Page 93 of The Spare
“This was taken at a rugby match.”
I couldn’t help but smile. The picture was of Henry and me before the match began. He was injured in the scrum, and after that, he stuck to tennis or boxing. Ironically, he sustained far more serious injuries from those endeavors.
“You two were inseparable for years.” She smiled warmly and took a long pause. “When are you planning on telling Henry?”
Her tone lacked any irritation, but I felt my pulse tick up again. How did she know? “About?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I may not know my daughter as well as I should, but I know her well enough to know when she’s in love.”
My eyes darted around the floor. Beatrice became more motherly after our parents died. By that point, however, Sloan and Henry weren’t really interested in her support. She did try, though. There was no point in lying to her. “Soon”
“Good. He’ll be happy for you.”
I had trouble believing that. Probably because Henry and I got into a lot of trouble together. He knew and saw everything. She didn’t say anything about how she felt about my relationship with her daughter. Beatrice played it close to the vest.
“You’re okay with it?” I asked. We’d concealed our relationship for months from the entire family. Beatrice was stoic, but she had to have some opinion on the matter.
She laughed. “Do you remember Sloan’s law school graduation?”
I did. Every minute of it. She wore a red dress and sky-high heels that made her nearly as tall as me. She wore them in an act of defiance, knowing everyone would tell her she was too tall to wear them. The graduation was outdoors; I still remembered the way the wind picked up the loose waves in her hair. She was excited about her job at the firm. She wore the same perfume as she did now.
“I suspected for some time before that.” She closed the album, handed it to me, and continued. “But that day, I knew. The way you looked at her, like you’d stop breathing if you looked away. My daughter isn’t known for her patience. I’m surprised you waited so long.”
I grinned and suddenly felt lighter. The boundaries I thought I’d crossed when pursuing Sloan seemed inconsequential now.
“There was a brief period I thought maybe I was wrong.” She walked to me and laid her hands on my shoulders. She shook her head in disappointment. “I was starting to think you’d run away forever.”
“I won’t ever leave her.”
“Good.” She stacked the albums and handed them to me. “I expect you to be at Thanksgiving every year from now on. No exceptions.”
* * *
That night, Sloan came home with me.
She stood in the kitchen in her pajamas, the short silk ones that drove me crazy, reading some documents for work.
Enraptured by a merger document, she didn’t hear me walk up behind her. She jolted back when she felt my breath on her neck. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” I whispered in her ear. She let out a contented sigh when I pulled her into me. Her shoulders fell, and my face got lost in the hair that swept along her neck.
I needed to tell her about the board, the last secret between us. Her body leaned back against mine, fitting against me perfectly. The temptation of holding her tightly all night was too strong to deny today.
I would tell her in the morning.
CHAPTER48
Sloan
The will would be read to the family at my parent's house tomorrow. I was drained already. The only silver lining to this day was coming home to Marcus’s place. All I wanted was to lie in bed, wrapped up in his arms. We’d tell them soon. The weight of the secret was taking a toll on him. I could feel it.
I reviewed a few merger agreements, then turned my attention to the twelve names that would soon decide Henry’s fate.
The board.
With my grandfather’s passing and my father taking a step back from the company, Henry would be interim CEO. It meant the board would have to vote to retain him in perpetuity. Normally, it wouldn’t be a concern. Henry could handle the job. But his extracurriculars were getting attention. I knew that meant we needed to ensure he had the votes to remain at the helm.
I tried to figure out how we could get to six votes. A tie would mean a stakeholder vote, and the family had enough stake to keep Henry in charge, but that wouldn’t look great publicly.
Ideally, we would have seven, but I was stuck at three definitive yes-votes.
