Page 7 of Midnight & Mergers
Anne took the contract from Teagan and cradled it in her arms.
“Okay. I’ll leave you with your phone calls. You’ll also have to phone the restaurant and double-check the reservation for this evening. I don’t believe the entire place is booked yet, but make that your first call, just in case. Most of Mr. Bradley’s clients know his constant shifts in meeting schedules. He gets busy a lot. Oh! And I probably don’t need to tell you this because you are familiar with the corporate world, but you may make this office your own. If you aren’t happy with the paint color, just say the word, and I will get our contractors in here. The colors are dark and suited to the design styles of the prior executive assistant. You appear more like someone into a light and airy motif.” Anne said with a wink.
“Yeah, I’m not really into the cigar-smoking decor.” Teagan chuckled before continuing. “Thanks for everything, Anne. You’ve been so kind to me, and I hope we can become good friends here.”
“I hope so, too,” Anne met her gaze with a bright smile and then turned on her heel to walk out of the office.
* * *
Teagan satdown at her new desk. The chair, though gaudy for her taste because the front feet of the apparent accent chair had carved claw feet. But they weren’t typical. The feet themselves seemed ornately unique. They didn’t appear to be the normal lion ones she was so used to seeing in her father’s study growing up. When Teagan was young, she asked her father why he seemed to be so obsessed with lion-clawed furniture. Even the guest on-suite that he retreated to once her mother, the love of his life, had died, had a claw-footed tub.
Not all of the decor in the room was adorned with clawed feet as an accent, and sometimes there were lion statues and vases with hand-painted lions on them. Much of Teagan’s new office decor reminded her of her father, who passed two short years ago.
He was a wealthy man in his own right and had left Teagan a substantial amount of money that Teagan was able to invest. Her nest egg was more significant than most others at her age. Still, a good amount of the money was tied up in escrow. And she didn’t want to piss away her father’s legacy. She decided to enlist the help of her father’s lawyer to keep as much of the family legacy in a trust fund. This way, she could ignore the investment until it matured in her retirement years.
* * *
“You are being silly, you know!”
“Really, father? Are we going to go there again? Why are you so cryptic about our family’s heritage?”
Her father walked towards her in his study and cupped her cheeks.
“Teagan, as I’ve told you, you are an extraordinary girl. And as I promised your mother, I will look out for you until my dying breath. I hope you find someone else willing to protect you by then.”
“Father! You need to stop being so mellow-dramatic about the 20th century. I don’t need a man to be my knight! I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
He stroked her right cheek before continuing.
“No one ever said you weren’t capable of taking care of yourself. But should trouble arise in your life, I want you with someone that can help protect you from the people in life that don’t understand just how special you are.”
Teagan chuckled at her father’s words.
“Father, really? Again with all this cryptic talk? Don’t you think you should let me in on the family secret? I mean—I get we were cut off from your side. But you never told me what the feud was about.” She said as she palmed her father’s forearms.
“Princess, I told you—that feud is between me and my side. You have no need to be in it. You are an innocent when it comes to all of this.”
“And there you go again, calling me an innocent! Father, you do realize that everything about my favorite TV show Charmed is make-believe—right?”
“I’m sorry, princess. I know I talk differently than what they do here in the States. But I’m Gaelic. What do you expect?”
Teagan squeezed her father’s forearms again before pushing away from him.
“I don’t understand anything about my Scottish heritage. You’ve been so reluctant to tell me anything. Mom was always so good about telling me about my Italian and Spanish roots. But you’ve been so tight-lipped.”
“Princess, do you remember everything your mother told you?”
“Well, some of it is still a blur. I mean—she died when I was seven. But I remember her using the word Strega a lot.”
Her father cupped her cheek again and then stroked her hair.
“Yes, she did. And when I find where she and your grandmother kept their journals—I promise—you will have them. Hopefully, that puts some of the pieces together for you.”
“You are still being the perpetual crypt-keeper, aren’t you? What’s a Strega?”
“Princess, you will come to learn what that means, along with everything else about my side of the family, soon enough.”
“Right. Are we going to bring up the fact that I’m not old enough to know again? I mean—come on? At almost 25 years old, I am no longer a kid. I think it’s time for you to fess up.”
