Page 58 of Legacy Ascended

"You've got—" I gesture at my own chin.

"Where?"

"There."

"That's not—"

I reach across and wipe it off with my thumb, and he goes still, and then catches my wrist and holds it and puts his mouth against my palm.

"Oh," I say, intelligently.

"Yes." He lets go. "Eat your fish."

He asks about my mother. Not about the line or the ledger or Emil — about my mother, what she does, whether she's funny, what she'd make of him.

"She'd think you were a snob at first," I tell him, "and then she'd like you."

"That's better than I usually manage. What changes her mind?"

"You'd help with something without being asked. She notices that more than anything anybody says."

"Then I'll find something to carry," Ander says, and nods as though he's memorizing the instructions.

That's when his phone goes.

His smile disappears when he sees the screen.

"Take it."

"It can wait."

"Ander, take it. You'll be somewhere else all evening if you don't."

He takes it, and stands up, and goes as far as the window with his back to me.

He keeps his voice low enough that I can’t make out the words. I watch his shoulders tighten while he listens.

He comes back, puts the phone face down on the table, and pushes it away from himself with one finger.

"That was my father's office. He wants me at the house for what they're describing as a conversation about my conduct."

"And?"

"And I've said I'll meet him with a secretary present, on a date I choose, which they'll find insulting, which is rather the point." He takes his glass back. "They want it in his study because in his study it isn't a meeting, it's a summons. He's had his way in that room since I was a boy."

"What happens now?"

"He'll threaten my committee seats first. Then the delegation."

"Can he take them?"

"Some of them."

"And you're still saying no."

Ander meets my eyes. "Yes."

"Then tell me what happens."