Page 114 of Break My Heart

There it is. The question everyone wants answered.

Leo draws in a slow breath. “The title was never mine in any meaningful sense. It belonged to a life I did not choose, a family structure I stepped away from a decade ago, and obligations I am neither willing nor suited to fulfill.”

My heart hammers in my chest as I watch Leo. I murmur to my father, “He’s in control.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

We both turn our attention back to Leo.

A different reporter follows up quickly. “Are you saying you don’t believe in inherited titles?”

“I’m saying I don’t believe in accepting one for the sake of appearances when doing so would be dishonest.”

Another shouts, “Does this mean you are severing ties with the Hawthorne estate?”

Heythrop gives Leo a sideways glance. Leo’s answer is careful, as Heythrop prepped him for a version of this very question. “The estate and its associated trusts are matters for the family and its legal representatives. My personal finances, career, and future do not depend on them.”

A woman from a British outlet leans forward. “Your father, the Earl of Hawthorne, said you would be assuming the title.”

“I suspect he will be deeply opposed to this decision.”

“Are you saying you haven’t spoken to him?”

“Not since my brother’s funeral.”

She presses on. “Did he pressure you to accept the title?”

Leo goes still. Something in me locks right alongside him. I’ve seen his hands control a steering wheel at two hundred miles per hour. I’ve watched him thread a car through concrete walls with less tension in his shoulders than he has now. He takes a deep breath before saying, “I believe you’re all aware he made his expectations known.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the answer I am giving.”

Dario’s mouth curls slightly. Mine almost does too.

Another reporter calls out before being acknowledged. “Leo, were you estranged from your brother?”

The room seems to hold its breath.

Leo looks down for the first time. Only for a second. When he looks up again, his face holds his grief and honesty. “Albert and I were separated by circumstances neither of us created as children and neither of us addressed as adults.”

“Did you reconcile before his death? And if not, do you regret that?”

Heythrop leans forward. “I would like to advise my client that he is not obligated to answer that question.”

“I’ll answer part of it.” Leo’s eyes shift, almost imperceptibly, to the side of the room toward me. I know he’s gathering strength before he replies, “I will regret our very unnecessary separation for the rest of my life.”

For one brief second, it appears the reporters seem to forget they’re vultures. Then one asks, “If you regret that, why not honor him by taking the title?”

Leo bites out, “Because honoring my brother does not require becoming what harmed both of us.”

A reporter in the second row asks, more gently, “Can you explain what you mean by that?”

Leo’s eyes lower to his clasped hands. Heythrop coughs lightly. He’s encouraging Leo to dodge that question.

He doesn’t.

“My brother was raised to inherit. I was the contingency. That arrangement did not make either of us free. It made him responsible for preserving something he did not fully control. It made me useful only in the event something happened to him. I refuse to allow Albert’s death to become the mechanism that puts me back into that role.”