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“Of course.”

“Mum?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“So, everyone knew except me? Why did you choose to tell me now? Why not keep me in the dark until the dinner’s done and finished?”

“Because you need to understand what’s at stake here.”

The answer chills me. Right to the bone.

Christopher pulls up a chair and sits opposite me.

“Dad wants everything secured before he goes. The partnership. The legacy.”

I hold back a retch. “Including us, I guess. Marriage. Offspring in the pipeline.”

“Especially us. Yes. This is serious business, Alice.” He holds a hand to his heart. “It’s going to be a challenging time for both of us.”

My heart is in my stomach. Pained and angry.

“I’m not part of a merger, Christoper. I’m a person, just like you. And you’re someone who is losing his dad. Spend some time with him, enjoy the time you have left.”

He looks at the floor. “Dad just wants to know everything will continue. He wants security. We all do.”

We all do. Like they are some faction I’m an outsider of. But I guess I am.

“Business will continue without us getting hitched,” I say. “It’s been doing just fine for decades.”

“It isn’t only about the companies. It’s about our families and what we’ve built together.”

Fucking hell. This situation is utterly gross. Tarnished with shackles I can’t shake off.

Every objection now has to pass through the fact that Trevor Otley is dying.

“You raced back from Chicago because of him?”

Christopher’s mouth tightens.

“Of course. Why else do you think I came? I came as soon as I could.”

I’d imagined ambition. Greed. A smug desire to claim his place in the Parker empire.

I hadn’t imagined grief. Not for one single second.

“He wants to see me settled,” Christopher says.

“And marrying me proves that, does it?”

“To him, yes.”

“And what does it prove to you?”

He takes too long to answer. He looks choked up.

“That I did what Dad needed me to do, while I still had time.”

I look down at my hands. They seem so far away.