“You’re distracted,” Dad said.
The sound of his voice brought me crashing back into the room. “I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“The bid,” I lied easily, pushing to my feet. “Look, let’s just get it done. Then we can talk, okay? Abram isn’t going to put off retirement simply because you want me standing at the end of an aisle sooner rather than later.”
Dad didn’t look convinced, but Alex stood and jerked his chin in a nod. “We’ll update you once we have Hinds’ meeting scheduled. In the meantime, we’ll keep working on it.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant working on the bid or on finding me a wife, but I wasn’t in the mood to find out. Dad waved us off, standing and moving over to the window, probably alreadymentally flipping through his contact list to figure out which of his friends had daughters he hadn’t reached out to yet.
Alex walked beside me down the hallway toward the front door, his hands tucked into his pockets. We hadn’t even reached the foyer before he spoke. “What’s your deal?”
“What do you mean?” I glanced at him. “I don’t have a deal.”
“You’re off your game.”
“I’m tired.”
“You don’t get tired,” he countered. “You drink another cup of coffee and get over it, so I’ll ask again, what is your deal?”
I exhaled slowly. “It’s complicated.”
He finally stopped walking, waiting for me to do the same before he fixed me with that firm, locked stare that would make lesser men confess to things they hadn’t even done yet. “Is this about Vanderhaul?”
“No.”
He cocked his head. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Alex’s brow lifted slightly. “Let’s have a drink. Clearly, we need to talk and we’re already here. We might as well do our job as his kids and do some damage to Dad’s stash of expensive whiskey.”
“I have my own expensive whiskey at home.”
“So do I, but Dad’s is somehow still always better.” His face broke into a relaxed, mischievous kind of smile I hadn’t seen for a long time before he’d married Jane. “What do you say? Are you going to have a drink with me?”
I sighed but nodded, turning around and heading to the bar in the lounge with him. As we sat down, we both shrugged out of our jackets and loosened our ties. Alex even kicked off his shoes, padding around in his socks as he reached for two glasses and a bottle.
Ice clattered against the crystal when he dropped it in. Then he poured us each a stiff drink and pushed one of the glasses toward me. “What is it, Nate? What’s going on with you? You know it’s your time.”
I kept my gaze on the whiskey in my hand, turning the tumbler slowly between my fingers. “Yeah, I do know it’s my time, but nothing new is going on with me.”
Alex propped his elbows on the bar and looked at me across the polished counter. “We’ve talked about this before. Dad just handed you a list of excellent prospects. Good women from good families.”
Prospects. Like we’re acquiring companies instead of building lives.
I shrugged, keeping my tone neutral instead of admitting that I’d spaced out and hadn’t even known he’d mentioned one name, let alone a whole list. “It’s nothing. I’ve just got a lot on my mind with the Hinds buyout.”
“You said it was complicated.” Alex held my gaze for a long moment, looking at me with the same expression he got when he was scanning financial statements for hidden discrepancies. He’d always had that ability to look straight through surface-level bullshit.
“Are you seeing someone?” he asked bluntly. “Someone you don’t want the family to know about?”
Emma’s name flashed across my mind, the way she somehow always managed to make me smile and how my heart went fucking crazy whenever I thought about her emails. For a split second, the truth sat right there at the tip of my tongue.
Alex and I had always been close. Not super close. There was a whole hell of a lot we didn’t talk about, but close enough that I’d always gone to him if I needed help with a problem I couldn’t solve myself.
I imagined what might happen if I said,Yes, I’m seeing someone and she makes me forget how suffocating this life feels. Someone who doesn’t know the rules I’m bound by and who would probably run if she did, but I’ve never actually seen her, even if I am seeing her.
