Page 10 of Daddy's Best Friend

But the messy panties I was unsure what to do with. I couldn't put them back on. The moisture would make it impossible to concentrate and be very uncomfortable. And I didn’t want to toss them. If someone went into the trash for the soap and found the panties…

So I wrapped them in layers of brown paper napkins and crammed them into my pocket. It bulged out awkwardly, but I only had to make it back to my desk where my purse was. Then I could stash them away until I got home.

My reflection didn’t reveal any hint of what had happened other than a few more wrinkles in my skirt after I tried to flatten it out. But something in my mind changed. I didn’t know when it had changed—yesterday, last week? I stopped seeing Alan as my father’s best friend and I’d started looking at him as an available, attractive man. Yes, he was almost 20 years older than me, but boys my age were so immature. You couldn't call them men despite the fact that they were legally adults. Alan was different.

And I liked it.

Now if I could convince myself not to do something foolish that would make me lose this job.

8

ALAN

The morning hadn’t started out great. After discovering a loose thread near the zipper of my dress slacks, I thought I would pluck it out. What transpired was an entire seam coming undone and me being forced to change pants just when I was about to walk out the door. Then I discovered my three other suits were still at the cleaners even though they were due to be picked up yesterday, because Heather’s daughter had a soccer game, and she couldn’t get to it.

That resulted in me deciding to call an all-employee casual day. It made me the hero at work, but I felt less than professional when I walked into the board meeting. I was a firm believer that you dressed for the part you wanted, and since I was already CEO it made sense that I needed to dress like one.

My troubles hadn’t stopped there either. Stuck in traffic, I was 10 minutes late; then I dropped my coffee on the way to the elevators. Poor Bernie the janitor had a mess to clean up first thing to start his Wednesday morning. And when I got to my floor, I had no time to hunt down a coffee pod for the machine. Someone had drunk all the Columbian roast and Iwas not a flavored coffee lover. So, my head throbbed, caffeine withdrawal.

Heather walked alongside me after I left the board meeting, her clicking heels aggravating my already pounding head. She chatted about the acquisition we were thinking about, then changed gears and apologized for the dry cleaner mishap. I assured her it was okay, but she skulked down the hall with the promise of returning in 30 minutes with my suits so I could change.

I turned the handle to my office door and pushed it open, expecting to sink into my chair and rifle through my desk for pain killers, but Ella was there. She sat on the edge of my desk, muffin in hand, one leg crossed over the other. The skirt she wore fell far above the knee, her legs swinging nonchalantly as she pinched off a bit of muffin and popped it into her mouth. I spied a brown paper bag and two disposable cups next to her, and she smiled brightly.

“Hey, Alan.” She hopped off my desk as soon as she saw me, picking up the coffee. “I brought you a cup of this coffee. It’s from the bakery on the ground floor of the high-rise next door. They have the absolute best Guatemalan blends.” She thrust it out to me and smiled, and I took it happily.

I had never tried Guatemalan coffee before, but the way my head felt I was almost desperate enough to drink hazelnut. “Thank you, Ella. That’s really thoughtful.” I gestured toward the muffin, which looked to be blueberry or cranberry. “Got another one of those?”

She grinned and reached for the brown bag. “Two more. Chocolate chip and another blueberry.”

When she offered, I selected the blueberry muffin and sat down in one of the chairs by my desk; Ella selected the other. That first sip of caffeine was not the rescue I hoped, but it was honestly delicious. And she got it black, just the way I took it.

“What made you think to bring me coffee?” I took a bite of the muffin and chewed slowly. She shrugged and swallowed her bite, then sipped her coffee. I wondered what she was drinking, because I really didn’t peg her for being a black coffee sort of girl.

“Well, Bernie was in the way when I walked in, and I slipped on a puddle he was trying to mop up. I almost fell on my ass in these heels.” I winced as she told the story. “It made me spill my coffee on top of the mess he already had. He said he felt bad that he hadn’t gotten it cleaned up and I slipped, and he gave me a twenty and told me to get some coffee.” She sipped from her cup again. “Anyway, when I saw the muffins, I just decided I wanted one and I didn’t want to eat alone. So here—” Ella held up her coffee and muffin and winked at me.

“So, your birthday is coming up.”

Professional as always, her smile didn’t falter, though I noticed her body tense. “Yes. I’ll be 22.”

“Does it feel different from turning 21?” I watched her relax a little, her shoulders drooping slightly. I took a longer swig of my coffee and waited. She seemed to avoid the question at first, eating a bit of muffin and washing it down. Then she shrugged, as if she had resigned herself to breaking her professional code.

“Yeah, honestly.” The charming, always-happy Ella that had brought me coffee and muffins, perched on the side of my desk with a grin, melted away. “I got my heart broken pretty badly a few years ago. It was rough. I always hit up the party scene—what college kid doesn’t?” She took a bite and chewed, so I interjected.

“I understand that. I was quite a party animal myself in college.” Todd wanted me to watch out for her. The best way to let someone know it was safe to talk to you is by relating to them, and I found myself really wanting her to open up. This was the first conversation where we’d come close.

Ella chuckled. “I hardly see you as being a party animal. And no one says party animal anymore.” She rolled her eyes at me. “So, I was underage, but I drank anyway, and when I turned 21, I became like a god or something. I was old enough to buy the stuff, so everyone just expected me to be the supplier for our parties. Even as they all had their birthdays and got older and could go to bars or whatever, we still just held our little get-togethers.”

“I’ve seen some pictures of those.” I didn’t want to push her, but I was concerned. This was the realest I’d seen her.

She winced. “I hate those damn paparazzi. They think just because my father is wealthy that other people want to see my fucked up mental health.” She set the coffee cup and the remnants of her muffin down and dusted her hands on her knees. “They make it look like I’m a slut or something, but that’s not true. I just drink and go home.”

“Ella, I’m concerned that maybe you drink too much.” And there it was—the hard truth laid out before her. If she responded to me the way her father said she did to him, this conversation would be over. But I didn’t see fight or flight in her eyes. She sighed.

“I know.” She kept her head down as she talked, but I could hear the emotion in her voice. “Paul trashed my heart, Alan. Iloved him and he only wanted sex.” When she looked up at me there were tears in her eyes. “It hurt a lot.” When she blinked, a few tears streaked down her face. “I don't drink every day or even every weekend. My problem isn’t like being addicted to it. My problem is, I can bottle everything up in a nice package, but when I drink, that is impossible.

“I end up feeling all the things I never want to feel. The things that on a normal day I just place in a nice little box and put away from myself. Then I want to drown that emotion, so I end up drinking so much I black out. Most of the time I’m alone by that point, but a few times my friends have had to take me back to my dorm.”

I rested a hand on her knee, acutely aware that one entire side of my office was a giant window through which the staff could see us. I felt nervous, but this was my best friend’s daughter. The same best friend who had asked me to watch out for her and help her adjust, maybe heal a little. Trevor and I had worked through some really tough patches—his anger with me for not being around when he was little because I was building my empire, his insistence that I ruined my marriage to his mother. As a child of money, whose father worked even longer hours than I had, I could tell Ella just needed to feel loved.

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