Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
“Some people don’t have a choice. Some people have to clean toilets for a living, or serve drinks to rich assholes who think they’re better than them. I enjoy working.”
“You’d still be working, Jaxon, just in Houston.”
“Making people like Dad and the board members richer and richer. While the lady who cleans their office has to scrape together enough money to make sure her kids can eat for the week.”
Mom narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you mean?”
“Kate, the lady who cleans Dad’s office. She’s a single mom and has three kids. She barely makes enough to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Do you think for one second Dad ever stopped to talk to her? Ask her how her day was, how her family was doing? No, but I did. It took me four months to get her to even tell me she had kids. One night I heard her on the phone asking for some bill collector to give her until the end of the week to get paid. I went to HR the very next day and had them give her a bonus in her check.”
She put her hand to her heart and smiled. “What a sweet thing to do, Jaxon. Did you tell your father? I’m sure he would give Kate a raise.”
I shook my head and let out a bitter laugh. “Why do you think I left, Mom? I told him what I did, and he threw a fit and said I had no right giving an employee a bonus without consulting him. He didn’t care about Kate or her kids, and he told me that. He said, if she didn’t think she was getting paid enough she could find another job is what I believe his exact words were.”
My mother’s face drained of color. “He didn’t.”
“Mom, maybe it’s time you took off your rose-colored glasses and ask yourself why both of your children left. Sandra couldn’t take it. Every idea she tried to implement for the employees, incentives to keep them motivated or help them in any way, he turned down. Sandra set up a program at the company before she left that she funds with her own money. You may have heard about it. It’s the Mom’s Day Out Program.”
“Sandy set that up? Your father said it was a wonderful program and was for parents who needed a last-minute sitter. They could bring the kids to the office and they got to play for the entire day, free of charge. It cut down on employees calling in sick to care for the kids when their childcare fell through.”
“You didn’t think Dad came up with that, do you?”
She looked down at her hands.
I shook my head. “Your daughter did, but good to know Dad is taking full credit.”
“Jaxon, if you could just come back and speak with him. Once you’re in charge, you can make any changes you want.”
“There is still a board of directors, Mom. A board filled with money-hungry investors who don’t give a damn about anything but the profit margain. It’s not for me. It never has been, it never will be. I’m sorry, but when I come back, I won’t be going back to work at the company. I don’t even think I’ll be moving back to Houston or Dallas.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Where will you go?”
I shrugged and picked up my coffee. A pair of blue eyes flashed through my memory as I said, “Maybe Austin.”
“Austin? What in the world would you do there?”
“Open a bar.”
The look of horror on her face caused me to laugh.
“You’d think I just said I was going to kill someone with the look on your face.”
“A bar? Jaxon, really? It’s one thing to have this little fantasy down here, but to open a bar and run one…it just…well, it seems…”
I lifted a brow. “It seems?”
“Like you could do so much more! You have a degree, and not one in bar owning. Why not do something with what you went to college for?”
I raked my hand through my hair. “Because that is the degree Dad wanted me to get. Hell, even Grandpa wanted me to do something different. He told me how his career put a strain on his marriage to Grandma. I remember all the nights we ate dinner without Dad. I don’t want that kind of life, Mom. I want to meet someone, fall in love, and spend my nights with them helping them cook and clean up after dinner. I want to go hiking on the weekends, or teach my kids how to ride a bike. I don’t want to be locked up in an office spending all my time figuring out ways to make more and more money.”
She stared at me for a moment before she turned away and stared off into the distance. Then looking back at me, she put a smile on her face.