LOVING THE HEAD MAN (27 page)

       And later that night, when Zack lay in bed in the guest room, he could hear his father fucking her in the master bedroom.  And he was pounding on her the way he usually fucked his women.  Only he kept on and on with this one. 
On and on and on.
  Zack couldn’t believe how long he pounded on her.  And he could tell they were trying to smother their voices, but he could still hear her scream. 

       But when he heard his father scream out her name, as he gave her a final, full-throttle pounding, Zack’s eyes flew open.  Never, not in all the years he’d been going to his father’s house during every summer and on weekends when he and his mother still lived in Chicago too, he’d never heard his father make a sound.  He’d just do a quick-fuck on those women and send them on their way.  Now he was screaming out her name?  And jumping on his case for telling a nothing, innocent joke about her?

       He pulled out his cell phone, called his mother.  After hearing her wrath because he left school to see if his father was okay, he told her she needed to come.

       “Come?” Sylvia asked into the phone. 
“To Chicago?
 
Whatever for?”

       “Dad’s got this girlfriend---”

       “Dad’s always got this girlfriend.  That’s why we aren’t together today because your father always has his girlfriends.”

       “But this one’s different, Ma,” Zack said.  “She’s young and beautiful--”

       “Not as beautiful as I am,” Sylvia said.

      
“No, but she’s beautiful, and he treats her like he actually loves her or something.”

      
“Your father?
  Love one of his bitches?  Zackary, I know you know better than that.  You sound about as believable as that witch running around talking about Robert Colgate sexually harassed her.  Please.  What would Robert look like harassing somebody for sex?  A woman harassing him for sex would be more believable,” she said with a laugh.

       “It’s the truth, Ma, and it’s not funny. I saw him with her, the way he looks at her,” he said. 
The way he fucks her
, he wanted to add.  “He loves her,” he said, instead.  Then, to really get his mother’s attention, he added: “He may marry this one, Ma.”

       There was hesitation on the other end. 
Then an exhale.
  “Your father and I haven’t been together since you were fifteen, Zack.”

       “But y’all still love each other, you know it and he knows it.”

       “I know that I still love him, yes, I know that much.  He’s the only man I probably will ever love.  But his love for me has always been a debatable point.”

       “That’s not true.  He loves you too.  He told me so.”

       “How long ago was that, Zack? 
Hun?
 
Two, three years ago?”

       “It was last year.  He admitted it.  He said he’ll always love you.  He told me so.”

       “But what do you want me to do?” Sylvia asked with some anguish in her voice.  “I can’t just run to Chicago and snatch him away from his new bit on the side.  It doesn’t work that way, buddy.”

       “Just come, Ma,” Zack said.  “Please.  Or we may lose him forever.”

       Although on one level Zack knew he would never lose his father, on a deeper level, and especially with this new woman in his life, he wasn’t so sure. 

FIFTEEN

Monty Ross leaned back in his chair and gave Bree a knowing smile. 

       “So Zack’s back?” he said.

       “Oh, yes,” Bree said, seated behind her desk, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the big office, the even bigger responsibilities, and what she was about to do. 
“On top of everything else.”

       “Don’t let Zack worry you,” Monty said.  “Despite his angst, he’s not a bad kid.”

       “He just plays one on TV?” Bree asked jokingly, and Monty laughed.  “I can handle him,” she added.

       “And he’ll go on and on about his mother, if he haven’t already, but don’t let that worry you, either, Bree.  He still has this fantasy about his parents getting back together and finally getting married, which is kind of sad and pathetic really.  I mean, the boy is twenty years old now, but he’s still so immature.  Robert told me he worries about him constantly.”

      
“Really?”
Bree asked, suddenly worried about Robert worrying so much.

      
“Yup.
  You know he had a scholarship to Stanford University, a full academic scholarship, but he decided to go to some little college somewhere just so that he could prove he was his own man?  And then he flunked out of that little school, a kid with his brains?  But he wouldn’t do the work, wouldn’t go to class, any of it.  He’s ridiculous really.”

       “Yeah, he’s only five years younger than I am, but we’re like light years apart in terms of maturity.  He’s such a kid to me.  And you should have seen the way he clung to Robert when Robert came home last night.  Just clung to him like a little boy.  Robert had to literally force him to stop holding him.  That boy has issues, I’m telling you.”

