Page 6 of The Spare
“Do I get a say in this?” I interrupted, noticing the pinched expression on Marcus’s face.
“Barcelona,” Xander reminded me as he turned away with a wink. Annoying as hell sometimes, but damn if he wasn’t charming.
“I’m going to kill your brother.” I glared at Xander as he walked quickly out of the library. “Sorry,” I added, turning to Marcus, who probably wasn’t pleased with the idea of spending the night with me. I did remind myself that he didn’t bring a date. It provided me with more satisfaction than it should have.
“You need better friends.” His tone was lighter this time, probably out of pity.
Marcus and I were friends, kind of. We were mostly pushed together by proximity, but we had always been comfortable around each other. That was until the last few times I saw him, the time leading up to when he left.
The air always seemed heavy.
I couldn’t quite pinpoint when it happened, but something was different. It felt like I annoyed him.
“If I’m going to be any good as a stand-in for my brother, I should probably ask you to dance.” He offered me his hand.
I smiled and accepted. A shiver rolled up my spine when he placed his other hand on my waist.
We danced in silence as I tried to think of something, anything, to say. “You’re back.” It came out as a statement, even though I meant it as a question.
Over the last decade and a half, I had come to expect his piercing eyes and finely chiseled body at get-togethers, nights out, and the holidays.
He and Henry attended business school together after undergrad. After that, they both started at Amari Global, my family’s company. He was the closest thing our grandfather had to a protégé. Henry would never admit it, but he had always felt like Marcus was the heir grandfather expected while Henry was the one he got. Marcus quickly rose in the ranks and ended up leaving for a startup that sold not too long after. He made a killing.
In today’s world, success in the biotech industry was less about discovering the next great drug or device and more about acquiring its intellectual rights. Marcus’s company, Sutton Industries, did that with surgical precision. Thus, the legend was born. He started his own company and quickly became my brother’s only real business rival.
“In the flesh,” he answered after a few seconds, pulling me from my thoughts. “I have some work to do here until after the new year.”
When Marcus left to travel constantly for work, the four of us became three. Henry became increasingly solitary, which only left Xander and me. None of us had mourned what was lost, but we all felt it.
“Are you going to stay?” My voice cracked, sounding far more emotional than I meant it to. “Xander misses you.” I melted a bit when I saw his features soften at the sentiment. “We all do.”
Anyone who knew Marcus, really knew him, wasn’t surprised by Sutton Industries’ meteoric rise. Marcus put his work ahead of almost everything. The only time I’d ever seen anyone come ahead of his career was when Xander needed him.
He didn’t answer. His eyes moved around the room, anywhere but on me. He looked almost pained with the question, so I tried to think of something to lighten the mood.
Marcus beat me to it. “Barcelona?” he asked. I looked up to see a small smile tugging at the side of his face. An eyebrow rose, and his eyes finally met mine. “I don’t remember any calls from the Spanish police.”
My heart fluttered at the lightness in his tone.
“You heard that? We took care of it.” I lifted my chin to look confidently at him. “I’m not some Fabergé egg that could break at any moment. I can handle myself.”
His smile grew wider. He peered down at me with intrigue in his eyes. “So much so that Xander is blackmailing you with it?”
“He has his cards, I have mine. I’m not going to waste them on a gala.”
His hand slowly moved from my waist to the small of my bare back. It splayed, almost possessively. Liquid fire trickled down my spine, warming and rolling chills through me at the same time.
“What would you waste them on?” he drawled. His eyes remained locked on mine; the heavy weight of his full attention bore down on me. Except now, it didn’t make me nervous. What it did to me was a different feeling entirely.
After a long pause, I realized I hadn’t answered. “Bribing government officials.” My expression was flat, my tone serious.
He laughed.
Xander’s senior year of college was the year their parents passed tragically in a car accident. Every year around that time, Xander and I would take a trip somewhere to get his mind off it. The annual trip grew into a ritual.
We often got into some mischief on those trips. And whenever one of us needed to be bailed out, so to speak, we had a fun little game of lording it over the other. The stories were top secret between the two of us. The Barcelona I-owe-you was a particularly salacious story that made me glad Henry was the Amari that got hounded by tabloids, not me.
“Sloan Saanvi Amari, you are full of surprises.” His smile felt like sunrays after a snowstorm, a warmth that cut through the chill.
