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His name is right there in black and white in the caption—Adrian Weathersfield (he uses my ex’s last name) and Sydney Perry-Watson.
“Perry-Watson?” I blurt out, my gaze jerking up from the page. “You’re a Perry-Watson?”
She blinks and a sheepish look creeps across her face. “Yes. I thought I told you.”
“You said Watson, not Perry-Watson.”
“Are you sure?” she squeaks in a way that makes me think the omission was deliberate.
“Positive. I would have remembered if there was a chance in hell that you were Silas Perry-Watson’s daughter.”
Her eyes widen. “You know my dad?”
“I used to work for your dad,” I say, my stomach bottoming out as my mind races to connect the dots. I pace toward the cabinets and back again. “Right out of grad school. I interned at Watson Global for a few months before I was hired full time. I worked closely with your father for almost—” I freeze, my throat tightening as another memory leaps out at me, like a monster under the bed. “Almost two years. I was there when his wife and daughter stopped by on summer evenings to talk him into grabbing dinner instead of working late. I…I saw you. I think I might have even said hi. You were maybe eight? Nine?”
Her eyes are so wide now that she looks like one of those anime characters Adrian loved when he was a kid. “Oh my God, I remember you. You had a moustache!”
I wince. “I did. I’m so sorry. It was trendy at the time.”
“No, I liked it,” she murmurs. “I told my mom I liked it, and she said only the most handsome men can pull off a moustache without looking ridiculous. My mom met you and liked you… That’s so nice.” A soft smile curves her lips, but I’m too horrified to share her pleasure in that.
I lean against the island, my legs suddenly weak. “I was a grown man working my first job and you were a child.”
“Well, I’m not a child anymore,” she says, sitting up straighter. “So don’t start freaking out about that again. We have bigger things to freak out about.”
“Like?” I arch a brow. “You know any nine-year-olds? Do you like the idea of dating one of them in fifteen years?”
Her lips press together. “The only nine-year-old I know is my cousin Pearl, so no, I can’t imagine dating her in fifteen years. But I’m sure she’ll be a fabulous woman by then.” She reaches over, pointing a finger at the picture of her and Adrian. “This, however, is not fabulous. Adrian doesn’t know I’m a Perry-Watson. He doesn’t know my father is ridiculously wealthy or that my grueling new job is setting me up to be a merciless titan of industry. He hates trust fund babies. He goes off about them all the time. He’s going to think I’m an asshole and a liar.”
I frown, trying to sort out why that troubles me.
Because she cares. She cares what Adrian thinks of her, my gut replies. Before I can decide whether or not I want to bring that to her attention, the front door slams open, and a voice booms, “What the fuck, bossman? I’ve been waiting downstairs for twenty minutes. I thought we were going for coffee in the park.”
Sydney scrambles off her stool and starts toward the bedroom, but aborts the mission to hide behind a wing chair in the living room when Mitch emerges from the entryway. “I know you were out partying last night, but—” He cuts off abruptly as he spots Sydney, frozen like a deer in the headlights.
He takes a step back, jerks his gaze my way, then jerks it back toward Sydney before croaking, “Sydney?”
“Uncle Mitch,” Sydney says, her voice breathy and pink creeping up her neck toward her cheeks. “Um, hi! How are you?”
eighteen
SYDNEY
I close my eyes for a beat, certain that when I open them, I’ll be back in my apartment, and this will all have been a dream.
I didn’t really spend the night with Adrian’s dad, end up on the society page with half my breast out for show and tell with Adrian himself, or get caught wearing nothing but a t-shirt by a man I’ve known since I was practically a fetus.
Mitch McMillan isn’t my real uncle, but he might as well be.
Mitch has been a member of my dad’s cigar club for as long as I can remember. Most Sunday afternoons in the fall and winter, when society has abandoned their summer homes, Mitch is part of the circle of puffing professionals on our roof on the Upper East Side. Dad has the butler set up heaters like they have at outdoor restaurants when it’s cool, and the cigar club sits under the pergola, contemplating how much better things were in “the good old days.”
I never lingered up in the stinky smoke, not even when I was a kid and didn’t realize the “good old days” they were talking about were the days when no one challenged their rich, white guy entitlement, but I know Mitch well. He’s a gruff, but kind guy, who brought cookies or chocolates for Mom when he came by. After Mom’s death, he brought stuffed animals for me and always made time to ask how I was doing before heading up to the roof. I was technically too old for stuffed animals, I guess, but I adored them.
By the time Dad finally told him to stop spoiling me, I had a menagerie of beautifully made toys that are still lined up on the bookshelves of my childhood room. Even as a teen, I liked to look at them. They reminded me that there are sweet people in the world who care about others and aren’t afraid to show it.
But right now, Mitch doesn’t look sweet.
He looks pissed.
