1. Gabriel #2
I shoot him a baleful glare, which seems to slide right off of him.
Tristan has always been unflappable, completely impervious to anyone else’s frustration.
It’s one of the reasons he’s such a good leader.
He can remain calm even when everyone around him is agitated.
But right now, I wish he’d just fuck off.
“Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s only three years,” he says with a shrug.
Three years.
That was our late father Julian Thorne’s stipulation. In his will, he specified that each of us had to enter into a marriage with a woman of his choosing for a minimum time period of three years. Otherwise, we would forfeit our shares in the family’s company.
I’m not about to throw away everything I’ve worked for just to avoid it, but the thought of being tied down like this is suffocating. My father was inscrutable when he was alive, and now, I think I understand him less than I ever did.
How could he do this to us? To me?
“I get it, Gabe.” Tristan’s voice is steady. “You’re doing this for the family, for the company. But you can also make it work for you.”
Make it work for me? How? How can I make this work for me when I can’t even stomach the thought of it? When any reminder of it ruins my whole day?
My throat feels tight and constricted. The woman I’m supposed to marry, Alexis Beaumont, is ten years younger than me.
My mother insisted that this wasn’t a problem, wasn’t scandalous, but I know better.
She’s young, hopeful. She doesn’t want to be trapped in a marriage to some miserable widower with a daughter.
The whole farce is ridiculous. It makes me feel sick, and even though I know he’s being sincere, Tristan’s optimism feels like salt in an open wound.
Arguing would just keep the conversation rolling, though, and that’s the last thing I want—especially here, in the boardroom, with Tristan’s assistant and the FlashUp guys listening in. So rather than fuel the fire, I bite my tongue and shift in my seat, trying to push the discomfort aside.
“Let’s get back on track, shall we?” I lean forward, jolting my laptop out of its screensaver.
“Right. FlashUp.” Tristan clears his throat. “I don’t think we need to worry about the interface itself. The app works fine, and it’s user-friendly. If you ask me, the issue is the content.”
“Agreed,” Dominic says. “We don’t need some start-up moron to mess with the design. Especially not that moron.”
“If it’s content, then what are we supposed to do about that?” one of the FlashUp guys asks. “We have a broad array of stuff available on there already. Interviews, music videos—”
“Nothing that other apps don’t have,” I counter. “Nothing that can make people delete TikTok and move over to us.”
Tristan points his pen in my direction. “Precisely that.”
“So we need something new,” Beckett says. “Like what?”
Silence descends over the room as we all consider the question. I cast around for ideas, but my mind feels like static, like I’m trying to tune into a channel that just won’t come in clearly.
The quiet is broken by my phone’s ringtone, a normally unobtrusive chime that sounds unnaturally loud in the stillness. I grit my teeth, cringing.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Tristan waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
I glance down at the screen. It’s Margaret Collins, my daughter’s nanny.
Margaret is pretty much the backbone of my household.
She’s been working for me for several years now.
She doesn’t live in my house, but she spends plenty of time there, looking after Peyton while I’m at work and helping keep things in order.
When she calls, I answer, no matter what.
I gesture to the phone. “Anyone mind if I take this?”
“Go ahead,” says Tristan. “We can take a couple of minutes, grab coffee.”
There’s a flurry of activity around me as everyone gets to their feet, stretching and pacing over to the wet bar in the corner of the room. I take the call.
“Margaret? Everything okay?” I ask.
“Everything’s fine, Mr. Thorne,” she answers brightly. “I have Peyton here—just picked her up from school. She has something she wants to tell you.”
“Oh, yeah?” A smile comes to my face, unbidden. “Let’s hear it.”
There’s a rustle on the line as Margaret passes the phone. Then Peyton’s voice comes through, sweet and small, with a noticeable lisp on the sibilants.
“Daddy, guess what?”
“What is it, love?”
Over by the wet bar, where he’s fiddling with the coffee maker, Tristan pauses.
He glances over his shoulder, grinning, and I scowl at him.
I can’t hold the expression, though, not with my little daughter’s voice in my ear.
Just talking to her is enough to sap the tension from me, no matter how much stress I’m under.
