2. Mood Indigo #2
I want this. I wanted to be CEO, and now I am.
I want to make money. I like it, and I'm good at it.
I want to be considered a leader in AI—not like the rest of the jackals, but as someone who builds it the right way and points it at medicine.
We're heavy into pharma, partnered with companies racing to bring drugs to market faster. That's the work I want.
I have ambition to spare. But I'm also a Hale, and in my world, you marry with care—you bring dynasties together.
"What are you doing in here, Xavier?"
What am I doing in here? What does it look like? I'm hiding, Olivia.
I've ended up in her father's study—soundproofed, the whole expensive treatment, a clean view across Central Park to the West Side. If I lean and tilt my head, I can see Lincoln Center.
I went there with Indigo.
She loves the opera. We saw Carmen, the Zeffirelli production—not the new staging that looks like a truck stop.
Christ, what they did to Carmen is worthy of the firing squad.
We didn't have good seats because she bought the tickets and wouldn't let me upgrade.
I offered a box. She said no, this was something she wanted to do herself.
It was the best night I can remember.
She sang along. She knew every bar; she was all the way in.
She reminds me of Carmen—the swagger, the heat—except, unlike Carmen, she has no idea she's carrying it.
"We're not getting married, Olivia." I turn around. "You know that. I know that. We're not even together."
I keep going because subtle does not land with Olivia.
You have to swing the sledgehammer. "This farce you've built—telling everyone we're a couple to get through the holidays, or whatever it is we’re getting through—it's going to blow up in your face.
Because I don't want to be with you. I don't want to marry you. "
Tears fill Olivia's eyes, and I feel like an asshole. Why does she make me do this?
"I love you." Her voice wobbles. "You know that, right?"
"No, Olivia. You've never loved anyone in your life. You love yourself." I should stop now, but I don’t because she needs to get this into her thick skull. "You don't even know anything about me."
"That's not true."
"Tell me my favorite meal?”
"You love the steak at Dowling’s."
"No. The meatloaf at Gracie’s." A family-style diner on the Upper East Side.
She blinks, lost.
"Do you know what I like most?" she demands, eyes narrowing.
"You like champagne with caviar."
She frowns. "What's wrong with liking champagne and caviar?"
Nothing. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just the surface, and the surface is all she's got.
She doesn't know me. She doesn't know her own sister was in love with me, or that I was—what did I call it?
Yeah, infatuated with her for six months.
And seeing her again is not easy. Hearing her ask when I'm going to marry Olivia is not easy. None of this is easy.
I keep that to myself.
"Let's get back." Olivia wipes under her eyes with one careful finger so the makeup survives. "I just need you to be mine a little longer. You owe me this, Xavier."
I shrug. I suppose I do.
The merger went through cleanly and fast because Blake thought that I'd marry his princess. We were dating; the rest was arithmetic. All of this, every dinner, has been in the service of fusing two companies.
I don't love what I see when I lay it out like that—in black and white, instead of in color—instead of in indigo.
"And don't embarrass me in front of her,” Olivia warns. By her, she means Indigo. "Indi's been such a bitch. Why would she even ask when we're getting married?"
"Because you keep behaving like we're engaged, Olivia. It's a fair question." I rub a hand over my face. I’m so damned tired. Work is heavy. Life is heavy. Olivia makes it all heavier.
"If it’s such a fair question, Xavier, why don’t we have an answer?" She tilts her head and sneers. “What’s going on with you, Xavier, that you don’t want to marry me?”
“We are not suited.” I have said this a hundred times and am resigned to say it another thousand times until it sinks the fuck in.
“Because you’re being a spoiled asshole,” she throws back. “You think you can be successful without me? Without Daddy? Dream on.”
There's a dark side to Olivia. She can turn genuinely, breathtakingly cruel. It's one of the biggest reasons I didn’t want to marry her once I got to know her—that flash of meanness.
My mother has it. She never physically abused Kayden or me—but emotionally, she devastated us, which is why Kayden married the docile Alia who survives by being doped up on happy pills. They have a child together whom I hardly ever see—and I suspect they hardly ever see.
I worry that my marriage to Olivia will go the same way as my parents’ and my brother’s. I worry that she’ll be a mother like mine—or Alia.
I want a wife who will adore our kids—coddle them, spoil them, actually raise them—not the women in my circle who hand the children to a nanny and find them irritating on the rare occasions they're in the same room, because they aren't in love with anyone but themselves.
"I think we should just tell them now," I suggest. "Tonight. Be done with it."
"No." Her jaw sets. "She's here. No way."
"Why do you care so much what Indigo thinks?"
"Why?" Her voice climbs. "Because she thinks she's so much better than all of us, doesn't she? Because she isn't chasing the money. Oh, please—did you see what she's wearing?"
"She looks fine."
"Oh.” Her face twists, and I can see who she is beneath the veneer, and it’s not flattering. “You think she's attractive?"
My body drains out of energy. Olivia is exhausting like this—always on the attack if she doesn’t get her way, and right now she’s rabid because I’m not bending to her demands.
"This isn't about her, Olivia. It's about you and your insecurities—don't pile them on me or on her." I roll my shoulders back, trying to loosen the stiff muscles. “Let’s get done with this dinner. I have a call with Bangkok in an hour.”
We get back to the dining room.
Olivia is all smiles and fluttering eyelashes. She primps her hair and checks her lipstick in a mirror as if checking that nothing is smudged, insinuating we did more than argue just a moment ago.
God! The mendacity is elaborate.
We take a seat, and I even let Olivia lean her head on my shoulder.
Indigo is head down, drinking her wine.
They must’ve given her the third degree after I left.
Paloma usually doesn’t defend Indigo; no one does during these family gatherings where her parents and sister viciously point out how inappropriate she is to be a Beaumont.
There were times, before, when I was tempted to step in—and didn't. Afraid they'd catch on, that they'd see how I felt about Indigo and start to wonder about the affair I knew had to stay buried.
So I'd redirect the conversation instead, slide it somewhere safe.
She noticed. Told me so once, and thanked me for it—which only made me feel like more of an asshole, because all I was doing was being a coward, and she was grateful for the scraps.
Not having Indigo around has meant not having to carry the guilt—the worthlessness I feel in front of her. But now she's here. For twelve days. And I don't know how I'm going to get through them, because I'll have to see her, again and again.
After all, it's Christmas, and both our families have planned a whole circus engineered to keep us in close proximity.
Order Unmerrily Yours now!