Dad looked at him. “She’ll be useful in these negotiations?”
“Absolutely,” Alex assured him. “It’s only been a few days, but she’s already proven herself an asset. She works hard and she’s as motivated to get this done properly as we are.”
Dad’s gaze shifted to me. “I understand you’re working closely with her?”
“Yes.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “And?”
I frowned. “And what?”
“Do you trust her?”
I shrugged. “She wants the same outcome we do. That’s usually enough.”
“Hm.” That noncommittal hum stretched for longer than was comfortable. “You’re thirty-four.”
And there it was, the reason Alex and I hadn’t been dismissed after we’d given Dad the update about what was happening at the office. I resisted the urge to rub my temples.
Fuck. I should’ve known this would pop up again while he’s in town.“I’m aware.”
“It’s time, Nathaniel,” he said calmly, that edge that used to be in his voice when we talked about this not as sharp anymore. “Both of you have kept assuring me that you’ll get it done, yet neither of you seem to be doing a damn thing about it.”
I crossed my ankle over my knee and lifted my chin as I met his gaze. “We will. Eventually.”
“Eventually tends to become never when left unattended,” he said.
“I’m not opposed to marriage.”
Dad sighed. “You’re just uninterested in it.”
“I’m uninterested in rushing it. There’s a difference. When Alex got married, the opportunity presented itself. A similar thing happened with Charlotte. It has, however, not yet happened in my case.”
Dad gave me a look I knew meant he was assessing whether to nudge or push today. “Perhaps not, but it’s not always about waiting for an opportunity. It can also be about creating one. Look at your cousins. None of them waited. They actively pursued the opportunity instead.”
I nodded like I always did, because arguing with him was like trying to convince gravity it was doing it wrong. “Yes, sir.”
Dad launched into the speech I’d known was coming, rehashing the way our family did things and why. My mind drifted out of the room. I didn’t need to hear what he was saying.
Marriage is about blood ties. Strategic alliances. The same bullshit we’ve all been hearing since we were old enough to understand what a last name carried.
Instead, my thoughts were halfway across the country, replaying the long email I’d woken up to the other morning. Emma joking about running away together like it was a ridiculous fantasy neither of us would ever actually chase.
I wanted to, however. Especially right now.
It didn’t matter that I barely knew anything about her beyond the essentials. All I knew was that she was an only child from New York. She worked, but I didn’t know what she did for a living. She liked early mornings and terrible reality television, and had a laugh I could practically hear through text alone. We never talked about family, or financial status, or anything like that, and yet, I was still deeply in love with her.
Our relationship was just about us. Our feelings in real time. Our unfiltered thoughts. We didn’t expect anything from each other except honesty.
If she knew about my family’s views on marriage, she’d probably think I was a sociopath. A freak.
Or worse, archaic.Kate’s voice echoed in my head with annoyingly startling clarity.
As much as I hated to admit it though, Kate Vanderhaul was a great many things, but wrong wasn’t one of them. That was the problem.
Emma lived a normal life, quiet and uncomplicated as far as I could tell. Dragging her into the Westwood traditions would feel like dropping a songbird into a boardroom and asking it to negotiate a merger with a lion.
I wasn’t doing that to her, which meant that whatever this was between us had always had an expiration date—and I’d always known about it. I just hadn’t known it would grow to matter so much.
