I am nothing without you. I live for the hours I can see you. Locked in stasis, waiting for you to turn the key.
Any of those would have been acceptable responses. How had he fumbled so badly?
Because you’re an idiot. And now look what’s happened. You’ve lost her. She’s going to leave town, and all you’ll be left with is—
“Nicholas.”
“Nicholas!”
He jerked, his head swiveling between the two patriarchs. “Sorry?”
Brendan folded his arms over his chest and glared at him. “Seems you’ve been sorry a lot lately. What’s going on with you?”
“I’m...”Tired from trying to save a family and a business that doesn’t care about saving me.“Nothing.”
“Then pay attention.”
Nicholas looked around the table, taking stock of his grandfather and sister and their concerned faces.Past and present and future, they were seated here.
If he’d learned anything from spending time with Livvy it was that he couldn’t change their past. He could regret it and learn from it, but their history would always exist.
He could change the present, though. He could take actionable steps to have some sort of future.
He’d feared every crank of emotion would ruin him, but instead it was like each one had made his life finally come into focus, like he was a camera with a clean lens.
Nicholas closed his eyes and opened them again, and this time, instead of noting the similarities between him and his father, he took stock of all the differences. They weren’t the same.
He could break this, right now. He didn’t need to be afraid.
He didn’t have to stay cold.
He put down his fork. “I have something on my mind.”
“Something more important than the business?” Brendan scoffed.
“Yes. Someone more important than the business.”
“Nothing is more important than the business.”
“You would say that,” Eve snapped.
Nicholas wasn’t sure which one of them was more stunned by Eve uttering the caustic words. His father shot her a fierce frown. Nicholas bet the man had forgotten Eve was there.
Since he couldn’t look at the girl for longer than a few minutes, Brendan returned to Nicholas. “Well? What’s on your mind then, that’s so important?”
He glanced at his grandfather, who had straightened in his wheelchair, a hopeful glint in his eyes. “Livvy.”
A gasp came from Eve, quickly muffled.
Brendan stilled.
Nicholas met his father’s gaze. “Olivia Kane.”
Nicholas had witnessed his father’s rages. They were scary things, straight-up red-faced meltdowns. But this... this was new.
Brendan paled, his lips barely moving. “No.”
“Yes.”
