Chapter 2
Two
Nico Hever turned from the whiskey display and again surveyed the room with approval.
The somewhat generic event space had been transformed into a sophisticated Pall Mall club reading room, ideal for a man who took pride in his old-fashioned outlook.
Malcolm’s oil portrait, a traditional sitting in the style of van Dyck, dominated the area from its place of honor near the front.
The deep-red roses were decorative but acceptably masculine.
He examined the photos on the tables, set out in matching frames.
It was a big day for Roger Badgerton, the Badgerton family, the Bread Company corporate entity, and by extension of all that, Nico himself.
Luckily, thanks to Valerie’s mix of creativity, pragmatism, and attention to detail, he was convinced the memorial would unfold without issue.
The Badgertons would be able to see off their patriarch with the dutiful reverence Malcolm would have demanded and the respect for the Badgerton name he held dear.
Laughter came from the lunch table. It couldn’t be easy to run a business like Ad Astra and work with people coping with the valleys rather than the peaks of life, but Valerie had surpassed his expectations.
She’d dealt with Roger, and then Nico, with a compassionate sensitivity complemented by her superb knowledge and experience.
“People should leave uplifted,” she’d told him in one of their early conversations.
Rather than depressed by thoughts of their own mortality had been left unsaid, but he’d filled it in.
It had been a treat to watch Valerie tie in elements of Malcolm’s life.
Take the heavyweight LL Bean–style canvas bags, filled with a fresh loaf of Malcolm’s favorite Bread Company sourdough rye, which would be provided to guests as they left.
They were the perfect memento of Malcolm, who had prided himself on his generosity (admittedly, only at a personal level and limited to his peers, since he’d fought viciously against increasing minimum wage and corporate taxes).
The bags had been silk-screened with a commissioned pen-and-ink sketch, an idyllic scene of a lakeside dock with a steaming coffee cup and one of the Bread Company’s distinctive honey buns balanced on the arm of a Mariposa chair.
It radiated an exclusive if-you-know-you-know allure the guests would appreciate.
Nico adjusted his green tie in the window reflection.
A woman once said he looked good in green, a casual compliment he’d hung on to for years.
He’d taken more care than usual over his appearance, telling himself it was to honor Malcolm and not to impress Valerie.
It was curious that a woman so filled with life had picked such a grim focus for her business.
His due diligence research had uncovered Valerie’s background in weddings and galas: high stress but without the added weight of heartache and bereavement.
He’d spent a lot of time over the last three weeks wondering why Valerie had chosen to embrace the worst moments of people’s lives, which meant he’d spent a lot of time thinking about Valerie herself.
It made him a little uncomfortable, like a kid with a crush, but he suspected this would soon fade.
Work would rush back in to fill the space where Valerie had taken up more of his thoughts than seemed reasonable for a woman he barely knew.
He listened to her chat with Ricky over the sushi.
The serious expression and primly clasped hands of her online corporate headshot barely resembled the real-life woman.
He didn’t know if it was her personality that animated her face, or if she simply photographed terribly, but in person she dazzled in a way the camera didn’t come close to capturing.
Her features were fascinatingly narrow—long eyes, a thin nose, and a mouth with delicate lips he found sexier than a magazine-perfect pout—but it was her presence that caused him to stumble over his polite greeting.
A light shone from her, and when he’d reached out to shake her hand earlier, part of him wondered if it would linger on his skin like bioluminescence on a night beach.
Her black pants clung to generous curves and the white shirt made her skin glow.
She glanced over Ricky’s shoulder and smiled at him, instantly decimating any idea of his crush fading. Confirmed: He would ask her for coffee when this was all done. Or drinks. Dinner. Anything. All of it.
Hoping he was staying professional—although he was already calculating if it was inappropriate to ask her out right after the event, or if he should at least wait for tomorrow—he was about to join them at the table when his phone rang.
Expecting it to be Roger, who had an allergy to texting, Nico was surprised to see it was his middle sister.
Kimmy rarely called, as she preferred to communicate via memes that he often found incomprehensible. He moved to the corner and answered.
“Stefanie and I have been talking,” she said.
Those six words were enough to ruin his day although Kimmy and Stefanie left him out of conversations all the time.
While he disliked talk simply for the sake of it, he’d felt empty when he’d heard them giggling behind Kimmy’s door as a kid or seen them leaving to go somewhere without him.
As an adult, the only thing that had changed was that he’d gotten better at hiding his feelings.
Which meant he did not say, What else is new, but instead acted like a grown man and said, “Talking about what?”
“Mom and Dad. Their fortieth wedding anniversary is coming and we need to mark the occasion.”
“Okay.” He wasn’t sure why she was calling. His two older sisters—mostly Stefanie, to be fair—rarely listened to him.
