Chapter 2
TRISTAN
Part of me isn’t surprised. Discussions with Grandfather about succession have been more like hostile takeover negotiations than I expected.
But still, an engagement by the end of the summer?
That’s three hundred days earlier than I wanted, give or take. My siblings are looking at me, waiting for a reaction.
“I’ll handle it.” I hop off the wall and Katie follows.
“You don’t have to, Tris.” Aiden’s voice is grave.
Marriage, he means.
“I actually do. No marriage means no shares from the trust. No shares means I can’t be CEO. What’s a few months?” I shrug. I’ve known for years that marriage was coming for me, like a truck barreling full speed ahead.
Aiden’s expression darkens. I can practically see his older-brother protective instincts firing, like he’s going to step in front of a bully or take the fall for me after crashing Dad’s favorite car. If I express even an ounce of doubt, Aiden will step in.
I can’t let him do that. A year ago, my siblings and I sat down and decided that Aiden wouldn’t be the only one to abide by the trust terms and run the family.
We would all marry. We’d all inherit our shares of the company and our piece of the estate.
And Aiden would get to enjoy his life instead of pretending to be the parent we didn’t have.
“We all agreed,” Whit says, clearly thinking what I’m thinking.
Sienna nods. “Nothing has changed since last year, Aiden. You’re not the only one who has to lead the family.”
“It was a huge burden marrying me, I know.” Emory’s voice is teasing and Aiden gives his wife a smile. She reaches over and squeezes his hand.
My chest pinches in response. This is what our family needs more of.
Aiden deserves happiness. He deserves a full life and the kids he used to claim he didn’t want.
I hear him and Emory whispering about it now.
I see the faraway look he gets when she talks about the future, when he tucks her close and murmurs in her ear. He wants it.
I want it for him. All he wants is to make whiskey and have a family. He’s not interested in running Prince Bourbon, but I am.
“I’ll handle it,” I say firmly. I straighten. “You still want me to be CEO, right?”
Aiden nods, a faint smile on his face. I look at my siblings. They’re nodding too. Katie has a funny look on her face, her eyes brimming with an emotion I can’t name.
I might be fucking terrified of being CEO, but this feels right. Being the one to finally do something for my family feels good. I’m not the spare or the fuckup right now. Aiden isn’t taking the heat for me, and I’m the one protecting my siblings. They deserve this.
“Then it’s decided.”
“Tristan.” Katie points to the house. “I can hear him. He’s on the mic.”
My stomach drops. I start jogging for the house. I hear Katie behind me. Partygoers are outraged at being jostled but then see who it is and step aside.
“A Prince’s twenty-ninth birthday is an auspicious day,” my grandfather is saying.
His voice doesn’t waver. His back is straight.
There’s a determined edge to his gaze that only grows as I step from the terrace onto the ballroom floor.
“Our family has always placed significance on the age of thirty, and my dear grandson is one year away from that happy day.” He smiles, but it’s almost a baring of teeth.
He’s holding my gaze. I’m nearly at the edge of the pool of light cast by the overhead floodlight.
“So far, he has proved a surprisingly elusive match. Which is why tonight, I’m pleased to announce—”
I snatch the mic out of his hand. I paste a cocky grin on my face. “That I’m looking for a spouse.”
There’s stunned silence from the assembled crowd.
They didn’t expect this to be announced.
They expected a carefully negotiated engagement with a woman from our world.
Someone I barely know, whose family expects me to give her no more than three children and increasingly lavish birthday gifts.
The prenup will detail incentives to be paid out for each child and penalties if one of us cheats.
We’ll keep homes in Hart’s Hill and an apartment in New York, and she’ll have her pick of suitable holiday destinations the rest of the year.
Our kids will go to private school and we’ll be so breathlessly unhappy that we won’t even realize it until we’re in our fifties and fuck it, what’s a few more years until we die?
I can’t think of anything worse than a marriage where I am never enough. At least if I choose my spouse, the expectations will be clear from the beginning. I’ll be in control.
