Lovers and Takers (8 page)

“However,” Druce continued, “we will not get married, no, sir, we will not, unless you give your full and complete consent.”

You could have heard a pin drop after Druce made his big pronouncement.
 
And if he and Pam had expected some kind of smile or acknowledgement or anything from Jake, they were sadly disappointed.
 
Pam looked at her father, expecting him to congratulate her, or consent right away, or something.
 
But Jake just sat there, staring at Druce.

“So, well,” Druce said, stunned that Jake was saying nothing, “if there are no objections, I guess I’ll get on with it.”

Druce cleared his throat and then walked around to Pam’s chair.
 
Pam was smiling greatly when he knelt down and took her hand.
 
When he pulled out a ring, Kara let out a yelp of surprise.
 
Aubrey didn’t crack a smile.
 
He was staring at his father, whom, he knew, wasn’t going to like this one bit.

“Pam,” Druce began, his eyes constantly cutting peeps at Jake, “I have been thinking about you a lot lately.”

“Only lately?”
Pam said, and Kara smiled.
 
Roni glanced at Jake.
 
Even she could tell he was not pleased.

Druce was disappointed that Jake remained expressionless, but he soldiered on.

“Always,” he said, “but especially of late.
 
And I wanted to let you know that you are the most important person in my life.
 
You are the air that I breathe.
 
You are the sun that shines on my face every day.
 
You are my life, Pammie.”

Tears began to appear in Pam’s eyes.
 
Kara and Roni, too, seemed touched.
 
Jake was staring at Druce as if he was staring at a raging bull about to attack.

Druce again glanced over at Jake.
 
Again, he was disappointed that he wasn’t getting the response he had expected.
 
Be happy, be sad, be angry, but at least be something!
 
Jake was just staring at him.
 
But he soldiered on.

“If your father consents,” Druce made a special point of saying, “will you, Pam Varnadore, take me, Druce Herman Lincoln, to be
your
lawfully wedded husband?”

Aubrey rolled his eyes.
 
Leave it to Druce to make it all about him.
 
Whatever happened, he wondered, to ‘will you, Pam, become my lawfully wedded wife?’”

But Pam wasn’t disheartened.
 
She grinned.
 
“Yes!” she said, throwing her arms around Druce.
 
“I will take you!
 
Oh, I will!”

“Great,” Druce said, putting the ring on her finger.
 
He lifted up from bended knee, and hugged her, but he was looking at Jake as he did.
 
Jake, by this time, was pulling out his cell phone and was reading another text message.
 
Druce was so disappointed by the way it had all gone down that he wanted to sling Pam from his arms and stomp out.
 
Who does he think he is
, he wanted to
yell.
 
I just did something bold, something amazing- the idea of being willing to marry his silly-ass daughter, and all he could do was read some text message?
 
You have got to be kidding me!

But Jake didn’t kid.
 
He stood up.
 
“Excuse me,” he said to no-one in particular, “I have to take this.”
 
Then he looked at his daughter.
 
“Come here, Pam,” he said as he continued walking out of the dining hall.
 

Pam glanced at Druce but hurriedly tossed her napkin on the table, stood up, and followed her father.
 

She caught up to him just as he was opening the door to his study.
 
“What is it, Daddy?” she asked him.

Jake looked at his daughter.
 
And he exhaled.
 
“It will be a cold day in hell,” he said firmly, “before I let you marry Druce Lincoln.”

Pam’s heart dropped.
 
“I love him,” she said.

“It will be a cold day in hell,” Jake said again, “before I allow you to marry Druce Lincoln. Have I made myself clear?”

Tears began to appear in Pam’s eyes.
 
“But I’m grown---”

“Have I made myself clear, Pam?” Jake asked again.

Pam wiped her tears away, a frown appearing on her pretty face.
 
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.

The way she said it caused Jake to soften.
 
His heart went out to his daughter.
 
But no way could he allow her to marry an ambitious, self-centered, pretentious snake like that.
 
Those unsavory attributes might work in the cutthroat world of business, but they were a hell of a problem outside of business.
 
He pulled her into his arms.

Pam sobbed softly as her father held her.
 
She knew she was grown.
 
She knew she could marry whomever she wanted to marry and her father really couldn’t do a thing about it.
 
But she also knew, deep down, that she could never go against the one man she loved most in this world.
 
She, Aubrey, and Jake were as close as close could get.

When they stopped embracing, Jake placed his hand on the cheek of his brown-faced daughter.
 
A daughter who looked more and more like her mother each day.
 
“I know you call yourself in love with him, and I’m sure he’s confessed his love for you.
 
But you have to trust my judgment on this, sweetheart.
 
I’m not telling you that you can’t date him.
 
I’m not telling you that you can’t love him.
 
But I am telling you that it’s too soon. You’re only nineteen years old.
 
And a very young and sheltered nineteen-year-old at that.
 
I don’t want you making that kind of life-altering decision just yet.
 
All right?”

She nodded her head.

Jake exhaled.
 
“If you want me to talk to him and tell him that now is not the time, I’ll do it.”

“No, Daddy,” Pam said.
 
“I’ll tell him.
 
It’ll be better if it came from me.”

“You sure?”

Pam tried to
smiled
.
 
“Yes, sir.
 
I’m sure.”

