Page 19 of Secret Heir For The Billionaire Twin

"My assistant will contact you this afternoon."

A beat passes.

"We'll begin tomorrow."

I nod.

"I'll be ready."

"I assumed you would."

Our eyes meet one final time before he steps into the hallway. The door closes softly behind him. For several seconds, neither Adrian nor I says a word. Finally, Adrian lets out a quiet breath and looks at me with a smile that borders on disbelief.

"I honestly didn't see that coming."

I glance toward the closed door. Somehow I have the distinct feeling that the assignment I walked into this morning has just become something neither of us expected.

Chapter Three

Julian

By the time the sun clears the buildings across the street, I've already been at my desk for two hours, and the only person who knows it is Daniel, because he's the only one who ever bothers checking. My office on the fortieth floor doesn't get the same morning light as Adrian's — his faces east, mine faces north, which I chose deliberately years ago because I've never seen the appeal of starting every day staring directly into the sun. I prefer the version of the city that comes in gray and even, the kind of light that doesn't ask anything of you. It's easier to think in.

Most people who work in this building have some idea of what I do, in the way people have some idea of what happens inside an engine without ever opening the hood. I built the systems that let Blackwell run the way it runs now — not alone, not by myself, but closer to alone than anyone outside a small circle of engineers would guess. I spent four years at MIT learning how to make complicated things behave, and then I came home and spent the better part of two decades making sure the infrastructure under this company's feet never cracked, even as the company itself grew into something that touches more lives in a single day than most governments do in a year.

Adrian gives the speeches. Adrian shakes the hands. I keep the lights on, in the most literal sense the phrase can have, and I've made a kind of peace with the fact that almost no one outside this building knows my name well enough to recognize it on a delivery confirmation. It isn't a complaint. I chose this. If I'd wanted attention, I would have taken it — the door was always open—my father made sure of that from the time we were boys, standing us both up in front of shareholders like matched furniture. Adrian liked it. I didn't. The difference settled between us early and never really moved since, and by now it isn't even a tension anymore, just an arrangement, the kind two people build without ever discussing the terms out loud.

What does wear on me, some days more than others, is the specific fatigue of being introduced as a function instead of a person.

“This is Julian, he handles our technical infrastructure.”

“This is Julian, the brains behind the operation.”

I've heard some version of that sentence in nearly every room I've ever walked into for the last fifteen years. I stopped correcting it a long time ago — mostly because I've never had a good answer for what I'd rather be introduced as instead, not even for myself.

Daniel knocks once on my open door frame, more out of habit than necessity, since he already has one foot in the room by the time the sound registers.

"You're going to want to see the schedule for today," he says.

"I already know what's on it."

"You know what was on it as of last night. Communications added something this morning." He sets a tablet on my desk, screen already lit, and steps back with the particular patience of a man who has learned, over eleven years, exactly how long to wait before I'll actually look at something.

"The Ledger profile. Ten o'clock. Adrian's handling the introduction."

"I'm aware."

"Are you also aware you don't have to be in the building for it? You could be at the Boston site by nine and no one would think twice."

"I'm aware of that too."

Daniel doesn't say anything else right away, which is its own kind of statement. In the years he's worked for me, he's developed a talent for silence that says considerably more than most people manage with a full sentence — a specific, loaded quiet that means he's noticed something and is deciding, in real time, whether it's worth the effort of pointing out. I've learned to read it the way other people read tone of voice.

"You think I should skip it," I say.

"I think it's a business decision that isn't really about business, and I think you already know that, and I think you're going to do whatever you were planning to do regardless of what I say, so I'm not going to waste both our mornings." He picks the tablet back up.

"I'll have the car ready if you decide you want to be at the Boston campus instead."