It had only been two days.
Two whole fucking days.
Two days since his mother died, and the world already seemed like it was ending. Which it might as well have been with everyone running around like headless chickens trying to keep afloat what mother left behind: a whole company just finding its footing in the world after three years. And she left Elliot behind too, with his siblings and a step-mother who has locked herself in her room ever since finding his mother dead.
Everyone and everything was falling to pieces.
"Sir, we have Tokyo on the line about the recent agreement your mother made with them. They need your approval now as the new–"
"Tell them I'll sign and agree to whatever they need later. I'm kinda busy right now."
Katherine, his mother's assistant, now Elliot's, gave him a nod. Though the look of irritation on her face did not go unnoticed. But he dismissed her with a wave of his hand and turned back to the door in front of him.
Twenty minutes of this already. He told himself if he didn't get Emma to answer the door in another five, he'd just give up. But he wasn't one to give up on anything. Elliot was now head of the house, not just the company. That meant he had to look after his sister and brother. They were his responsibility now. He knew his mom would want him to do whatever it took to keep their family together and sane.
Two days. And he was carrying the weight of everything his mother left behind.
Two days. That was all it took for Elliot to be drowning in the wake of his mother's death.
All he wanted to do was curl in his bed with a bottle of gin and just sob. His chest constantly felt heavy with the effort of holding everything back, throat feeling raw as well. Mom always encouraged them to let their feelings out, hold nothing back, never to push anything down. But he was always mom's rebel child, never listened to her much. Elliot could never tap into his feelings like his siblings could. He couldn't tell if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Couldn't tell much of anything these days.
"Emma Marie Charles. Open this door right now and come out. The florist is here and we have to go over their options for the funeral."
Music softly played from the other side of the door. He couldn't pinpoint the exact song, but it sounded like something their mother would play. His chest constricted a little, but he swallowed it away, and continued on.
"Emma, please. I nee– I know you want to be a part of the preparations. Mom would want your hands in this. A little touch of Emma Charles is all I ask."
This time, movement was heard, and Elliot took a step away from the door expectantly. A moment later the door creaked open and Emma came into view. A pair of dark sweatpants and a bright yellow tank top that he knew she was wearing for the last two days. Hair pulled into a messy ponytail, eyes dark and red, Emma looked tired. She easily raised her eyes to him, only two inches shorter than her brother – which she liked to remind him of that fact continuously.
He didn't hesitate to pull her into his chest, wrapping her in his arms as she fit her nose in the crook of his neck.
"How come you didn't bug Luna like this?" Her voice was muffled, scratchy and out of use. He could almost hear how much she cried over the last few days. Guilt crept in with easy steady breath. The thought of his lack of presence for Emma, or their brother, or even their step-mother. He had been so occupied with the company, even the funeral preparations rather than being there for his family.
Elliot pressed his cheek to Emma's hair. "Because Luna is a grown woman. You still need to be checked on periodically." He pulled away, hoping the laugh in his voice was enough to make Emma at least smile. But when he looked at her, that sadness took over, stronger this time. "And when I tried to earlier, she threw something across the room and it shattered, so I decided not to push it right now."
Emma's brows lifted together, lips turning downwards in a harsher frown.
Elliot cleared his throat. "Now can you get changed, maybe shower, and come downstairs? It'd be best if we were all there."
"So Ethan's showing up too?"
His eyes turned down the hall to where Ethan's bedroom was, door closed and locked. But he knew he wasn't there. Ethan has barely been at the house, jumping around from school to programs afterwards, anything so he didn't have to be here, in a tornado that blew of death and despair.
They were all handling their mother's death in different ways. He just wished they could do it all under the same roof, be there for each other in precisely the right ways. Grieve as a family.
"Well, if Ethan isn't going, I'm not–"
Elliot was already shaking his head. "No, don't do that to me. Don't even go there."
Emma opened her mouth to protest, continue her argument further, but Elliot raised a hand to stop her. "I nee–would like it if you were there. For mom."
"For mom," Emma's voice wavered with a trembling breath.
Elliot nodded. "For mom."
~
The air was clogged with dozens of different kinds of flowers in the room, all bright and wonderful and everything Marsha Charles would have loved to see. Especially since they all came from the woman she fell in love with. Even if the price was Elliot's itchy and clogged nose, but he refrained from rushing from the room for fresh air.
Luna Stone, now Luna Charles, their eccentric step-mother owned the best flower shop in the city, Flower Tower. The same flower shop Marsha walked into fifteen years ago on her first day at her brand new entertainment agency to buy herself some fresh flowers for her office. The same flower shop that Marsha walked into, and met Luna. And fell in love with everything the crazy British lady had to offer.
For the last fifteen years, Luna was the greatest step-mother a kid could ever get. She was the best distraction for a seven year old whose father just left his mother. Elliot had no doubt she would continue to be the mother he would need for the rest of his life, especially after he watched her strut her way through the flowers, head bending over each bouquet and cluster, examining them all.
She had somehow beaten Emma and I downstairs into the family room, already ordering her own assistant, Kelly, to bundle different kinds of flowers here and there until she decided to take it over herself with a frustrated huff.
