Page 2 of The Spare
I nodded again, and he was off, leaving me with a smile I would replay for hours.
But first, I texted Xander. He would have feelings of his own about his brother’s return.
* * *
We sat tucked away in the corner of a brunch spot we’d visited for years. Xander and I had driven in from Manhattan last night. We opted to stay in Philadelphia for the weekend to reminisce about our college days.
He took a sip of his coffee. His green eyes were distracted and unable to meet mine. “You saw Marcus? Where?” he asked.
“At the library.” I shuffled a bit on the chair.
“He texted me this morning before you did,” Xander said as he swiped his dirty blond hair from his eyes. “Does this mean he's back for good?”
“I didn’t ask.” Mainly because any intelligent thought jumped ship when he gave methatsmile. “He did say he came straight from Manhattan, so maybe?”
He nodded, and his brows scrunched in confusion. We all lived in Manhattan, but Marcus had been all over the globe for the last two years working.
Xander Sutton and I met almost fifteen years ago. Our older brothers were assigned as roommates during their freshman year in college, and since then, the Sutton boys had been a permanent fixture in my life. Xander started at Penn two years later, and I followed two years after that. He became my ticket to being the coolest college freshman—knowing all the cute upperclassmen was important currency for young college girls. The fact that Xander was a college heartthrob-slash-soccer star didn’t hurt either. Our friendship had grown and changed over the years, but it was one of the few things I could always count on: unwavering and unconditional support. I could rely on him for anything.
“Maybe.” Xander’s voice lowered from shock to disappointment. His older brother was the definition of living to work. And that kicked into overdrive a couple of years ago when he began traveling and prioritizing it over everything else.
Over the last two years, it had become clear that for Marcus, his company came first. It hurt Xander more than he cared to admit.
A tense couple of minutes passed; meanwhile, he gently swirled his coffee cup as if it were filled with wine.
“Thanks for being my date to this thing,” he finally spoke up, forgetting he had done me a favor by escorting me. There was no better way to keep the inevitable set-ups at bay than having Xander run defense. “I don’t think I could scrounge up one for this.”
That was categorically false. He certainly could get a date for the gala, but he was usually powerless to deny me a favor. The Sutton brothers were unreasonably attractive in different ways. Between his gorgeous green eyes, sculpted body, and charming smile, Xander had no trouble with women.
Our conversation shifted to work, particularly my hesitance to tell my family about my latest accomplishment.
I was the dutiful Indo-English daughter of an Indian-American pharmaceutical heir and his high-society English wife. The expectations set for me were offensively low. While Henry, my older brother, was poised to become CEO one day, the only thing expected of me was to sit still and look pretty. The fact that I was one of the youngest junior partners at my firm was an adorable hobby to them.
I was the spare, after all. The heir had expectations. I had charity galas.
But a six-month assignment in the London office to help strengthen my firm’s mergers and acquisition group was a game changer.
It was an important task and wasn’t usually given to new junior partners. The UK was essential in large scale merges because it was almost completely regulation free. Any firm that wanted its hands in global deals needed a strong team there.
Ensuring a stable and effective group would provide dividends for decades to come for the firm and a senior partnership for me.
“You still haven’t told them?” Xander asked, with a disappointed sigh.
“I'm going to tell them at Thanksgiving.” I leaned my head on my hand and pushed the eggs around my plate.
“Nervous?”
I shrugged. My mother wouldn’t be happy; her parents lived in London. To say they didn’t get along was a massive understatement. There was enough family drama to fill a Tolstoy novel. We only visited on rare occasions, staying in a townhouse my father had purchased to avoid being around them for long periods. Henry and I hadn’t even met our cousins on that side.
We all liked to ignore the reason for their disdain, but it loomed over me like an omnipresent cloud. Henry could ignore it better than I could. Helookedthe part, while I was unequivocally the picture of ‘mixed.’
The last thing I remember about my grandparents was seeing them for a few minutes at the townhouse. It was the last time I was in the property—the one I planned to stay in while working on the London project.
“You know, you could work from London for a few months.” I offered.
It was an idea I had rolled around in my head more than a few times. Xander managed investment portfolios at one of the largest hedge fund firms in the country and lived the exact lifestyle one would expect from a drop-dead gorgeous banker. Given London’s appeal to bankers, I was sure it would be an easy sell.
“You need to learn to live without me.” He winked.
