“That sounds exhausting,” Sylvie said.
“It is. And it becomes this endless cycle. You make a million, so you need to make ten million. You make ten million, so you need to make a hundred million. There’s never enough because it’s not actually about the money. It’s about the scorecard.”
I could see her trying to understand, her brow furrowed in concentration. This was so far outside her experience that it might as well have been a foreign language.
“In my family, wealth is how we keep score,” I continued. “Who closed the biggest deal? Who made the smartest investment? Who grew their portfolio the most this quarter? That’s what gets talked about at family gatherings. That’s what determines who Dad respects, who gets the most say in business decisions.”
“What about who’s happiest?” Sylvie asked. “Who’s actually living a good life?”
I smiled at her, feeling that familiar warmth spread through my chest that I only got when I was with her. “That’s not a metric that matters in the Bancroft family. Or at least, it wasn’t until recently. Don’t get me wrong, my dad loves us. The last ten years or so he’s changed a lot. He’s more about family and he’s loving the idea of grandkids. His new wife, my aunt?—”
“Your stepmom,” she corrected.
I laughed. “Oh, you might want to sit down for this story.”
She frowned. “Are you a brother cousin uncle?”
I laughed. “Yes. But no blood relations. Our family tree still has branches. My dad’s wife is my late uncle’s widow.”
She blinked and I could see her doing the math.
“My dad and Kathy were in love forever ago. Long before I was in the picture. My Uncle Art moved in on Dad’s woman and somehow he got the girl. Kathy and Art married and had a gaggle of kids. Art was a dick and never treated Kathy right. But anyway, we all lived in Vancouver. That’s where my mom was from. So, my dad married and had a shit ton of kids. Art married and had a shit ton of kids—not all by Kathy. That’s another story we’ll save for another time. My dad and his brother did not get along. I think that might be one of the motivating factors behind my dad’s need to be wealthy. He was competing with his brother.”
“Holy shit,” she said with a laugh. “I feel like I’m watching Jerry Springer.”
“Trust me, it’s worse than that. So my Aunt Kathy is now my stepmom. Her sons were my cousins and now they are my stepbrothers.”
She blinked. “Wow. I guess rich people got their own drama.”
“You have no idea.”
She reached across the bar and took my hand, her fingers lacing through mine.
“Anyway, some of my brothers will be pissed because I’m breaking the unspoken rule,” I said. “You don’t walk away from money. You don’t choose personal happiness over family profit. You definitely don’t sacrifice a massive mineral rights deal for some girl in upstate New York.”
“Some girl?” Sylvie raised an eyebrow, but I could see the smile tugging at her lips.
“The most incredible woman I’ve ever met,” I corrected, pulling her hand to my lips and kissing her knuckles. “The woman I’m choosing over everything else.”
“Kent, are you sure?”
“Yeah, they’ll either understand or they won’t,” I said, shrugging. “Some of them might come around eventually. Some of them might never speak to me again. But that’s their choice to make, not mine. Half of them have wives and they should understand the need to do right by the person they love.”
I squeezed her hand, needing her to really hear this.
“I’m glad you’re so brave,” she said.
“I’m not brave. I’m in love. That makes me invincible.”
The way she looked at me, with those green eyes full of trust and desire, made something primal stir in my chest. I rounded the bar, closing the distance between us in two strides.
“You know what I think?” I said, backing her up against the bar until she had nowhere to go.
“What?” Her voice came out breathy. I loved that I could affect her this way.
“I think we should celebrate properly.” I leaned in, my lips brushing against her ear. “And I think this bar is the perfect place to do it.”
She shivered against me. “Kent, we can’t.”