“Stef says she’s tired of being the one to plan family stuff and wants you to step up.” Kimmy’s tone said, Don’t shoot the messenger.
“I’m working on a project with a tight deadline.” He wasn’t, no more than usual, but he resented Stefanie acting as if he was the one slacking when she refused to listen to any idea he ever had to offer. What was the point of contributing if he was only going to get shot down?
“You always have work.”
“My job is busy.”
“Mom gets upset when you miss the biweekly family dinner. Dad does, too, but he won’t say anything because he’s a human clam.” Kimmy sounded serious, which was not her usual default setting.
“You know I was out of town, and before that I was sick.”
“Before that, you were at an event and before that, blah blah. That’s a pattern of avoidance, in case you didn’t notice.”
This was true enough. He was tired of feeling like he didn’t belong, while forcing a smile through Stefanie’s endless teasing. The relief when he’d missed the first dinner, and then the second, and so on, had been enough to overwhelm the guilt he felt from staying away.
“I’m worried about you,” Kimmy said. “You don’t have any life.” At least she’d let the family thing go, although he wasn’t sure this was an improvement.
He was going to say he had Roger, but decided that didn’t negate her point.
“You haven’t gone on vacation in years,” she added.
“I was in Edmonton last week.”
“Did you see anything besides the inside of a conference room?”
“I drove by the legislature building.”
“Wow, living life to its fullest.”
“It’s work.” He ran his finger along his collar, not liking this discussion and itching to join Valerie as she debated some point with Ricky.
“Correct, you’re an employee. For money. Not a friend, or a member of the family. It’s like you forget there’s a difference.”
That stung, but he rallied. “I have a job I like, with a boss who appreciates me. I also get paid well. It’s natural to put more into what I do.”
“Just because you’ve basically hit the golden trifecta of employment doesn’t make it impervious to critique,” she said.
His phone beeped with another call. “I have to go. Bye, Kimmy.”
“The anniversary, Nico. It’s important.”
“I’ll send some ideas.” There, he could contribute but keep his distance from Stefanie’s digs.
“Send them to both of us. Me and Steffy.”
“Fine.” At least if he kept it to email he could delete the messages when Stefanie started inevitably being Stefanie. The phone beeped again.
“Thank you.” She paused. “Hey.”
“What?”
“Like it or not, a good job is only a job, but we’ll always be your family. I love you.”
She disconnected. Kimmy had no patience for the drawn-out farewells that their mother and Stefanie deemed necessary, a trait Nico appreciated, especially with Penny Badgerton-Willis waiting on the other line.
“Where are you?” she demanded when he picked up. Roger’s sister was Malcolm’s only daughter and eldest child, the self-proclaimed matriarch of the family, and a woman unused to hearing the word no.
“Helping set up for today.” Roger frequently told him it wasn’t his job to deal with Penny, but Nico considered protecting Roger’s peace of mind as part of his role. Sometimes, that meant from his own family.
“Is the planner there? I want to talk to her.”
“I can pass on a message.” Running interference from Penny was the least he could do as Valerie finished setting up.
“Never mind. I still can’t believe we’re doing this gauche pass-around thing, like some low-rent suburban Christmas office party,” Penny said. “A formal meal is the correct way to honor my father.”
Nico had heard this complaint several times since the decision had been made two weeks ago, and he stuck to the party line.
“Roger agreed this was more suited to Malcolm’s personality,” he said as he watched Alexis berate a member of the catering staff for apparently asking a question. “He hated rubber chicken dinners.”
“As if I would allow chicken at Dad’s memorial when capon and pheasant exist. A quail would do. Duck at a stretch, although the quality has plummeted since every taco restaurant in the city put it on their menu.”
“There’s a smoked duck canapé on the grazing board,” he said to be difficult.
“Grazing boards, my God.”
Nico fell back on his usual method of dealing with Penny: agreeing she was right.
“I understand,” he said as he watched Alexis move a table away from its proper spot to where it would block access to the entrance.
It hadn’t taken Nico long to realize she was the embodiment of the Dunning-Krueger effect and would require monitoring.
“You might as well serve those jalapeno poppers from the grocery store.”
“I hear you.” There was no point telling Penny it was too late to make changes. She had the rich woman’s belief that anything was possible, given enough money.
“This is an important day and I should have known better than to trust Roger with it. I would have planned this properly myself if my gallery hadn’t been launching a new artist. And of course I had to get the dogs settled on their diets. I’ll be there in an hour to check on things.” She hung up.
Nico wasn’t worried about Penny’s arrival.
Valerie had it all together. He glanced down at the plan she’d given him, labeled neatly with his name, and went to move the table back to where it should be.
As Valerie joined him to check through the final details, he relaxed.
For the first time in his career, he didn’t need to worry about an event.
And he would definitely ask her out before he left today.