14. Alex
Alex
Edward Hartley is standing in my lobby, and no one thought to warn me.
I watch him through the glass before I leave my office. Charcoal suit. Overcoat folded over one arm. Both hands resting on the head of a cane he rarely needs and enjoys carrying anyway, because people underestimate men who lean on things.
He is not on my calendar. But Edward does not arrive anywhere accidentally.
My assistant appears in the doorway with her tablet against her ribs. “He declined the executive suite.”
“Somehow, that does not surprise me.”
“He said he’d wait where you could see him.”
I really should have seen this coming. I straighten a cufflink I have already straightened twice and walk out.
The lobby is white marble and glass, built to make visitors feel small before they ever reach an elevator. Edward manages to look as though the building was erected around him. His eyes take inventory before I’ve closed half the distance between us. Shoes. Tie. Face.
“Alexander.”
“Grandfather.”
“You could have called.”
“You would have found a reason not to be available.”
“I’m available now.”
“Yes.” His gaze lingers a beat too long. “I can see the effort it took.”
I let it pass without giving him the satisfaction of a reaction. “What do you want?”
“Lunch.”
“I have meetings.”
“You own the company.”
“That doesn’t mean the company stops requiring work.”
“It means other people can do some of it.” He’s already turning toward the doors. “I have a table.”
Naturally.
Frank falls in behind us without being told.
Edward notices. He notices everything, and he doesn’t comment until we’re seated at the club, in the corner table the restaurant produces for him without protest, the one that puts his back to the wall and the whole room in his sightline.
I take the chair across from him. It’s the only chair he ever leaves me.
White linen. Low conversation. A waiter who knows better than to hover.
Edward orders scotch. I order water.
His eyes flick to my glass and stay there a moment longer than the order warrants.
“Your father drank water at lunch.”
Here we go.
“He thought it kept him sharp.” Edward unfolds his napkin with the precision of a man performing surgery. “It mostly kept him poor.”
“The Pinehaven development is ahead of schedule.”
“I have the report.”
“Then we can skip the performance.”
“I did not fly to Texas for numbers I already have, boy.” He picks up his glass and doesn’t drink from it. “Projected return?”
I give him the figure.
Edward turns it over like he’s checking it for a flaw he already suspects is there. “Lower than the original model.”
“The county moved its infrastructure schedule. We adjusted.”
“Make them move it back.”
“They have voters, and they always have something to say about those.”
“So do senators.”
I look at him. He looks back, patient as a man who has never once lost a negotiation by rushing it.
This is how it always is, Edward’s preferred version of conversation: every problem has a pressure point, every person has a price, and morality is usually just the word people use for the thing they can’t afford.
“The numbers are clean,” I say.
“I didn’t say they weren’t.”
“You flew halfway across the country to imply it anyway.”
Something small moves beside his mouth, the closest he comes to amusement. “Texas has made you impatient.”
“I was impatient before Texas.”
“You used to hide it better.”
“I used to see you less.”
The waiter brings the first course. Edward waits until he’s gone.
“I am curious as to why Texas requires so much of your personal attention?”
“There are active projects here.”
“You have active projects everywhere.”
“Small towns prefer seeing the man asking them to change their zoning maps.”
“A charming explanation.”
“It also happens to be true.”
He stirs his soup while mine sits untouched between us. “You’ve changed your itinerary twice this month. You used to run four time zones from one office. Now you’re flying back and forth for work, Danny could handle half-asleep.”
“Danny handles the public side. I handle mine.”
“And Texas requires both of you?”
I meet his eyes. “Seems that way.”
He lets the silence stretch, waiting for me to explain myself. I don’t.
His attention shifts instead. “You’ve increased security.”
“I also carry insurance. Are we reviewing policies now?”
“Against what?”
“Whatever needs protecting.”
He studies me over the rim of his glass, looking for the part I am not giving him. My phone vibrates against the table.
Frank.
I turn it face down before Edward can get a better look.
“Take it.”
“If it matters, he’ll call again.”
“Maybe the increased security has concerns.”
“Frank is compensated well enough to cope with being ignored.”
Edward returns to his soup. “You look tired.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’ve always been busy.”
“I’m touched by the concern.”
“Concern implies sentiment. I’m merely observing.”
I lean back in my chair. “You should start charging for it. You might finally find something you’re good at.”
