21. Sloane #2
"I'll go over there," I decided. "I just want it over with." I dropped the phone onto the counter. "Don't worry about it. I'll walk into his office, I'll tell him to his face that I'm not inheriting a single piece of his empire, and that'll be the end of it."
He leaned across the marble and kissed my temple. "You have access to my money now," he reminded me. "You don't need a dime from him."
I shoved his shoulder. "Are you trying to turn me into a housewife?"
He stared at me, a wicked smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Only if that's what you want."
"How many children do you even want?" I asked.
He laughed. "That's up to you."
I narrowed my eyes. "Why are you dumping that whole decision on me?"
"Because," he said simply, "my contribution to the process involves having great sex with you and then standing in a hospital room when the baby arrives.
That's my entire biological burden. You have to carry the baby, your body changes, your health risks change, everything shifts for you, and nothing shifts for me.
I don't think I have the standing to demand a headcount.
If you want children, we'll have children.
If you don't, we don't. It's your call."
I reached across the counter and kissed him.
"For the record," I noted, "I don't want any right now. But I reserve the right to change my mind."
"Okay," he agreed.
"You're a surprisingly smart man," I said.
He smiled, looking pleased with himself, which was fair.
Men usually dominated that conversation, announcing how many heirs they required as if their biological contribution entitled them to dictate the terms. Xavier had handed the agency back to me without a second of hesitation.
I'd guarded that kind of control my whole life, and here he was giving it away like it had always been mine. I loved him a little more for it.
His phone buzzed against the marble. He glanced down, and his expression changed.
"What?" I asked.
"My mother." He turned the screen so I could see it.
We're in the city. Brunch today. Bring your sister.
"They're in New York. Both of them."
"They haven't spoken to Violet since before the wedding."
"I know." He set the phone down slowly. "And now they want her at a table."
I watched him turn it over, and it struck me that we were a matched set this morning. Both of us summoned home on the same day by the people who'd done the most damage. Both of us finally answering on our own terms instead of theirs.
"So we each have a parent to face today," I said.
"Looks like it." The breath he let out wasn't quite a laugh. "I'll come with you. I'll cancel the whole thing."
"No." I said it gently, but I meant every letter. "This one's mine. I need to walk in there by myself." I reached up and straightened his collar, just to have a reason to touch him. "Go take care of Violet. She shouldn't sit across from them without you."
He caught my hand and pressed it flat against his chest. "Same terms," he said. "You call me the second you're back on the sidewalk."
"The second," I promised.
I showered, dressed in something respectable, and caught a cab across the city to my father's estate.
In the back of the cab, I caught myself rehearsing—building the argument, lining up a counter for every angle he might try.
Then I stopped. That was his game: reaction, defense, the endless work of staying one move ahead of him.
I didn't need a strategy this time. I already knew where I stood, and I could say it without a script.
I let the rehearsal go and watched the city slide past the window, and by the time the cab slowed at the gates, I felt steady and unbothered for the first time in a long while.
The compound looked the same as it always had, suffocating old money.
The mansion had been built decades before anyone bothered to ask what the maintenance cost, staffed by people who appeared to open the front doors before I could press the bell.
I'd paced these silent corridors so many times I could name every floorboard by its creak.
My father always claimed he wanted to renovate the interior into something modern, but he never did.
He loved the oppressive history of the place.
I marched toward his office.
He sat behind his enormous desk reviewing documents when I pushed the heavy door open. He looked up, mildly surprised.
"I didn't expect you to arrive so quickly," he noted.
"I wanted it over with," I answered. I dropped into the leather chair across from him without waiting for an invitation. "You demanded I come by. I'm here. Tell me what you want to say."
He set his paperwork aside, and for the first time I could remember, he didn't seem to know where to put his hands.
"Xavier told you we met," he said.
"He did."
He was quiet a moment longer than the conversation called for.
"He told me you'd built a whole life I didn't know a thing about.
" Something crossed his face and was gone before I could name it.
He folded his hands on the polished mahogany.
"I want to hand you the company, Sloane.
No conditions about your marriage. No Andrew Maxwell.
Just you, inheriting what I built, running the board forward. It's yours."
"What's the catch?" I asked.
"There's no catch," he insisted. "You're my only daughter. I want you to have the empire."