11. Gabriel
Gabriel
Tristan was understanding enough to give me a few days off work after the wedding, but in all honesty, I don’t think that was helpful.
I took the time, of course. Tried to adjust. But there’s only so much adjustment one can do in three days, and by the end of my short break, I found myself longing to go into the office.
Part of that was the awkwardness of having Alexis in the house.
It wasn’t her presence that was the problem.
It was her absence, the sense that she was always lingering just out of the room, avoiding me.
She’s been polite, but distant, which makes everything all the more uncomfortable.
I wish she could relax, treat this house like her home, but I understand why she can’t. Still, it doesn’t make things easier.
Another big part of my restlessness was the strain of being away from the office. I’m used to work. It keeps me moving. Without it, my mind feels like it’s in a fog, drifting through thoughts and worries.
I was looking forward to going back in. Today, though, I realize that not even work can help me.
I sit at my desk, my fingers tapping on the edge of my laptop. I’m in a rare state. Distracted. Frazzled. I haven’t been able to focus all day, and I’m certain that everyone can tell.
At around ten in the morning, my secretary, Jennifer, comes into my office, a cardboard cup of coffee in one hand and a memo in the other. She pauses in the doorway. “You doing okay, Mr. Thorne?”
I clear my throat, looking up. “Yeah. All good. I’m just… a little out of it today.”
She smiles, brandishing the coffee. “I thought so. You looked like you could use this.”
Jennifer crosses my office and sets the memo down on the edge of my desk, then hands me the coffee cup. I accept it with a grateful nod.
“Thanks,” I mutter, breathing in the earthy scent.
“Black, no sugar. The usual.” Her smile widens. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask. You know I’m here for you.”
“I really appreciate it, Jennifer,” I say, turning my attention to the memo. “Just… a lot on my mind.”
She leaves my office, the door closing behind her with a click.
I sigh, taking a sip of the coffee. It’s scalding.
It burns my tongue. Still, it’s a welcome distraction from my whirling thoughts.
I place the cup down and try to refocus, flipping through my emails to find something, anything, that can pull me back into work mode.
There’s a knock at my office door. I sit back in my chair, frustrated, a headache beginning to brew behind my temples.
“What do you want?”
“Jesus, Gabriel.” Beckett’s voice drifts through the door. “You don’t have to bite my head off.”
I let out a groan and reach for the coffee cup. It’s going to be a long day, and I’ll need every precious drop of caffeine. “Come in.”
Beckett enters, his laptop tucked under one arm. He drops into the chair opposite my desk. “We need to talk about FlashUp.”
“Do we?” I reply sarcastically. “I’d rather not, to be honest.”
Ignoring me, Beckett opens his laptop and turns it around. There’s a pie chart open on the screen, displaying a colorful breakdown of user engagement metrics.
“Based on this data, it looks as though FlashUp has a bit of a bot problem,” he says. “We need to address this before it spirals out of control. Engagement is down across the board, and the number of accounts flagged for suspicious activity is rising.”
I lean forward, studying the pie chart. “Okay, but how is that our fault? Isn’t that more of an issue for the security team?”
“You’d think. But their job is fixing the problem. It’s our job to focus on why it happened in the first place.”
I stare at him blankly, uncomprehending. “So…”
“It’s an issue with the app,” he sighs. “It’s drawing bots because it’s not optimized for real user interaction.”
My brow furrows. He’s right. This isn’t a new issue with FlashUp, either. We’ve dealt with waves of bots over the past few months, and it’s been difficult to even gauge how many human users we have.
“Any ideas?” I ask him.
“None. Zero.” He scowls, turning his laptop back around. “But it’s pretty clear to me that our issue is with content, which is why I came to you. We have an authenticity problem on our hands.”
“You’re saying it needs, what—a human touch?”
“Yes,” Beckett says. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
I purse my lips, my gaze drifting to the window. Outside, a rare rainstorm is gathering, clouds darkening the sky over the San Gabriel Mountain Range. It’s unusual weather for this time of year. The air feels charged. As I watch, the first few drops splatter against the glass.
“Gabe, where’d you go?” Beckett snaps his fingers, one eyebrow raised. “Hey.”
I clear my throat, trying to bring myself back to the present. “Sorry. I’m listening.”
Beckett gives me a searching look. After a long pause, he asks, “How’s married life treating you so far?”
I grimace. “It’s… definitely an adjustment,” I admit, glancing out the window at the rain, falling in sheets over the distant ridge and speckling the city around us.
“You don’t have to give me the media-friendly answer.”
“Okay.” I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until I see spots. “It’s fucking strange, that’s what it is. I have no idea how Tristan did it.”
Even as I speak, the image of Alexis’s face without makeup flashes in front of my eyes, fresh and gorgeous. Strange is one word for our situation, sure. I can think of about ten others that I don’t feel like saying aloud.
Beckett nods sympathetically. “Yeah. I get you. This whole situation… it’s hard to accept.” The look on his face suggests that he’s not looking forward to his own arranged marriage. Our mother mentioned it briefly a few weeks ago: he’s next on the chopping block.
“It’s a shit show,” I mutter.
He sits back in his chair, his hand rising to rub his forehead. “Yeah. It’s all just about whatever deal is most advantageous. It’s the fakest shit I can imagine. The Beaumonts decided they could get more bang for their buck, so they went behind closed doors with Mom and—”
“Wait,” I say, sitting up straighter. “What do you mean, ‘more bang for their buck?’”
