LISA
I dread Fridays.
Usually, the favorite day of the week for most, but for me, it means enforced lunches with my father, Ronald, and my stepmom, Felicity, under the guise of a company meeting.
As much as I love my job, working with these two bozos is one of the annoying caveats.
I only agreed to these lunches because I didn't want my father constantly getting into my business. Still, I rue this arrangement because this blip in my day sets me back precious hours.
Beginning in the early hours of the morning, my work is never-ending. Felicity has been married to my father for eight years. She tolerates me, and I despise her. We are both brunettes. Both tall. And disturbingly, the same age. But that's where the similarities end.
She is a vapid, luxury shoe aficionado with a proclivity for soaking up the sun on their mega-yacht, Ambrosia. According to master sleuth Jisoo, she even has desires on my position. Ha. As if that would ever happen.
Felicity is a complete contrast to my late mom, Kelly. My mom was not born into wealth, but instead, a middle-class mid-west family, so when she married my father as a doe-eyed twenty-two-year-old, he had her fix her teeth and ditch her accent.
Wealth never really sat well with my mom. Far from being the arm candy my father envisaged, she was awkward at events and preferred to stay at home and care for me, where we indulged in Taco Tuesdays and, my favorite, our Sunday Scrabble challenge.
Being a bookish homebody didn't bode well for my mom either, and when I was nineteen, my father started an affair with Felicity, who was an exotic dancer. Stage name Trixxy Tease. Barf.
My mom was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer two years later, and the bastard moved his girlfriend into our family home while mom was in hospice. He married her six months later.
I've never forgiven him, and for this reason alone, I despise him even more than Felicity.
Thankfully, my mom was able to transfer her share of the business to me before she passed, which outraged my father.
He assumed he would take full ownership. We were never close. Always a thorn in his side, when I was seven, he tried to have me carted off to a boarding school in Switzerland, but mom wouldn't hear of it.
My loyalty to my mom never wavered. I'm certain that's why I look more like her. Doe eyes, dark hair. The only thing I inherited from my father was his height and ability to get under people's skin.
Imagine his disgust at having to ask my permission on company decisions. Not surprisingly, I secretly relish his discontent, but there are times I wonder if all the angst is worth it.
My issues with my father so big sometimes I can't see the sky.
I spot them seated in silence at our usual corner table of the sky-high terrace restaurant. There's only one plus, the gorgeous view looking out over the Pacific. I always make sure I'm facing that way.
Dressed in all black save for the small white daisy pinned to her hair, the maître d looks up and gives me a bright smile.
"Good afternoon, Miss Manoban. They're waiting for you."
"Just the usual Almond Chicken. Thanks, Cassie."
To speed up the meetings, I place my lunch order at the front desk. It easily shaves off fifteen minutes."Of course. Right this way," she replies, leading me through an arch-capped French door.
Silverware tapping porcelain and ice clinking in highball glasses amongst the quiet hum of conversation.
"Father. Felicity."
