2017, AT 8:34 PM.
I understand more about the family business than I’d like to. I know I need to swallow the pain I’m feeling if I want to deal with these people like a man. It's a matter of survival, and I've learned a lot from old Rain Baker.
My grandfather would be by my side, making me laugh with his bad jokes and trying to ease the tension in my muscles. It was hard when Grandma Pamella passed away, but without Grandpa, I don’t know what will become of me.
Some people change your life. Mine was bad, but because of my grandparents, I found that I could find a cozy place to escape from the chaos of living in this house, surrounded by my father’s lies, his demands, and his controlling ways of managing things.
To be honest, my father believes that his wife and children are like the company he manages, and because of that, he treats us like a corporation that needs to be supervised if it wants to succeed in the future.
The root of my dental arch tingles, warning me that if I clench my jaw any harder, I’m likely to break all my teeth, so I try to relax.
I control my breathing, but my eyes are burning, turning a reddish color that will make me look like a loser in front of Conrad Baker.
His father is dead. He was found dead from a heart attack two days ago. There was no proper funeral or farewell ceremony. But life for the Baker family went on as if the most important person in this fucked-up world hadn’t left me here, to be consumed by a life I desperately want to leave behind.
A dinner. My father threw the damn dinner for the Baker's jewelry partners. He didn’t care about the reading of the will. I think he already knew my grandparents would leave everything they had to me because they knew about my troubled relationship with my father.
I pull a whiskey flask from inside my jacket pocket and turn my back on the group of people talking just a few meters away. I pour the amber liquid into my soda glass, and when I turn back around, I bump into my brother.
"Looking for trouble, Ashton?" Alex drinks from his own glass, a white wine glass, and sinks a hand into his pants pocket, grinning friendly at our father across the living room. "Are you old enough to drink?"
"If I'm committing a crime, you can arrest me."
I take the first sip of the whiskey and soda, my tongue clicking against the roof of my mouth.
"Oh, right. You're not the police, so why don’t you shut up and leave me alone?"
"I'm just giving you a warning. Dad won’t like it if you make a scene in front of all these people."
"You’d love that, wouldn’t you? You love seeing me humiliated."
I notice Alex’s jaw clenching.
"If you want a different life, leave home."
"Believe me, Alexander, there’s nothing I’d rather do than get the hell out of here."
"Do it, Ashton. You know as well as I do that this house, this family, this place don’t belong to you."
I could believe I’m an outsider to this marriage if I had distinct features from my parents, but the truth is I have my father’s nose, hair, and chin, and my mother’s mouth and naturally arched eyebrows. I’m definitely their son, but for some reason, I’ve never felt truly wanted in this family.
My sisters were never punished physically, but my father forbids Maddie from using her phone and Halle from watching TV. Alex is seven years older, so I have no idea what his life was like before me, Maddie, and Halle, but as the only man still living in this house, I’m responsible for my sisters’ mistakes, and when we were younger, Alex decided to join the Navy, and my father sent him to a military school to finish high school.
Conrad beams with pride when talking about Alex. As for me, I’m nothing more than a sex and alcohol addict, which, honestly, is a compliment. I graduated last year, and I’m sure Principal Claire from Boulevard Academy prayed on her knees in thanks for finally getting rid of me.
I slept with three teachers in the last year after Nicola and I broke up, and I dated half of the first and second-year students. I never bothered to hide from the security cameras.
Challenging my father became a hobby, and sleeping with all those women was the way I found to get back at Nicola.
My stomach churns, seeing him laugh so honestly with his partners and realizing how hard he tries to be an asshole with me. Nothing I do is enough to make him proud. My choices, to him, are always wrong, and his need to remind me of that is what makes me always insecure.
The corners of my eyes start to burn again. Alex is quiet, which can’t be a good sign. When I turn my attention back to my brother, I see his eyes fixed on me.
The urge to punch him in the face is strong.
Impulsive.
Explosive.
Those are just a few adjectives the principal used to describe me to my father when we had a problem at school.
"Maybe he suffers from anxiety or something at home is stressing him out."
The emotional overload here is big. My father says that everything he does is to teach us to be strong because if we want to take the presidency of Baker’s, we need to learn to be like rocks. To have cunning, but most importantly, learn to make tough decisions. We won’t take pride in how others feel about themselves, but we need to assert ourselves and do whatever it takes to keep the empire standing, no matter who we have to destroy.
To my father, I’m nowhere near fit to take over the company. What he doesn’t know is that I’m not interested in sitting in his chair. I don’t aspire to that position, especially after discovering that Nicola Fox, my now ex-girlfriend, only got close to me because she intended to become a model at Baker’s.
Finding out her intentions definitely broke me.
How can someone who claims to love you have the guts to stab you in the back like that? The anger, however, didn’t last long, and I’m starting to believe that principal, that there’s a red flag in me and I need help because, even though I have reasons to distance myself from Nic, even though she doesn’t deserve my attention—and most of the girls I’ve been with after her were with the intention of hurting her—I still go to her when she calls.
"What is it?" I take another sip of my drink, now warmer after adding the whiskey.
"I’m thinking about what you must be like inside."
"I’m normal." I shrug indifferently, but my little lie doesn’t seem to stick with Alex.
He laughs.
The bastard laughs.
"You’re a Baker. Normality doesn’t fit our personality."
"What are you talking about? As far as I know, you’re the perfect son."
"Once, Dad took me to the company before deciding to go to Military School. He explained how things worked there and told me that, one day, I’d sit at the Baker’s presidency table. But beyond all the dirty partnerships that made the jewelry what it is today, our dad wanted a blatant copy of himself. I couldn’t follow in his footsteps, but I decided to become like Conrad. That choice ensured I’m in the Navy today." He raises his hand, waving to someone behind me, continuing, "You may not like it, but we both know that to have what he has, you have to be what he is."