Grandfather glowers at me. I give him a jaunty smile. We discussed the spouse search, but clearly he still planned to manage things behind the scenes.
I look around at the guests. College friends. The CEOs of several Fortune 500 companies. The children of several Houses in Hart’s Hill. Phones are out and filming. I let my smile grow.
“Oh come on, you all knew this was coming.”
There’s a light chuckle. I raise one brow. “Any takers?” Another chuckle, and a growl from my grandfather. “Well, now I’m offended.”
To do this, I can’t show any weakness. I need to be all in and I need the entire world to know. Otherwise, Grandfather will find a way to manipulate things.
“Fuck off.” That’s Whit. A laugh ripples through the assembled guests.
“Here’s the thing.” The crowd seems to stop breathing.
“The Houses in Hart’s Hill have a long tradition of marrying the children of other Houses.
Today, I want to change that. I’m looking for a spouse.
I don’t care what their background is. I don’t care if they’re wealthy.
I simply want the best.” There’s a collective intake of breath.
I look directly into the camera of the phone that’s closest to my face.
“You’re out there. Wherever you are. You’re my perfect match. Come find me.”
I pivot on my heel, slap the mic into Grandfather’s hand, and turn for the false wall that hides the entrance to the back hallway. I duck behind it before I make for the study and the bourbon we keep in it.
My hands shake the entire way.
“What the hell was that?” Grandfather’s voice cracks through the silence of the study.
We’re facing off over Dad’s old desk. Aiden swears he found an old gun in it once.
Emory loves to tell the story of how Aiden pulled an engagement ring out of one of the drawers of junk on the night she cornered him in here.
My lungs feel tight every time I’m in this house, but it’s worse in the seat of Dad’s power.
All the wood is polished to a high shine and portraits of dead ancestors watch us from the walls.
Aiden is leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes hard. My older brother butts heads with Grandfather even more than I do.
“I should ask you the same thing.” My voice is admirably steady. “We didn’t agree on an announcement tonight.”
Grandfather’s face tightens before he sighs. “You don’t understand.” His shoulders lower in defeat, and anxiety threads through my gut. I forget his age. We all do. “I have my reasons, Tristan.”
“I’m listening.”
He sinks into a chair. Aiden watches us silently. He won’t interfere. Not when he wants Grandfather to respect me as CEO.
“When I was born, my aunt and uncle were barely around. They spent their time vacationing and going to parties. As we got older, my cousins did the same. Much in the way your cousins do now. I’m an only child.
My parents were worried about the future of the company.
Do you know what the primary way families like ours lose money is?
” He looks between us. “It’s divorce. Followed closely by inheritance squabbles and dissipated heirs like your useless aunts and cousins spending their inheritance on expensive toys or snorting it up their noses. ”
Aiden gives me a speaking glance.
“Yes, I know about cocaine,” Grandfather says tiredly.
I restrain a laugh. He sighs again. “The trust is designed to ensure the legacy of the family. Stable marriages. Children. An appreciation for the money we have since you don’t receive anything when you’re young.
I won’t be around much longer, and you’re it.
The two of you. You’re the only ones who know how to make the whiskey.
The rest of the family doesn’t care beyond what the money can do for them.
Before I die, I want great-grandchildren.
I want to know that what we’ve built will continue after I’m gone.
” He pushes to stand, leaning on his cane.
His glance at me is serious, communicating the weight of history.
I swallow hard. “I know you want that too.”
“I do.” I keep my voice steady. Grandfather has never wanted me to run Prince Bourbon. It might be our legacy, and Aiden and I might love the company like it’s our child, but Dad’s shoes are ones I was never meant to fill.
“I’m worried that without a push, you will never be ready.”
I don’t know what to say. My hands are shaking again, and I shove them into my pockets. My siblings excel at telling Grandfather to fuck off, but not me. I’m more of a nod and smile and then do what I want later kind of guy. I don’t rock the boat. I keep everyone around me happy.
“The timing changes nothing. I still choose my own spouse.”
His gaze narrows. “I still have final approval.”
