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“Alec, darling.”
His mother was the first to spot him as he entered the building. The restaurant had been set up with one long table to one side for the occasion, and the guests were currently filling the open space beside it, chatting with drinks in their hands.
“Hello, Mother. This looks lovely. Good choice.” Alec kissed her cheek, smelling expensive perfume and face powder. It was a social embrace, and there was no real affection in it. Alec couldn’t remember the last time his mother had actually hugged him.
“Oh, you brought a gift. Let me take that for you.”
Alec handed over the wrapped box, containing a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky for his father. It was hardly an original present, but at least he knew it wouldn’t go to waste. “I’d better go and greet the birthday boy,” he said.
His father was over by the window chatting with some people Alec recognised as ex-colleagues from his father’s legal days. Retired now, his father had been a highly regarded barrister before becoming a judge during his last years in the legal profession.
Alec picked up a glass of champagne from a tray set out on a table as he made his way across the crowded room.
His father saw him coming and raised a hand in greeting. The group around him parted to admit Alec.
“Many happy returns, Father.” Alec greeted him with a handshake, as was their wont. He grinned. “You’re looking good, barely a day over sixty-nine.”
“Alec,” his father said as the group around him chuckled. “Good to see you. How are you?”
“I’m well, thank you.”
They went through the usual social dance of polite chit-chat, superficial and scripted, with no surprises.
“How’s life in corporate?” Edgar, one of his father’s contemporaries, asked. “Still enjoying it? No regrets about taking that direction?”
“Not at all.” Alec smiled through gritted teeth.
His father had put a lot of pressure on him to follow in his footsteps. He’d wanted Alec to be a carbon copy of himself, but Alec’s interest lay in finance and mergers rather than criminal law. He’d always known that was the field he wanted to work in, much to his father’s irritation.
“Are you a partner yet?” Edgar asked.
Alec remembered the meeting next week and his heart thumped hard. “I’m working on it.”
“Can I have your attention, please?” Alec’s mother’s voice rose over the crowd and she tapped on her glass with a fork to cut through the chatter. “Don’t worry, I don’t have a long speech planned.” She smiled, all perfect teeth and immaculate lipstick, but the laugh lines that should have enhanced her expression were absent—blitzed away by Botox, no doubt. “I want to propose a toast to Giles, my husband. Three score years and ten today.” She raised her glass to him. “Happy birthday, darling. May there be many more.”
A murmur of assent followed as the guests raised their glasses obediently.
“Thank you.” Alec’s father acknowledged the attention with a nod. “I appreciate you all being here to help me celebrate.”
“They’re ready to serve the starters now,” Alec’s mother cut back in. “So please take your seats.”
There was a seating plan, so Alec went to look at the picture to see where he’d been placed. A little way down the table, near his brother, by the look of it. Alec hadn’t seen Caspar yet. He scanned the room. No, there was definitely no sign of his wayward brother. That was bloody typical. Their mother would be livid.
As they took their seats, Alec saw her glaring at the empty spaces. She caught his eye and raised her eyebrows in question, as if Alec might know something. He shrugged. He wasn’t his brother’s keeper. They’d never been close and rarely had any contact between family gatherings.
Caspar arrived halfway through the starter. He burst in with a stunningly pretty girl on his arm. Well, a woman, really, Alec supposed, but she looked awfully young, with a blonde waterfall of hair and a dress that showed off her model figure. All eyes in the room turned to them.
“I’m terribly sorry we’re late,” Caspar said loudly. “We got stuck behind a damn horse box doing about fifteen miles an hour down the country lanes, so I tried to take a different route, and then we got lost.”
He went to greet his parents first, introducing the girl as Serena. Serena smiled and shook hands with them before they made their way down the table to their seats opposite Alec.
Alec stood to greet him and offered his hand across the table. “Caspar, making an entrance as usual, I see.”
“Some things never change.” Caspar’s smile was broad and genuine and Alec couldn’t help smiling back. Life was never boring with his brother around.
He lowered his voice to murmur, “I thought Mother was going to have kittens when she saw your empty seat.”
Caspar chuckled. “I bet. Alec, meet Serena. Serena, this is my big brother, Alec.”