Luna didn't whisper a word of Elliot knocking on her bedroom door earlier that morning, and her–probably–extravagantly thrown vase or wine glass. She had just placed her hand to Elliot's cheek, her eyes sad and mouth set in a small but tight smile. She had given Emma a hug, whispering something in the girl's ear that he couldn't hear, but had them both nodding to one another quietly.
Elliot wasn't surprised to find Ethan hadn't shown up at all.
He continued to watch Luna drag Emma around the room, arm wrapped in arm, from flower to flower, arrangement to arrangement. Until they finally decided on one which they all knew was going to end up being the one.
An assortment of soft, multicolored gladiolus, pale pink orchids, and white Queen Anne's lace. A good mix of mother's favorites in gladiolus and flowers that showed great respectability for funerals. They represented Marsha Charles perfectly.
Emma smiled over their creation, coming to stand by Elliot as they watched Luna instruct Kelly to order a dozen standing sprays to keep the flowers in.
"You think she'd like them?" Emma asked, her voice quiet in the oncoming busy of people rushing in and out, taking away the rest of the unused flowers. Elliot smiled, wrapping his arm around his sister's shoulders, pulling her into him.
"She'd love it no matter what. Just because you and Luna put the arrangements together would mean the world to her. You know that."
Emma nodded, pressing her cheek firmly against Elliot's shoulder before pulling away and scurried over to Luna. Gently taking over the situation there before their step-mother started a screaming match with one of the servants over his flimsy treatments of the flowers.
"Sir."
Elliot turned to find Katherine standing behind him, tablet pressed against her chest with one hand, an envelope in the other.
"What is it?" He asked, brow raised.
Katherine offered the envelope between them, and Elliot was quick to slice it open with a finger before he noticed the writing on the front.
To Elliot, before everything gets too much
His throat was rapidly drying, a heave rising from his chest. "What is this?" He voiced, knowing whatever lay inside was from his mother. Her last words, from beyond the grave. He could almost still hear her voice in his ear.
"It's not quite your mother's will," Katherine was saying as Elliot stared down at the familiar handwriting, "Her attorney will be arriving later this afternoon with that, as you know. But this is Marsha's personal letter to you. I'm afraid I don't know anymore than that. She just asked in the event of her death that you get this before her will is read." Katherine gave a comforting smile, a firm pat on his arm, and turned away as her phone began to ring, moving quickly out of the room.
Elliot looked back down at the letter, his mother's writing flawless on the front, looking as fresh as if she had written it just that day. As if she wrote it just before she died. As if she knew...No, he didn't let himself think about that blossoming idea too much.
He made his way out of the room, opening the letter as he walked. He neared the foyer, the front stairs leading up to the second floor of the house, and perched on the first few steps.
It was like a punch in the gut, seeing his mother's handwriting staring back at him. See his own name in that familiar writing, glimpsing Emma and Ethan's names as well. He wondered if his siblings each got their own letters, something to hold onto. Last words.
He closed his eyes for a second. Two. Three. Seven seconds. Twenty. He opened the letter and began reading.
My darling Elliot,
There's so much I wish I could have said before I left you and your siblings.
To leave you with everything falling on your shoulders at such a young age will be one of my greatest regrets in life. The other being for what you will find out by the end of this letter.
The company is in good hands with you, for that I have no doubt. I know you always knew it would be yours, getting as prepared as you could be for it no doubt. But I know you were never prepared to be handed a company so unexpectedly, and after my death no doubt. And for that I am truly sorry. I wish I could have prepared you for everything, but even a mother's power reaches only so far.
I don't doubt you will also take responsibilities over your sister and brother. They will need you, now more than ever. I know you are not good with these kinds of things, and haven't been there much as of recently. They will be lost for sometime, and I know you will do good by them. Emma just needs someone to hold her hand, and Ethan needs someone to be there, to listen and love him through it all.
Make sure my Loony is still smiling, still loving those flowers, and loving my children. I want her to keep loving, not to fall back into herself again.
Now, I want you to remember that everything I did was always for you, and your sister and brother. It might not seem that way, but it's true. So please, don't hate me when I say–
Heart already dead weight in his feet, All the breath sucked out of his lungs, eyes unable to close without absorbing what was written.
–I made a deal with Morningstar Films to merge our companies. And it seems the only way their advisors would accept such a merge is a marriage. Since we don't have the money in our savings, not the amount they demand, I had to agree. When Emma turns twenty, she is to wed Morningstar's CEO, Hunter Morgan, by the end of the year to officially merge the two companies. Or they will come for worse.
The letter was already crumbled in his hand before he could finish the end, knowing what could only be lying in writing there, and not quite wanting to fully read it.
Because the absurd thought that Emma was to wed Hunter Morgan, my rival in not just the business world, but the public one, battling for the covers of each magazine. The paparazzi's favorites to pin against one another with any speck of information they could. They didn't need to go digging for baseless things when Elliot would gladly give every fact to his hatred for that man.
For his sister to have to marry that asshole, Elliot could never let it happen. Not while he was now the CEO of Venus Arts.
He supposed it was time to give Mr. Morgan a little visit, and share his thoughts on this so called deal.