He gestured toward the iced-over street. The sleet had turned the road into a skating rink. “You’d end up in a ditch before you make it to the corner.”
I wanted to argue. I really did, but my gaze slid back to the window, then to the candles, across the room to the cozy fire before before it settled on the man standing next to me, as smug as ever but with something gentler in his eyes.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll stay.”
His smile was slow and lazy. “Good. I’ll even throw in breakfast.”
I rolled my eyes, but my chest felt warm anyway. I didn’t know how it happened, but somehow, a bottle of Cabernet appeared between us on his dining table. We sipped while we worked, but it wasn’t long before we were on his couches, fresh glasses of wine in our hands and flames flickering as we talked and the storm raged on outside.
“This isn’t bad, Westwood,” I said, tipping my glass toward him. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to keep good wine in the house. I kind of thought you as more of a scotch on the rocks kind of guy.”
He swirled the liquid in his glass, watching the deep red catch the light. “I take my scotch neat, but only after I’ve earned it.”
I smirked. “So you’ve only earned really good wine tonight?”
“I survived a meeting with you in the dark without being stabbed with a fountain pen. I’ve earnedchampagne. The real stuff.”
I laughed before I could stop myself. “You are infuriating.”
“Yeah.” He grinned over the rim of his glass. “You like it, though. Don’t you?”
I looked away, swirling my own wine and pretending that the flickering candlelight was more interesting than he was. “Hey, can I ask you something personal?”
“Shoot. I’m an open book when it’s dark and I’m drinking wine. It’s like a truth serum.”
Once again, I found myself chuckling. “What’s it like, being one of the famous four?”
He groaned. “You mean my brothers? The married, settled, respectable ones?”
I arched an eyebrow. “I don’t know if I’d call themrespectable. I’ve read about them in the tabloids and I’d say your definition of that word is very different to mine.”
He laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “Respectableisn’t the word I’d use for what they were like before, either. But now? Shit, they’d tattoo their wives names on their foreheads and dance naked on Times Square under every full moon if that was what it took to keep their wives.”
“Dancing naked on Times Square on every full moon isn’t really respectable either, but I get where you’re coming from. When I looked you up, I noticed they’d all gotten married this year. It’s been a busy few months over at Westwood Manor, huh?”
Harrison chuckled, but something about the sound was off. “Yeah, it really has been, but don’t pretend like you don’t know all those marriages were arranged. At this point, everyone knows and my brothers don’t give a damn. They’re crazy in love and happy as clams. They just needed a little push to get them to do it.”
“And you?”
He took another sip of his wine, his jaw working. “Nah. Harlan pushed my brothers and he pushed them hard. Threatened their inheritances. Board seats. The works. Me?All I get isyou’re still young, Harrison.Enjoy your youth, Harrison.”
Something in the way he said it tugged at me. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “That bothers you.”
He shrugged, but it didn’t seem casual at all. “I’ve spent my whole life with everyone thinking I’m just the fun one, the spoiled one, the one who’ll never grow up. The baby. Sometimes, I wonder if I have to do something big, something insane, to prove that I’m actually a pretty capable adult now.”
I tilted my head. “Like what? Get married?”
He snorted, but then gave me a look that was long and searching. “It wouldn’t be the craziest thing a Westwood has ever done. Your dad ever talk to you about marriage?”
“Are you kidding?” A bark of dry, bitter laughter escaped me and I took a big gulp of my wine. “Only all the time. According to him, that’s the only worthwhile thing I could do with my life.”
“That’s bullshit,” he muttered, tossing back the wine in his glass and refilling us both. “You’re awesome at what you do, Van Alen. Seriously. All that stuff you found in your research? I could only have guessed at it without you.”
The words slipped under my skin like a spark, and suddenly, I wasn’t looking at a spoiled, yacht-tripping fuckboy anymore. I was looking at a man with something to prove. A man who had just admitted the very thing that might make him dangerous… and useful.
A lightbulb clicked on in my brain.
My father didn’t know I was here, working with Harrison, trying to snatch that portfolio right out from under the Van Alen & Associates name. God, the man hadn’t even noticed when I’d quit and Harrison? He was desperate to prove that he was capable of falling in the ranks of his own family.