       “You ain’t got to tell me,” Monty assured her.  “I already know that.  Robert knows it, too, that’s why he worries about
  him
.  And that’s why I’m telling you to ignore him when he pulls his
my mother is this, my mother said that
routine.  He loves to elevate her that way, to keep his father interested, at least in his way of thinking.  To Zack, his father belongs to his mother and that’s all there is to it.  And he’ll do everything within his power to make sure that no other woman gets any designs on his father, it’s like an obsession with him.  And he’s going to make sure you stay in your place, too.  He does that to all of Robert’s---”
  Monty
caught himself.

       Bree smiled.  “All of Robert’s girlfriends, is that what you were going to say?”

      
“His former girlfriends, yes.”

       “So they’re all
former
then?”  Bree said this and looked at Monty.  He was extremely loyal to Robert, was, in fact, Robert’s best friend, but she still felt he would be straight with her, too.

      
“As far as I know, yes.”

       “And his ex, Sylvia is her name?”

       “That’s her.”

       “Is it true that she’s a supermodel?”

       “Oh, yes.  She’s a dazzler, that’s for sure.  She and Robert were very young when they met, but she certainly turned his head, and kept it turned for nearly a decade.  Then they just kind of did their own thing.  But they loved each other too much to completely call it quits.  Until a few years ago when Sylvie told him she was pushing forty and wanted to get married.”

       Bree’s heart dropped.  “He wouldn’t marry her?”

       Monty shook his head. 
“Nope.
  Told her he wasn’t interested in marrying her, the same thing he’d told her when they first met and kept telling her throughout their relationship.”

      
“But why?”

       “I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because he never really trusted Sylvie.  And then later in their relationship, when she wanted an open relationship, that kind of stunned him.”

       “According to Zack it was Robert’s tail-chasing that caused his parents to finally break up.”

       “Oh, he did his share of tail-chasing, don’t get me wrong, but that was only after Sylvie made it clear that she was already doing her own share.  It was an awful time, just awful.  And then she started getting bold with her shit, sleeping with men he had direct dealings with.  That, to Robert, was crossing a line.” 

       Bree’s heart hammered.  She nearly slept with Alan DeFrame, she nearly slept with a man Robert not only had dealings with, but had personally hired and promoted.  If Monty was right, why would he trust her any more than he trusted the mother of his beloved son, a woman he had such a long history with?  She was beginning to get that doubt, that sense of uncertainty as to where
was
her relationship with Robert actually heading.   Would she end up like this Sylvia person?  Pushing forty and still devoted to a man who didn’t think her worthy of his name?  She suddenly felt constricted.

       Monty stood up.  “I’d better get back to the tower.  You know how
that man of yours get
when I’m not close by.”

       “I’m worried about him, Monty.  He works so hard, pushes
himself
too much.”

       “That’s been Robert’s way all the years I’ve known him.  He’ll be all right.” 

       The door to Bree’s office opened, and Prudence Cameron entered.  Monty and Bree looked at her.

       “Your secretary told me to come on in,” Pru said.

       “I’d better go,” Monty said, “I know you’ve got business to take care of.  Take care,” he said, spoke to Pru, and was off.

       Prudence Cameron walked further into the office that used to belong to Alan DeFrame but now belonged, incredibly, to her former competitor Bree Hudson, a reality Pru still couldn’t handle.

       “You wanted to see me?” she asked when she made her way up to Bree’s massive desk.  She was given an office the size of a closet, and Bree gets this suite.  It wasn’t fair, Pru thought. 

       “Have a seat,” Bree said.

       Pru sat down in front of the desk.

       Bree leaned forward, deciding to get to the point.  “Is it true that you’ve been telling numerous people in this building that the only reason I’m the head of the recruiting office is because I supposedly slept with Mr. Colgate?”

      
“Supposedly?”
Pru said with a smile.  “Oh, come now, Brianna.  What’s to suppose about it?”

       “Answer my question, Miss Cameron.  Are you running around this building telling people that the only reason I have this job is because of what I allegedly did with Mr. Colgate?”

      
“Allegedly?
  Here you go again.  I haven’t been running around doing anything.  People ask my opinion and I tell it.  Just like I told you to your face that you slept your way to the top, because you did.  You knew Mr. Colgate liked you, for whatever reason, and you played on his favoritism. 
Decided to give him what he apparently wanted and he promised to give you a position with his firm.”
       “
That is such a lie! If it was that kind of quid pro quo why didn’t I get your job?  Why didn’t he select me after our training period, since that was my grand scheme to begin with?”