“Mrs. Woodrow had a few ideas about the presentation that I would like you to hear.” Lana gestures to the office, and Kathryn and I can’t help but give each other a look.

This is going to be hell.

Sure enough, our impromptu meeting at nine in the morning has everything to do with Friday’s proposal. As one of the council leaders, Mrs. Woodrow wants to make sure we know what to expect and what we should do to prepare. I can handle that. Kathryn’s twitching, her dominant personality at complete odds with this woman. So is mine, but I’m better at covering it up. Kathryn looks like she’s about to slap the woman.

I’m not sure I would stop her.

The rub comes about twenty minutes into this farce of a meeting. A farce because it’s keeping us from getting to our real work.

“As it is, Ms. Alison and Mr. Mathers…” Colleen primps as if we’re her mirror. “The double proposition is a good one, but I’m afraid both the community and the council will not be in the mood to approve both ventures at the same time.” When she’s met with our bemusement, she explains, “Either the museum or the functioning remodeled hotel will have to come first. I’m afraid that asking for both at the same time will put people… on edge. As it is, we think both are fantastic ideas if done tastefully, and we look forward to seeing both of your presentations.”

“But?”

“But only one will be selected, if either of them is to be at all.”

“So let me get this straight,” I interject, putting my hand in the middle of the table. “You want us to continue with our presentations… but only one of us will be ‘selected’ to continue forward as planned?”

“If either is selected at all.”

“Oh, well then.”

This is bullshit, and we all know it. I don’t know whose rad idea this is, but either Kathryn or I are going to be in big, big trouble with our fathers. Either my father is going to come down hard on me for not securing us the money-making hotel, or Kathryn is going to be further humiliated because her family doesn’t get their museum.

It’s not fair, and we all know it.

This business isn’t fair. We all make our peace with it, but sometimes you come up against something that is so stupid and arbitrary that even this hardened heart is amazed by it. This is one of those instances. Does she seriously expect me to believe that the community is too sensitive to having both a renovated hotel and a new museum at the same time?

“We know that neither of you want to hear something like this,” Lana says, patting Colleen’s shoulder. They look like bosom buddies, all right. “But I’m afraid it’s how it has to be. If the community decides to accept a renovation, it can only be one or the other for now. The other can come later once it’s been proven that the first is a success.”

Kathryn shakes her head as if she’s ridding her brain of an evil spirit. “So Ian and I are essentially competing against each other.”

“Don’t think of it that way,” Lana says with that ridiculous air of superiority. “Unless of course it makes you work harder!”

Her laugh is enough to make me curl my first and for Kathryn to sneer into the back of her hand.

Long after they leave, we’re left sitting here in the office, our spirits fucked. Not even our bubbly assistants can bring us back from the dead. There isn’t even time or energy to think about what happened Friday night. The only good to come out of this is that I no longer want to think about nothing but having sex with Kathryn.

Apparently she’s my rival now.

We’ve gone from being partners in this endeavor to vying for different things. Kathryn wants to prove herself, and I want to not fuck up my father’s investment. Before, that fueled our teamwork, or what there was of it. It probably fueled the whole sex thing too, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now we’re competing. I don’t care how they spin it. We’ve gone from either all in or all out, to only one can survive.

This is going to be great for our relationship.

Chapter 15

KATHRYN

Do you know what it’s like to be grounded? Because that’s how I feel right now. Trapped in a shitty situation where there is no real winner.

I am so fucked. My level of “fucked’ is that of a porn star’s. Minus a good dicking and getting paid for it.

You see, I cannot win in this farce of a situation. No matter what happens, I am boned.

Let’s look at the first possible outcome. Ian gets the initial deal for remodeling The Grand. Great. That shuts me out, and once again I look like a dumb girl who can’t keep her shit together. Sure, I may have held my own and was able to overcome my previous fuckup, but I still fucked up! Yay!

Now let’s look at the second possible outcome. I “win.” Except not really, because what good does it do everyone if we’re only building a museum? Will the Mathers even want to buy the hotel then? Sure, they can make some revenue off museum admission and a gift shop, but their bread and butter is going to come from the hotel itself. That is their main line of business.

You see? It’s an impossible situation, and I’m the one who suffers the most from it.

I don’t think Ian sees it that way, though. He’s plugging ahead as if someone named Colleen Woodrow hasn’t turned our lives upside down. Well, of course. He doesn’t have as much to lose as me.

Isn’t that how it always goes? I’ve been feeling this ever since I was old enough to realize that being a girl puts me at a huge disadvantage. Every day there’s some new reason for a man – or other woman – to put me down and make me feel like shit, all because the doctor said I had a vagina when I was born.

I felt it when I was a little girl who barely understood the world. You see, I was my parents’ only chance at a kid. They tried for years, and then finally had me. The pregnancy was so hard on my mother that the doctor told her that trying to have another would probably kill her, or at least kill the baby. Both of my parents wanted a son for all the reasons we rich people want a bunch of sons. Proof of fertility, passing on the family name, knowing that the fortune will “stay in the family” and a bunch of other asinine bullshit that doesn’t mean anything these days.

Still, even though my parents loved me, I knew they would’ve felt better having a son. They discussed adoption, but by that point their relationship was strained. They’ve never divorced, but I wasn’t surprised when my mother peaced out and moved to Europe.

Then I felt that shit at school. Boys harassed me. Teachers let the boys harass me because “boys will be boys.” I hated myself for having crushes on boys because I already knew how toxic they could be. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized I could control some of my destiny. Back then, that only meant sexually. I was a bit wild. New boyfriend every month for about two years. Would’ve been more, but I lived in such an insular world that I had to be careful who I boned while sowing my wild teenage oats.

Dealing with doctors and birth control. Being told that my goal in life was to be some guy’s blond trophy wife and have his kids. Everyone expected me to go to college, but nobody expected me to do anything with a degree. Bit of a shock when I decided to follow the family business. My father went along with it – I think he was relieved, actually. I know he’s often worried about what’s going to happen to his holdings when he goes. If his daughter is there to take over, he feels a lot better. What he thinks I’m going to do with my life on the other hand…

My family is the least of my problems. It’s the rest of the world. Nobody takes me seriously. When I fuck up, I’m rarely given a real second chance like men are. Nobody thinks I can really make it.