“If he has a problem with what you tell him, tell him to come see me.”

She smiled.
 
“You can’t threaten to beat up my boyfriends anymore.
 
I’m grown now.”

Jake smiled too.
 
“Watch me,” he said, kissed her on her lips, and then disappeared into his study.

As soon as the door to the study closed, Druce rounded the hall toward her.
 
“What did he say?” he asked impatiently
,,
his arms flailing.

Pam hesitated, to get herself together, and then she smiled.
 
“Oh, you know, Daddy.
 
He wanted to make sure it’s what I want too.”

“And you told him it is, right?”

“Of course I told him that,” she said.
 

Druce smiled and pulled her into his arms.

“And what about Pops?” he asked, using the term he only used around Pam to describe her father.
 
“Did he say he’d give his consent to the marriage?”

Pam’s heart began to pound.
 
She wasn’t ready to tell him the full story, because she still had hope.
 
She still believed that her father could get too busy with work or too distracted by a woman like Roni Wingate, and change his mind.
 
She was holding out that hope for now.
 
“He didn’t give his consent yet,” she admitted, “but he will.
 
Don’t worry.”
 

Then she smiled even grander.
 
“Now,” she said, taking his hand and all but pulling him along, “let’s get back to the others.”

And although Druce smiled and followed her pull, he could have strangled that arrogant Jake Varnadore.
 
He probably told her she couldn’t marry him, and that was why he called her away in the first place, and Pam was too good a girl to tell him so.
 
But that was all right, too.
 
His announcement didn’t go over the way he had hoped, but it would.
 
He just had to get the right angle.
 
He just had to figure out a way to become invaluable to the big man.
 
And in time he would rise exactly the way he planned.
 
With or without Pam.
 

After dinner, they were all once again in the living room.
 
Everybody, except Aubrey, was disappointed with how the evening had turned out.
 
Druce and Pam wanted more from Jake, and so did Roni and Kara.
 
But Jake wasn’t giving tonight.
 
He left to answer that text message and never returned.
 
They knew it was
business,
Aubrey even poked his head in his father’s study to see if there was anything that he could do, but Jake simply waved him out.
 
Now the evening was over and the guests were leaving.
 
Kara gave the keys to her car to Roni, as she and Aubrey, Pam and Druce, planned to go to the club.
 
Roni planned to go home.
  
Until Hudson entered the room, and stopped them at the door.

“Excuse me, Miss Wingate?” he said as he approached them.

Both Kara and Roni turned around.

“Miss Veronica Wingate,” Hudson clarified.

“Yes?” Roni asked.

“Mr. Varnadore has invited you to wait.”

Kara’s heart soared.
 

Roni, however, frowned.
 
“To wait?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Hudson replied.

Roni wanted to shake her head.
 
What
did these people take
her for, she wondered.
 
Yes, she found the man attractive tonight, and yes, she was pleasantly surprised to learn that he wasn’t as horrid as she had expected him to be.
 
But the idea that she would hang around like some whore so that he could take her to his bed, was the height of arrogance in her opinion.
 
And to ask her right in front of her younger cousin, and his own children, as if she was just another hard-up female worthy to be disrespected.
 
He had the wrong one, she thought.

“Please thank Mr. Varnadore for his invitation, but no thanks.
 
It’s late and I’m going home.”

Although Hudson and especially Aubrey seemed pleased, Pam and Kara were livid.

“He just wants to talk to you,” Kara assured her cousin.
 
“What’s so wrong with that?”

“You’ll enjoy yourself, Roni,” Pam added.
 
“Daddy’s a lot of fun.
 
He probably wants to show you around the place, that’s all.”

But Roni was hardly that naïve.
 
She looked at Hudson again.
 
“Tell Mr. Varnadore I said goodnight,” she said, and walked out of the front door.

Aubrey couldn’t help but laugh.
 
“It’s about time one of these females stood up to Dad’s bullshit!” he said.

But Kara wasn’t laughing at all.
 
“Just come on,” she said angrily to Aubrey and ushered him out of the house.
 
She could just kill that stubborn cousin of hers!

“What do you mean she left?” Jake asked nearly thirty minutes later when he finally completed his emergency conference call and returned to his living room.

“She left, sir,” Hudson said, standing in the middle of the room.
 
“I invited her to stay, as you requested, but she declined the invitation.”

This stumped Jake.
 
He’d never been turned down like this before.
 
Not ever.
 
And it angered him.
 
For some reason it angered him deeply.

“Who does she think she is, anyway?” he asked his long-time butler.
 
“Turning me down as if I was up to no good just by asking her to stay back.
 
Yes, I planned to take her to my bed, of course I did.
 
But it wasn’t as if I announced those intentions.”

“Perhaps,” Hudson said, careful to tread lightly, “she viewed the very fact that you would ask her to stay as the announcement.”

Jake looked at Hudson with alarm.
 
“Am I that transparent now?” he asked him.

“Absolutely,” Hudson said honestly.
 
“But what do I know?” he hastened to add.

Jake exhaled, and ran his hand through his well-groomed hair.
 
“Well, anyway,” he said, refusing to let some female bother him, “it’s her lost.
   
I’m going to review a few more briefing books and then head off to bed.
 
Good night, Hudson,” he said as he turned to leave.