Cinderella probably had it better than I do.
Storing my purse in my desk, I sit down and power up my computer. I can hear them laughing as I sort through the emails from overnight and make note of all pressing issues. Checking the calendar for today’s scheduled meetings, I frown when I see a huge blank spot on the lunch hour with a notation I’m to have lunch catered and arriving no later than noon for three people.
“Willow!” My father bellows through the intercom, spiking my already frayed nerves.
“Yes, sir?”
“Get me my coffee,” he demands before severing the connection. I hear him through the opening in his office door as he slams the receiver down, grumbling his complaints.
After a few deep breaths, I stand and walk through the doorway behind me and into the small kitchen area housed in our wing for him and his clients’ needs. How hard would it be for him to just walk to his door and speak to me like a human and not some robot slave?
I plop the K-cup in the machine and wait while the water heats before it starts spitting coffee into his mug. Making sure I measure out the correct amount of sugar—no cream—I walk back through the doorway, careful not to spill the hot liquid.
With my focus on my feet and my concentration on avoiding burning myself, I don’t even see the person standing in my path until it’s too late.
“Watch where you’re going, dumbass.” And with those venomous words, my sister twists her body and knocks into my arm with her elbow, sloshing the coffee over the edges and all over my hand.
“Crap,” I hiss and jerk my arm to attempt to ease the pain, completely forgetting the mug itself is attached to my burning skin. And like most of the things in my life that Ivy touches, disaster hits in the form of a frontal attack of caffeine as the coffee hits my body, soaking through my dress in a liquid fire burn.
“Nice to see some things haven’t changed, sister.” Ivy laughs before turning again and slapping me in the face with her long, sleek ponytail. I watch as she walks down the hallway and away from the office.
“Willow! My coffee!” My father’s voice comes booming through his partially opened door, making me jump slightly.
Crap. God, that is hot.
“One second,” I call out.
I turn, ignoring that my sister just effectively ruined my morning, and make my way back to the kitchen. Dabbing my body with a towel the best I can, I wash my hands and fix his coffee once again. I need some Excedrin and quick.
I add the right amount of sugar packets—three—and grab one of the stirring sticks from its tidy bin next to the sugar.
I’m more careful this time, and when I walk into the main office, I make a mental note to avoid looking into his eyes until I’m done with my task. He would flip if I spilled just a drop on his desk. Placing his coffee down, I take a few steps away from his desk before I look up.
His eyes, so much like Ivy’s, look at me.
“Your sister is back, Willow,” he tells me, not looking up from the papers he’s shuffling. Uh, yeah Captain Obvious, I noticed.
“Yes, sir,” I reply evenly.
“I’m going to need you to finish out the work day by getting Ivy up to speed on where we are with upcoming shoots and new model acquisitions, but then I would appreciate it if you cleared out all your personal shit and left by the end of the day.”
Wait. What? “Excuse me?”
His head tilts slightly, and I hold my gaze with my father, Dominic Logan, and pray this is some sort of a joke.
“Really, Willow. You didn’t think I would keep you on after your split with Bradley, did you? I did him a favor by employing you while you were married, and I did Ivy a favor by keeping you while she and Bradley enjoyed some time together as newlyweds. But now she’s back from her honeymoon and ready to take her rightful spot, so there is no need for you here.”
“Excuse me?” I repeat a little more forcefully.
My father’s eyes narrow, and his meaty fist slams down on his desk. The coffee I had so carefully prepared sloshes at the force of his fist and splashes over the edge, causing him to curse.
“Fucking hell!” he booms. “How much more clear would you like me to be? Catch Ivy up and then get out. I gave you a job out of respect for your mother, Willow, but even that duty has come to a long-awaited end. You were no use to me when I married her, the bastard daughter always attached to her hip, and you damn sure aren’t now. We have certain standards here at Logan. Standards you never have and never will be able to excel at.”
“Excuse me!” I yell and lean forward to slam my own hands on his desk. Surprising us both, his coffee tips over from the coaster it was resting on and rains brown liquid over his desk, soaking everything in its path. “You can’t fire me! I’m your daughter!”
“Stepdaughter, Willow. Let’s not forget that. And I believe I just did, little girl,” he seethes.
Feeling the carefully constructed control over my emotions snap after years of mastery, I finally ask him the one question that has been burning in my mind since I realized my father … no, stepfather hated me. “Why does my very presence bother you so much, father? Do you have no concern you’re essentially taking away my livelihood? My income? The fact you’re throwing your own stepdaughter away doesn’t concern you at all?”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t give a single emotion away with his cold stare. But his words, those do all the damage of a thousand knives piercing my body at once.
“You, Willow, will never be a daughter of mine. I have an image to withhold here, and for the last five years you’ve worked here, that image has been tarnished. The Logan Agency is about perfection and that, Willow, is just not something you have. You’ve been nothing but a waste of space since you started to let yourself go.”
“Let myself go?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You freaking bastard! I didn’t let myself go. Maybe if you acted like you actually cared about me for one second since Mom died, I wouldn’t have let myself go!”
“Do not mention your mother.”
“Why? Because I’m right? You stopped caring about me the second you walked into the hospital to find out Mom had died and I lived. Is that it? You hate me because I lived?”
Floodgates open. I can’t and won’t stop now. Everything I wished I could say to him for years is finally coming to an ugly head at our confrontation.
His face gets beet red and I watch as his nostrils flare a few times before he responds through thin lips. “Yes, Willow. Are you happy now? The wrong woman died that day, and every time I have to look into your eyes, the same eyes of your mother, I hate you more and more. So do what I fucking said. After today, do me a favor and don’t turn back up. It would be nice not to have to see you again. Then maybe I could pretend it was you and not her who died!”
I hear a shocked gasp from the doorway and spin around; my anger dies instantly when I see Kirby’s tear-streaked face. But where that anger was before, burning mortification has now replaced it. When I look behind Kirby, I see the pissed-off face of none other than Kane Masters himself.
Of course. That makes sense. Fantasy meeting nightmare.
“ARE YOU OKAY?” KANE ASKS, his eyes not leaving my father.
“Uh …” I stammer, my anger dying with the shock of seeing him here.
“Right.” He smiles slightly, his gaze colliding with mine, and I watch in fascination as his softens just a breath before looking over my shoulder and becoming a mask of anger. What is that about? He doesn’t lose the hard look of anger until he looks back at me. His eyes roamed over my face before moving down my body. I shift, uncomfortable, and pull my dress at the waist, hoping it isn’t sticking too tightly to my body. Those cerulean orbs narrow at my movement and only cause me to pull a little more. God, this is embarrassing. “Stop that,” he commands harshly, and I instantly drop my arms.