9. Roman
The willpower it took not to call the gate and order the Navigator back to the house tested my impulse restraint to its limit.
If only I knew what was going through Isabel’s mind. It would be another fifteen hours before I knew where she was in all of this, whether there was some sliver of hope. I settled in for a long night of work. It was the only remedy I had for the constant longing that seemed to have established itself as a permanent part of me now.
When my phone dinged with a text, I didn’t have to look to see that it was Byron harassing me about his expense account. My brother’s behavior was becoming increasingly worrisome. His days were spent moving from one leisurely hotspot to the next, and sleeping with the trophy wives of very powerful men.
Men who could destroy him without giving it another thought.
It was dumbfounding to me that Byron didn’t appreciate his position in life. He had all the money in the world, plus the freedom I would do anything to have. Nothing was expected from him, apart from behaving with a decorum befitting the Belmont name—something Byron failed at terribly.
The number of times scandals had to be squashed in the wake of his escapades had cost the trust millions. And because of that he wasn’t even a blip on the internet gossip columns, despite constantly pushing his luck.
His threat to find Isabel and use her as a pawn to influence my decision on his expense account had been duly noted. But Byron wasn’t foolish. He knew what I was capable of, and that I wouldn’t hesitate to strike back if ever he made good on his threat.
I decided not to lift the veto on Byron’s expense account. For now, his expenses would be limited to living like a wealthy bachelor, and not the outrageously extravagant tycoon he wanted to be.
Our family wasn’t considered normal under any circumstances, and Byron’s behavior no doubt stemmed from my father’s ruthless focus on me as the heir. It had always been abundantly clear that Byron was a very distant and largely inconvenient spare.
It became apparent later that my father considered me the only one who could ever take his place. If my father’s relationship with me was businesslike at best, his relationship with Byron was, simply put, acrimonious.
Our mother’s sudden death, when I was four and Byron was only two years old, hadn’t helped matters. The one thing I appreciated was Emily stepping into the role of mother without hesitation.
Even if her hands were tied when it came to making decisions about our futures, she loved us both unconditionally. Though I knew she held a special place for Byron. She thought of me as emotionally and intellectually independent, and so Byron got the lion’s share of her motherly affections.
And Emily did what most mothers would do; exercise patience until Byron one day grew a brain and realized he couldn’t continue down his destructive path. But he never did. And when it came to his bullshit, Emily’s lenience far exceeded any tolerance of mine.
Even if we were inseparable until our early teens, my years in Switzerland didn’t do our bond any favors. Byron stayed behind, and even with Emily’s adoration and the nannies constantly fawning over him, it still wasn’t enough to make up for the absence of his big brother, not to mention a father who barely paid attention to the boy.
The psychological issues Byron had to endure because of that were the only things that kept me from cutting him off completely. There was no lack of resources to help Byron get his life together, and yet his restless and destructive streak continued.
The lengths he went to just to disrupt the status quo were painful and alarming to watch. I wanted to believe that somewhere inside of him was a decent human being, desperately trying to break through the rubble of his self-imposed anarchy.
The question was, at what price, and how many casualties would he inflict along the way.