The irritation is small, but I catch it before he smooths it away.
Good.
At least one of us is enjoying lunch.
The Lunch from hell continues. He asks about labor, construction costs, county politics, another acquisition I haven’t decided whether I want.
I answer. He already knows most of the answers before I give them.
This was never about Texas, and we both know it.
By the time the plates are cleared, I’m only waiting for him to stop pretending otherwise.
Edward folds his napkin along its existing crease. Perfectly, like everything he touches. “Time is running out.”
And he finally gets to the fucking point.
I lean back. “For what?”
“You need an heir.”
A waiter passes behind me carrying glasses. Somewhere near the bar someone laughs, and the sound reaches me from very far away, because I’m no longer in the room.
I’m picturing Belle instead.
Bare feet on the kitchen tile. Soft hair falling loose over one shoulder while she stands at my stove, humming something under her breath she doesn’t know I’ve noticed.
The way she curls into my side when she finally sleeps. I force the image away before Edward can read it off my face.
“You flew to Texas for this?”
“Among other things.”
“Why don’t you bother Danny?”
“I’ve considered it.”
“Congratulations.”
Edward lifts his coffee. “If my other grandson had shown the slightest interest in building a family at any point in the last decade, I might pursue the matter with him instead.”
“Maybe you should.”
“He hasn’t dated anyone.”
“That you know of.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder whether Daniel might be gay.”
I stare at him. He drinks his coffee like he’s said nothing at all.
The comment isn’t cruel in his mind. That’s what makes it worse.
He measures people the same way he inventories assets: useful, unavailable, damaged, producing, declining.
Danny carries burn scars beneath his collar, and an entire life Edward has never once tried to understand.
To him, neither has ever seemed worth asking about.
I give him nothing.
Edward sets his cup down. “One grandson appears to have sworn off women altogether, and the other avoids the subject of marriage as if silence might somehow make the expectation disappear.”
“There’s no requirement that I marry on your schedule.”
“There’s a succession requirement.”
“The trust gives me time.”
“The board is less interested in how much time remains than in what you intend to do with it. They want certainty.”
“They have a profitable company. That should be certainty enough.”
“They want to know what comes after you.” Edward’s gaze hardens. “You have time, Alexander. You do not have forever.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then act like it.”
“I’m still alive.”
“You’re deliberately missing the point.”
“No. I simply dislike yours.”
Edward’s gaze hardens into something I recognize, the look he wears right before he stops negotiating and starts collecting. “You built something too large to leave without continuity. The board knows it. Your investors know it. I know it.”
“Wives don’t fall out of trees.”
“No. But suitable women are hardly an endangered species.”
“I haven’t met one reckless enough to endanger herself with the Hartley name.”
Edward’s mouth shifts. “Then perhaps you’ll appreciate that I did better.”
He settles back in his chair with the satisfaction of a man laying down a winning hand.
“Shaw.”
I know immediately who he means, and the irritation sharpens into something with an edge.
“What about her?”
“You’ve dated.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call that dating.”
Edward waits, the way he always waits, patient enough to let silence do the interrogating for him.
“She accompanied me to some events.”
“More than once.”
“Because she understands rooms full of people who’d rather discuss money than speak like human beings.”
“Exactly.”
“That wasn’t praise.”
“Shaw understands what comes with a family like ours,” Edward says. “She was raised with the same expectations. Legacy matters to her. Continuity matters. She wouldn’t need the Hartley name explained to her.”
“This isn’t your decision.”
“Then make yours fast.”
“And you’ll stay out of it.”
His eyebrows lift a fraction. “Alexander?—”
“I mean it.” The words come out quiet. They don’t need volume. “If I choose to marry, I choose the woman. You won’t manufacture situations and call them opportunities.”
Edward’s fingers settle against the handle of his cane.
“This company is not solely yours to gamble with.”
“Then the board can remove me.”
Silence. It lands harder than anything else at this table has managed. For once, I almost enjoy the fact that he can’t immediately tell whether I mean it.
His eyes narrow. “You say that easily, for a man who spent a decade building it.”
“I didn’t say it was easy.”
“Then stop behaving as though you have nothing to lose.”
I nearly laugh. If only he knew.
“I know exactly what I have to lose.”
Edward watches me, waiting for the crack to widen into something he can use. The old maxim sits between us without either of us saying it out loud.
Softness killed your father.