“Oh.” Beckett blinks. “You didn’t know? Apparently, Alexis had a different match arranged before her engagement to you was set up. I heard one of her friends talking about it at the wedding.”
That comes as a surprise, and not a pleasant one. I lean forward, a surge of intensity going through me. It’s all I can do not to glare at Beckett. “A different match?”
“Yeah,” Beckett says. He glances down at his laptop, typing for a few seconds.
When he turns the screen around, he’s tabbed away from his pie charts.
Instagram is open in their place—a man’s profile.
Travis Whitaker. In his profile picture, he’s standing confidently, an effortlessly charming smile on his face.
He’s tall, with sandy blond hair that’s tousled just enough to look stylish, and piercing green eyes.
Irritation prickles through me, and I involuntarily clench my fists at the sight of him. The idea of Alexis being promised to another man annoys me in a way I don’t want to delve into too deeply.
“He’s some venture capital guy,” Beckett says, turning the computer around again.
“Has a startup, has his fingers in a few other pots. He’s not as big of a deal as you, so it makes sense that her parents broke it off.
They get a lot more out of Thorne Enterprises than they do from some standard investor. ”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “Oh, that’s just great. Fucking love finding out that I was the second option.”
“Not the second option,” Beckett counters. “The better option.”
I glower at him across my desk. “Do me a favor, Beck—get out of my office, will you?”
Beckett clicks his tongue, snapping his laptop shut. “Someone’s testy. Drink your fucking coffee and try not to kill anyone today, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I scoop up the cardboard cup, taking a perfunctory sip as Beckett rises from his seat. The bitter liquid burns my throat, but I welcome the sensation as a distraction from the frustration churning in my mind.
“Seriously, though,” Beckett adds, lingering at the door. “Take it easy. I know things are rocky right now, but you can’t let it eat you alive. And we do have to talk about FlashUp. Sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll try to think of something,” I say wearily, turning my attention back to my laptop. “See you later.”
The rest of the day drags, the minutes stretching into what feels like hours as I wrestle with my thoughts.
I flip between emails, spreadsheets, and project updates, but my mind keeps drifting back to Alexis—or, more annoyingly, to Travis Whitaker’s stupid, smug face.
It feels like I’ve been here for a month by the time five o’clock rolls around.
Unlike the rest of my brothers, I don’t tend to stay at the office after hours.
Of course, the work never ends, and I’m not done when I leave Thorne Enterprises.
But by the end of the day, I want to see my daughter.
I never stay past five if I can help it.
If the work is really piling up, I just work from home after she goes to bed.
I’ll be damned if I miss her childhood for anything, even for the company.
I drive myself home, the windshield wipers working overtime to keep the rain at bay. It’s been ages since we’ve had rain like this. The Pacific Ocean is choppy with the unrelenting downpour, waves crashing violently against the shore.
When I arrive at my house, the familiar sight brings a sense of warmth amid the storm. The lights glow through the rain-streaked windows as I park the car and make a run for the porch.
The second I step through the threshold, I hear a rustle of fabric from the living room. Frowning, I close the door on the downpour and head deeper into the house.
Alexis is standing by the couch. From the looks of things, she just jumped to her feet. She’s holding a book in one hand and a blanket in the other. For some reason, even though this is her house now too, she looks incredibly guilty.
That doesn’t sit right with me.
“You know, you can relax,” I say, trying to keep my tone light, but the unease clings to the air between us.
“Sorry,” she begins, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know when you’d be home—”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” I tell her. My gaze drops to the book in her hand. “What are you reading?”
Quickly, she tucks the book beneath her arm, hiding the cover. “Oh—it’s nothing.”
For a moment, I consider pushing the issue. Eventually, my tact wins out over my curiosity, and I nod, letting the subject drop.
“How was your day?” I ask. I find myself truly wanting to know the answer. It seems like she’s been around the house all day, but I know she works for Vérité. I can’t help but wonder why she isn’t coming home from work at the same time as me.
“Oh. It was fine,” she says nervously. “I spoke to my father this morning, and he told me they didn’t need me to come in today.”
My brows draw together. “What do you mean, they didn’t need you?”
She shrugs. There’s a hint of consternation on her face for a brief instant, then it vanishes. “That happens a lot, actually. I’m technically employed by the company, but they tell me I don’t need to come in all the time.”
It bothers her, even if she doesn’t admit it.
I can tell by the way her fingers fidget with the hem of the blanket.
And I think I can guess why too. This is her family’s company.
Her father is the CEO. I can imagine how I would feel if my own father had dismissed me like that, treated me like an afterthought.
“Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands,” I venture cautiously.
I don’t want to drag any ill feelings to the surface if she’s not willing to vent them, but I can’t shake the feeling that she’s holding back, burying her frustrations beneath a veneer of calm.
“What do you usually do when you’re not working? ”
She lets out a breath. “Well, I read a lot,” she admits. “I spend most of my time waiting to get called in, honestly.”
“You should use your time however you want. Pursue something other than your family’s company.”
Her eyes widen. “What?”
I shrug, nonchalant. “It’s clear that you’re smart and capable. You don’t have to just wait around for their call. Find a passion project, or something. Something that will make you happy.”
She’s silent for a long moment. I can practically see the gears turning in her head. She seems struck by this idea, as if it’s never occurred to her before now.
“A passion project,” she says quietly, almost to herself. Clearly, she has something in mind. The beginnings of an idea, at least.
I open my mouth to ask her what she would want to do, but before I can, the front door swings open. I hear Peyton’s voice above the patter of the rain. “Daddy! Where are you?”