Page 1 of The Passion

Chapter One

FELISHA

“Ican’t believe we are even related…” I’m staring out at the Thames River from my office on level 28 of The Shard and thinking about my father who is upstairs in his apartment on level 60. He wouldn’t live anywhere else except the most iconic and talked-about new building here.

London, my home, the place I love with a passion.

I’ve traveled widely all my life, but nothing feels like home until I’m whisking through central London in the back of my white Mercedes S Class. Windows tinted so dark that no one can see me, just the way I like it.

The sight of black cabs and red buses tells me I’m home.

“I mean, I love him dearly, but seriously. When will he finally realize that I’m not his ten-year-old little girl anymore?” I cup my favorite large sky-blue fine bone China teacup in my hands.

“You were never a ten-year-old girl. From the time I met you it was like you were this woman on a mission to run the world. Not much has changed, really. I mean, just look at you, sitting in your office looking down on the world, dripping in gold and withdiamonds on your fingers, dressed in the finest Gucci tailored suit and a pair of limited-edition Louboutin shoes!” Harper starts laughing as she walks over to stand beside me. She might be my best friend and someone I have known most of my life, but our stories couldn’t be any more different if we tried.

I come from old English money. And much to my father’s disgust, he keeps being reminded that some of his money comes from his inheritance. He would love to be able to say he amassed the fortune with all his hard work, but the truth is, more money than he could ever spend was passed to him, and his only job was to make sure it continued to grow. Instead, he tells people he inherited only a small amount, and the rest is all his doing.

Although, he does like the title that goes with it. Being called Lord is right up his alley. As for me, I can’t stand it. I try so hard not to use my title of Lady if I can get away with it.

I am the fourth generation in our family to help run the family empire. But if my father had his way, I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case. Because I am the first female about to take the reins and remove his control away from him on my next birthday. My fortieth birthday can’t come soon enough. Only eleven more months, but who’s counting.

Harper, however, is American and moved to London with her family when she turned seven, and luckily for me, has never returned. Her father made his money in tech startups and then began his own investment company in the UK as well as the USA. But like so many businessmen, he got greedy and took risks that he shouldn’t have and then lost it all. Including his wife, family, and sadly, his life when an investor who had lost their hard-earned savings murdered him after he went back to the US to try to hide from the British media. That left his wife and three daughters to cope with the fallout. Something Harper will never forgive him for.

We were just finishing university in Oxford when we met, and her mother had been left with a mountain of debt and nowhere to live. My mother moved them all into one of our apartments, and as soon as I started my role in the company, I hired Harper as my assistant to make sure she had money to support the rest of the family until they could find their footing.

Our mothers are still the best of friends, and while my mother and father had divorced by the time I turned fifteen because my father is an asshole, Harper’s mother managed to find a beautiful man and eventually remarried. They are blissfully happy, and she feels like she is finally safe and secure, and that’s all any of us want in life.

My mother, on the other hand, is still single and living the life of a London socialite and burning through my father’s money the best way she knows how. By spoiling herself with the best of everything.

She loves living the life of Lady Ivy Kentwall, refusing to change her name after the divorce just to further annoy my father. She was his third wife. After he had failed to get a child from the first two marriages, he chose a much younger woman to try his chances. Mum was only nineteen and was an intern in his office. Just ripe for the picking. Blonde, beautiful, and vulnerable. She fell for the wealthy man who showered her with gifts and attention until she married him and became pregnant straight away. But once I was born, she suffered complications which meant no more children, then she said, things changed dramatically.

He wanted an heir, a son, but instead, he got me. She put up with his cheating and constant disrespect until I was old enough that she knew I could cope in this world. Then she walked out and slapped him with a huge divorce settlement. Mum knew he would never let her have custody of me, but I was away at boarding school by then, so it wasn’t going to hurt me.

I realized from a very young age that he didn’t love my mother, but as much as he can be the biggest asshole and a completely arrogant, self-absorbed prick, I hope that he at least loves me a little, in his own way. At least I tell myself that every day. My therapist tells me it will help, but I’m not entirely convinced.

At the end of the day, he is my father, and I will always love him. Because that’s what you do, you love your parents, it’s part of your DNA. But that doesn’t stop me from hating him most days and others wanting to stab him with a very blunt object, just so it’ll hurt more.

Harper has had many offers over the years to take other jobs, because she is totally overqualified and too experienced for her title now, but she won’t leave me. We both know she is so much more than my assistant. As soon as I am the CEO, she will become my second-in-charge, and I will make sure she is finally given the recognition she deserves. Recognition that my father refuses to acknowledge.

“Oh, like you can talk! We shop in the same places, and aren’t you the woman out to make every man she meets pay for the sins of the man before?” We look at each other, knowing deep down that they are all paying for the sins of her father, but no amount of therapy has helped her get past that. We both keep our therapist in a very comfortable lifestyle with the amount we pay him.

“Whatever. They are all just useful for one thing, to scratch an itch. Their money means nothing to me. I will never let a man control me. My life, my money, and occasionally their cock is all I need.” Harper raises her teacup toward me, and as we clink them together, I can’t help but wonder if she will ever find her happily ever after.

I haven’t given up looking for mine, but it’s hard when you’re the heir to a billion-dollar fortune, a high-powered executive,and no one is ever good enough for you in your own opinion or in the eyes of either of your parents. My mother doesn’t want me to be with someone who will treat me like my father treated her, and my father doesn’t want anyone near me unless he has a title and his own money so he doesn’t have to share in the family fortune. It’s hard to trust that a man is truly looking at you, the real you, and that his vision isn’t clouded by all the bullshit that surrounds you.

“Amen to that, sister!” Walking back toward my desk, I still need to solve the problem of my father and the way he is treating the cleaners in our chain of hotels. Over a thousand hard-working staff in our London hotels alone, and he doesn’t believe they deserve a pay raise, even though they are on an extremely low salary, in my eyes. These are the people who are working to put food on the table in their homes, and although I don’t want for anything, I know the rest of the country is struggling with the cost of living right now.

“Back to the problem at hand. How can my father sit upstairs in his apartment where he is completely untouchable, spending more money on his stupid bottles of red wine that he doesn’t even drink, than these people earn in a year? How can he live with himself? It’s just so wrong. Doesn’t he even have a conscience?” It’s a rhetorical question because I know the answer is hell no!

“I don’t even need to ask. I’m assuming you want me to work out how we can get extra money to these workers and hide it in the general expenses somewhere?” Harper sits back down on the other side of the desk, picking up her tablet and typing away as she makes herself notes.

“See, this is why even if you wanted to take another job, I wouldn’t let you go. You are inside my brain, and it makes my life so much easier.” I look at my inbox on one of my monitors,where the number of emails seems to be multiplying by the minute today.

“And here I thought it was because you love me like the sister you never had and can’t live without me. Pfft.” Rolling her eyes at me, she stands, knowing I still have so much to do before I leave for the night.

“Yeah, that too. Love you.” I blow her a kiss as she turns to start walking out of my office.

“Yes, yes, so you say.” She waves her hand above her shoulder to dismiss me, and deep in my heart, I’m so grateful for the day she walked into my class at St. Paul’s Girls School in London. She makes me believe in past lives, because I’m sure we’ve met before in another time, and she was definitely my sister in that life.

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