Page 65 of Last Resort

He nods. “It didn’t help that I fell off the grid after he died. I spent my time traveling here and there, anywhere that didn’t remind me of him.”

“And now of course you’ve been forced to come here where you’d think you’d be thinking about him all the time.”

“It’s been good and bad . . . but honestly, I think they were right. I think I got so caught up in the moment, in knowing he was slipping away, that I bought anything the dementia told me, because there’s nothing here visually that I’ve seen in the pictures I’ve sifted through of him and my mom. But it doesn’t matter though because the damage is done . . .”

He talks of his brothers’ ultimatums and the possibility of being forced out of his spot in the family business. Of the fight they had that day I left the conference room.

“So this isn’t what you want to be doing with your life?” I ask, partially joking, partially honest.

His groan is the sound of frustration. “I’ve never been given the option to do anything else.” He looks at me and the emotion swimming in his eyes allows me to see him in a different light. He’s not just the cocky, arrogant man I first met at Club Coquette. There’s more to the man. So much more. “My goal was to finish this project and walk away.”

“Your last resort.”

“Yep. My last resort.”

“Wait. Seriously?” I ask, his complete nonchalance throwing me. “You’re seriously going to walk away, away?”

He nods but his expression doesn’t look as confident as his nod is. “Yes. If my dad’s death taught me anything it was to live life to its fullest. I want to travel. I may have walked away from the strict confines and rubrics of Wharton but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever wanted to stop learning. I just want to do it by experiencing things outside of the life I grew up in.”

I stare at Callahan with his hair mussed and his smile soft. I’m surprised by his answer. I’d think a man of his stature would occupy rooms at the Four Seasons between jaunts on a private jet.

“Your answer surprises me.”

He shrugs. “Good surprise or bad surprise?”

“It just doesn’t seem to fit the image I have of you.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” he teases.

There are so many things I want to ask him. Where do you want to travel? How long would you do it for? Would traveling really fulfill that natural, determined drive I see in him when he’s at work?

He may not like it, but you can’t just turn those kinds of personality traits off like a switch.

I don’t ask any of the questions though because granted, he is talking to me, but that doesn’t mean his book is open to be read page by page.

So I ask the most obvious of all my questions.

“But by doing that—by walking away—wouldn’t that prove to your brothers everything they insinuate? That you don’t care about the family business? That what your dad built was all for naught? That—”

“I suffocate in office buildings, Sutton.”

“You’re not suffocating here, though.”

He angles his head to the side and the shyest smile slides onto his lips. “Surprisingly, no, I’m not.” He looks down to where his hand is resting on my thigh and stares at it for a beat before bringing his eyes back up to mine. “This has been different.”

“More hands-on.”

“Yes.”

“It’s different when you get to see the changes you’re making versus only analyzing them on a spreadsheet.”

“It does.”

I study him. The soft lines in his face. The sun-kissed skin. The rough cut of his jaw. The wave of his hair. This man was not made for corporate life. “I have a feeling you’ve reached your personal sharing limit for this evening.” I smile. “So why are you in my bed, making it very hard for me to work, Mr. Sharpe?”

“Because mine is lonely.” He pouts like a little boy, and I’d be lying if it’s not taking everything I have not to lean over and kiss him.

“So you think if you come and occupy mine, Mr. Brownies-In-Every-Room, that you won’t be so lonely.”