“One of the other kids got a pet kitten,” Peyton says solemnly.
“Oh, yeah?” Oh, boy. I think I know where this is headed. “Did you get to see a picture?”
“Uh-huh. It was adora—adorable.” She’s careful with the word adorable, saying it slowly to make sure she gets it right. Peyton is a precocious kid, and at six years old, her vocabulary is expanding in leaps and bounds.
“What color was it?”
“It was orange,” she says. “And it had some white on its tummy.”
“It sounds very cute. Is there a reason you wanted to tell me this?” I glance up from my laptop screen, shooting Dominic and Beckett a glare to cut off their silent laughter.
“I thought that… I was thinking about what if… what if we had a kitten?”
“There it is,” I say, a grin spreading across my face even though Peyton can’t see me. “We’ll see, okay, Bug? A kitten is a big responsibility.”
“Responsi… responsibily?”
“Responsibility,” I say, matching her cautious, exploratory cadence. “It means that it’s hard work. Pets depend on you to take care of them.”
“I would take care of it!” she declares. “I would be the best carer ever!”
“I know you would.” Warmth fills my chest at her enthusiasm. “But first, you need to make sure you know how to take care of it. We can check out some books about cats, and maybe practice on something a little easier—like a fish or a hamster. What do you say?”
“Okay!” Peyton says gleefully. “I’m gonna name it Cupcake!”
“That’s an excellent name,” I tell her. “We can talk more about this when I get home later. Sound good?”
“Yes! I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, Bug.”
Peyton hangs up the phone, and I set mine face down on the table, a residual smile lingering on my face. I glance at Dominic and Beckett, who are still stifling their amusement.
“Sorry,” Beckett chuckles. “Just imagining you as a kitten dad. I could totally see you dressing it up in little sweaters.”
Dominic guffaws. “Oh, he will. He’s a fucking marshmallow.”
“A marshmallow,” I repeat, deadpan. “Right. I’m sure that’s what Neal Dixon thinks.”
“You can try to play it off all you like,” Beckett says. “I hear the way you talk to Peyton.”
“Okay, well, it’s different with Peyton.” Nobody makes me soften like my daughter. Since her mother’s death, she’s been the center of my whole damn world. I can be cold, I can be ruthless when I need to be—but not with her. Never with her.
Tristan returns to the table, coffee in hand, his grin far too smug for my liking.
“Of course it’s different,” he says, lowering himself into the chair across from me.
“But let’s be real, Gabe. You give that kid a kitten and you’re toast. Next thing we know, you’ll be carrying it around in one of those little slings. ”
Dominic snorts. “God, I would pay money to see that.”
I rub a hand over my face, half-laughing, half-exasperated. “You’re all delusional.”
“She’s got you wrapped around her finger,” Dominic says. “That kitten is inevitable.”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “Could’ve been worse. It could’ve been a puppy. At least kittens can learn to use a litter box.”
Beckett opens his mouth to say something—probably to mock me some more—when a knock at the door interrupts him. I shift in my seat to see my secretary, Jennifer, leaning into the room.
“Mr. Thorne,” she says.
“Which one? You’ve got to be more specific when we’re all here,” Reid points out with a chuckle.
Jennifer rolls her eyes lightly. “Right. Gabriel. I just wanted to swing by to remind you about your four o’clock.” She gives me a sympathetic look as she says it, like she knows exactly how I feel about where I have to be.
Immediately, the tension that left me with Peyton’s call comes rushing back. Fuck. My four o’clock appointment is the engagement shoot.
“You need to head out soon, or you’ll be late,” Jennifer reminds me.
“Right,” I choke out through a clenched jaw. “Thank you, Jennifer. Can you call a car to the front for me?”
“Of course,” she says. She disappears, closing the door behind her. I turn back to the others, scowling.
“So… are we postponing?” asks one of the FlashUp guys, shifting his weight awkwardly.
“Looks like it.” Tristan sighs. “Everyone, sleep on it. We’ll meet again tomorrow, same time, and hopefully we’ll make a little more headway.”
I’m the first one out of the room, my laptop tucked beneath my arm. Behind me, I can hear Tristan’s voice carrying as he calls out, “Good luck with the shoot!”