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When everyone else finally filed out of the meeting room, I stayed behind. I kept my place at the head of the table. Alone. My father had always said being the face of a company—one as big as ours, especially—was a lonely one.
Was that what I wanted?
* * *
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want you to keep up the family legacy. You’re my only son. I brought you with me so you would learn your place. Why are you so dead set on rejecting everything I’m offering?”
I rolled my eyes, pacing my father’s study. It was the first week away from New York. Away from Mackenzie. I had gone with my father with no resistance, wanting to live up to his expectations. But as it turned out, wanting to do that and actually doing it were two very different things. I missed Mackenzie. The ache in my heart at her absence wasn’t dwindling. It was growing, forming a black hole inside my chest.
What the fuck was I doing here? I didn’t even like the family business.
My father watched me from behind his desk. Scrutinizing. Frustrated. He’d always wanted me to take over the family business. He’d always seen me as lacking the same drive that he’d had when he was my age.
I had always fought him. But now that Mom was gone… I didn’t think fighting him was a good thing. Her death had rocked him to his core, and even though I sometimes hated the old man, I was all he had left.
Still, I wasn’t so sure following him was such a good thing, either. My father was always quick to remind me that everything we had was because of the family business. The house, the cars, the financial stability that came with having billions in the bank. I wanted to resent him for pointing those things out to me, but it wasn’t a possibility. Not when he was right.
The ache flared in my heart again.
I missed Mackenzie.
I missed my mother.
But… my father was right. I needed to step up. It’s why I’d agreed to leave with him in the first place.
17
Mackenzie
The high of the first few weeks of my marriage to Walker started to wane after the gallery showing.
Not from the art side of things—that was all going amazingly well. I was making connections, booking commissions, and following up on contacts from the show. I had steady work and potential long-term clients lined up. I was in the studio every day. My website was being built, and I was sharing more and more of my work with less fear of judgment. My confidence in my artistic abilities was growing, and it only spurred on my creativity.
But still, the high was fading.
Walker was growing distant.
I didn’t know if something had happened, and I wasn’t sure if I should ask. The warmth that had developed between the two of us chilled. He spent more long nights at work and didn’t share as much about it with me a
nymore. I thought maybe he was just trying to catch up on backlogged work, but it felt more and more like he was pulling away. Like his decision to stay late at the office so often had less to do with what was there and more to do with what wasn’t there—me.
It made a mess of conflicting feelings churn in my stomach. What was I doing? My art dreams were taking off, but the victory seemed hollow somehow, like I had no one to share it with. Alex was thrilled for me, and the art show had given him a huge boost too, so we were able to cheer each other on. But it still wasn’t the same as having Walker with me. For a little while, we had felt like a team, and I’d let myself get way too used to that.
I sighed. I was at the studio now, thinking about all of this while trying to work. Needless to say, I wasn’t getting shit done.
“You’re over-working that paint.”
I didn’t look up from the painting in front of me. Alex was right, but I was stubborn. I kept sweeping the brush until he came up beside me, gently pulling my hand away from the canvas.
“Come on. Let’s go grab lunch and you can tell me what’s on your mind, since you’re obviously a little too distracted to be trying to paint dragon scales.”
I huffed. “I can do this—”
“After a nice Italian sub and maybe a midday drink, sure you can. Come on.”
Conceding defeat, I let my best friend drag me to the cute little bistro that was just a few paces away from the studio. We ordered our subs and drinks before taking them outside to the tables that were set up along the exterior wall. Then we ate in silence for a moment before Alex spoke up.
