Still, I walked into the wood-paneled, old-school, old-man study that looked exactly like people might expect. Some days, evenIwondered if it had been teleported here from a British gentleman’s club. Upholstered maroon leather. Thick drapes. The obligatory globe on its own stand.
Dad didn’t look up from the papers spread across his desk, but his tone carried authority that made arguing pointless. “Dinner at the club tonight. You’re joining me.”
I didn’t question him. Dad had never pressured me in any way. Never pushed, never demanded, and never expected.
It was a strange sort of privilege, being me. As the baby of the familyandthe only girl, I was loved, protected, and given space to grow, but I was also routinely overlooked. Invisible at times. Untouchable at others. Underestimated always.
I nodded, carefully keeping my expression neutral just in case there was a sting coming on the other side of his command. “Of course, Dad.”
He finally looked up, gave me the faintest nod of approval, and then went back to his papers. I left the office with zero fanfare. No shouting or arguing. I couldn’t help the smile on my lips.
Sometimes, it was really great to be your daddy’s little girl. Even if, at others, he didn’t even remember you existed.
CHAPTER 4
TRENT
When I got off the plane, I went straight to the Chicago branch of Westwood and Sons, flannel and jeans against a sea of tailored suits. Many heads turned as I crossed the marble floors of the lobby. Questioning eyebrows raised when I climbed into the elevator.
I could practically feel them wondering if I was an actor in a Western who had gotten lost after stumbling off a movie set. Personally, I thought their confusion was pretty funny. It was nothing I wasn’t used to. Alex and Jameson, both Westwoods and execs in their respective cities, were my best friends. This wasn’t my first rodeo, so to speak.
The entire building smelled faintly of coffee and the kind of ambition I’d never been fond of. Men in suits shuffled papers and tapped keyboards like they were holding back the apocalypse one spreadsheet at a time.
As I looked around the executive floor of Alex’s kingdom, I realized once again I would never,everunderstand the impulse of some people to chain themselves to gray prisons in the clouds. It baffled me despite my age-old friendship with the Westwoods.
I leaned against the marble counter with my hands in my pockets, waiting for Alex to appear. A few months ago, he’dtaken over from his father. Just like Sterling had taken over from Harlan in San Francisco.
Times certainly were a-changin’, but one thing that would always remain the same was how completely out of place I felt sixty stories in the air, surrounded by concrete and glass. It made me itchy in a way I couldn’t explain.
Alex finally came barreling around the corner with his phone pressed to his ear and his dark hair slightly disheveled. He spotted me immediately and waved me down a hallway without even saying hello, still talking rapidly into the phone.
I sighed, but Alex was one of my oldest friends. Jameson too, so even this, I was used to. Just not a fan of how they had to live their lives.
When we finally made it to his office, I dropped into the chair across from his desk, ready to dive into the proposal we’d been hashing out for months. Alex wanted to get into shipping, and as it happened, I needed shipping services for my cattle, so we were getting into it together. I was doing most of the setup and I assumed that was why he’d asked me here.
But when he hung up mid-sentence, I quickly realized it hadn’t been about that at all. He tossed the phone down on his desk and leaned back with that easy grin that made him look like he hadn’t just been multitasking a corporate takeover.
“We have plans tonight,” he said without any prelude. “Do you have a suit?”
“Of course, I do.” I was renting a nice apartment nearby for a few months while this venture of ours got off the ground. It overlooked the lake. Not exactly a ranch, but it was the best I could find in terms of at least feeling like I had some space.
Alex grinned, flashing pearly white teeth and a hint of the guy he used to be back before he’d become a CEO. “Good. We have a situation and I need your help.”
I arched an eyebrow at him, but before he could explain, his phone rang again and he sighed. “I’ll send a car at six. Do something with your hair and put on the suit.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he took the call and pressed the phone back to his ear. “This is Alex.”
For several seconds, I listened to him rant about share percentages and legal loopholes, the words a blur of corporate jargon I didn’t care to learn. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to stick around for the rest of the day while he yelled at someone about an acquisition.
Eventually, I stood up and walked out, wondering why he’d even needed me to show up in the first place. That entire conversation could’ve been a two-line text, but both he and Jameson were still adjusting to their new roles.
Few people in the world would guess just by looking at them, but I knew my boys. They were both trying to maintain a balance they had no idea how to strike.
Alex had probably thought we would have time to talk about thissituationof his, underestimating just how busy he really was these days. Jameson had been faring better since the twins had been born. Thank God, or else I would have had to pull my sister back to the ranch so we could help her with the kids while Jamie became a weekend father.
None of us would’ve liked that. When I’d first found out about him and my little sister, I’d flipped out, sure. He was the one guy I used to trust with her and it turned out he hadn’t been able to keep his hands to himself after all, but now that I’d accepted their relationship, I still expected him to do right by her.
Which he was. He really was, even if his phone was also pretty much glued to his ear. All of them had issues putting those fucking devices away, though. They were chained to them,more attached to their phones than their dicks as far as I was concerned.
