Page 87 of Waiting for You

"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."

"You've always wanted me to have the empire," I countered. "That's never been the issue. The issue is what you'll demand I do with the company once I own it. You'll hand me the keys, and then the control starts. You'll want to shadow-advise me. You'll dictate that it's best to run this merger or that acquisition. You'll force introductions to the right players, suggest the right partnerships, and gradually the daily decisions won't feel like mine anymore. And then one morning you'll mention there's an appropriate man I should consider meeting, strictly for the good of the company, and we'll be right back in this cage."

I stared him dead in the eyes. "I've watched you run this playbook my whole life."

He stayed silent.

"I don't want the company," I said. "I don't want a single piece of your legacy. And if you want an heir to pass it to, you have plenty of time. You can hunt down another proxy. But I'll offer you one thing before I leave. I'm willing to give you another chance at being my father. A real one, not the corporate version you've prioritized. People deserve second chances. I got one recently, so I'm extending the same grace to you."

He said nothing. His mouth pressed into a white line, and his gaze dropped to the desk.