Aiden darts me a look, clearly ready to step in.
My jaw works. “As agreed.”
“I want it done by the end of the summer.”
“I have more time.” More time before I’m dragged to the altar like a prized steer to auction.
“Tristan.” His voice holds warning. “I agreed to this absurd search despite my better judgment. You are making a spectacle of this family. The shares are still mine until you meet the requirements, and I’m under no obligation to step down as CEO when you inherit them.
I want the legacy secured with minimal fuss.
You have until the end of the summer to find a spouse, or I will die as CEO of Prince Bourbon. That’s my final word.”
Charles Prince might be in his eighties, but he’s still the patriarch of the family and used to being obeyed. I still feel like a child when he takes me to task. Still, somehow, I crave his approval.
I nod. Grandfather dips his chin and walks out. I give him the finger behind his back.
When he’s gone, Aiden exhales a long “fuck.”
I shrug. “I knew it was coming.”
Aiden scrubs a hand over his face. I sling an arm over his shoulder.
“Come on, Aiden. You don’t want to run the company. I do. I need the shares or I’m a CEO with no vote. That will never work. And you know Grandfather. He’d live to a hundred just to spite me and fight me on every decision on the way.”
“Stupid fucking trust,” he grumbles.
I chuckle before I cross to the wall, where an ornate bar cart is pushed up against the wood paneling on the bottom half of the wall. There are at least twenty bottles of Prince bourbon here. All of my siblings’ vintages. Dad’s. Even the ill-advised whiskey he made for our mother.
“I need a drink.”
Aiden’s rough laugh answers me, then the creak of leather and wood as he settles deeper into the chair. “Yeah, today would be a good day for me to start.”
I smile to myself as I pour a glass of Old Kingdom. It’s Whit’s vintage. Distilled the day Whit and Sienna were born, Whit’s first, because he’s four minutes older, and bottled the day they turned eighteen. Aiden and I both helped Dad bottle it and pick the colors for the labels.
Aiden hasn’t had a drink in years, though I’ve seen him and his wife share smirks that make me think they’re doing some freaky shit with the whiskey they make. The smiling and laughing are thanks to her too.
I sink into a chair. The worn leather is soft and creased under the fine wool of my tux.
There’s no dust on any of the surfaces in here because Grandfather likes the family museum tidy.
I take a quick sip of whiskey, savoring the burn.
Whit’s vintage is my favorite. It’s the vintage I’d try to replicate for Aiden’s kids.
“Marriage isn’t so bad,” Aiden says quietly. “Don’t worry.”
“I know. You seem happy.” I keep my voice light. I turn the whiskey glass in my hands, watching the amber liquid catch the lights of the lamps. Prince Bourbon was made to be consumed like this—among family, on special occasions, in moments of quiet contemplation.
“Have you thought more about the announcement?”
I still, my heart hammering in my chest. “I don’t think the time is right.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“The company needs stability. Especially after last year when Grandfather sold the main distillery. Then that mess with the Old Kingdom recipe. We don’t need to shake things up. We don’t need to announce a new CEO yet.” I’m not ready for that.
Aiden considers me. “You want this.” He leans forward. “I know you want this. You’re marrying for this. So what’s the problem?”
“No problem. I just need a little more time. I can run things from the background just fine.”
His eyes narrow on me. “CEOs aren’t in the background. You need to be sure. You’ll need to announce eventually.”
“Trust me, I’m sure. I have so many ideas for things we could do. Hell, I feel like I’m going to break under the weight of them sometimes.” My voice cracks and I take another sip of liquor.
His smile is lopsided. “I know, Tris. You’ve always been like that. You used to run so fast you’d trip over your own feet.”
I can’t help my smile back. “Let me find a spouse. Then we can announce. Nothing matters without the inheritance, anyway.”
Aiden winces before he leans over to clap a hand on my shoulder. “Of course. Take the time you need. I’ll be here.”
I nod, my chest warm at the bond between us. I can survive a marriage. For this family, I’ll do anything.