“Should you want to shout about my body, again, just saying,” he says.
I narrow my eyes, “You’re trying to change the subject.”
He dips his chin in agreement, “Perhaps so.” We walk a few feet and then he starts explaining, “I’ve been working toward one singular goal since I was about twenty.”Fifteen years?“About fifteen years, yes. I forget I’m nearly a decade older than you. Anyway, I have been working toward a certain portfolio size.Real estate portfolio, that is. There’s a whole unofficial ranking system and we are not at the top.”
“You’re not?” I ask, truly surprised. I feel like his last name is everywhere. I wonder who could possibly outrank the Vanderwells.
“The Rockfords,” he answers. “They’ve been a thorn in our side for decades. Centuries probably, if you ask Granddad.”
We walk a few more feet. I stop us, “That’s it? You’re tearing down half my town just to show that you’re, what, one million dollars richer than the other billionaire family? Seriously?”
He clears his throat and I think maybe blushes a bit as he pulls us along, “Yes.”
“No,” I stop and pull my hand from his. “That can’t be it.”
“It can and it is. Can you imagine working toward one singular goal forfifteen years?”I can’t, and my face must say so.
But I press him, “Why then? Why that goal? There’s no way it’s just ego.”
He gives me a sly grin, “You underestimate my size.”
“Aiden!”
He looks away, serious. “I’d like to negotiate,” he says quietly. Finally, I feel like we’re getting somewhere. Somewhere real. I cross my arms but raise my eyebrows and wait. “I will answer all your questions only if you’re holding my hand.”
“Ugh!”
“Come on, there’s dodgy people everywhere.”
I throw a hand back toward the men behind us, “Those are your bodyguards!”
He crosses his arms, “Those are my updated terms.”
“Fine, but your hands are sweaty,” I grouse.
“They’re not,” he says, and I can hear in his tone that he’s smiling in triumph. I refuse to look up at him and get caught in the wonder of it. I stop, look down at our hands and then glareat him. “All right, all right. The truth is…” his voice trails off as he scans ahead into a small park we’re about to enter.
“Wait, was the Harry guy Harry Rockford? Did Marion run off with the Rockford heir?” I ask.
“Grace?” Aiden frowns.
“Grace Rockford…why does that sound familiar?” He doesn’t answer and waits for me to remember. Which I do. “The Great Grace Race! The heir is a daughter, that’s right! She had that whole rich bachelor fight for her hand thing. You weren’t invited! Is that it?”
He scoffs, “I didn’t want to be invited. And remember I said this feud goes back before I was even born, they never could have invited a Vanderwell to be a part of that.”
“How can you care so much if you weren’t even born yet?” He opens his mouth, then closes it. I decide to pull an Aiden on Aiden himself. “Come on, then, out with it, Mr. Direct.”
“I…I suppose it’s that it matters…to my dad?” He says, unsure for the first time tonight. I wait for him to go on. He squeezes my hand and takes a deep breath. “That’s pathetic, yeah? Thirty five year old man trying to impress his father?”
“No, it’s not,” I say, meaning it.
“You know they…” he runs his left hand down over his face, “Shit, I’ve never really talked about this.”
“Here,” I say, pulling him down onto a long old-fashioned bench near an equally old-fashioned lamp post. Warm light surrounds us like a pocket in the cool, almost overgrown garden, within the dark city streets beyond.
“That’s really the only time he ever paid me any mind. Mother too. We were all together in one very small circle growing up. Grace and her cousins, me and mine. If I beat one of the Rockford records in sports or grades, I’d get a ‘Well done, Aiden,’” he lets go of my hand to run his hands back and forth on his thighs likehe’s anxious. “They hate us too, something about stolen land in Virginia a hundred years ago. We really went blow for blow in school and university. But after we all graduated, there weren’t many opportunities to best them, I…” he laughs. “One year I counted. I didn’t hear from my parents for over 400 days.”
“What?” I gasp.
