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‘They’re going to take out the floor and the stairs,’ Merida explained one evening as they headed to his father’s. ‘And the wall on...’ She hesitated, mindful of the driver.
Neither of them wanted it getting out that they slept in separate rooms.
Rita the housekeeper no doubt knew, but Ethan paid enough for her discretion.
‘The wall on our floor needs to be moved.’
‘Lucky we kept the hotel suite, then,’ Ethan said, thinking back to his bachelor days—or rather the night they had spent there.
‘There’s no need for us to move out,’ Merida said rather hurriedly, because there was only one bedroom in his suite at the hotel.
‘Absolutely there is. There’s no way that I’m staying in the apartment while there’s building going on.’
God, Ethan thought, she really couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same bed as him.
‘I’ll have the couch,’ he mouthed, and smiled the dark smile he had invented for her and used a lot of late. And then spoke one word, laced with bitterness. ‘Darling.’
Merida breathed deeply and looked out of the window, barely seeing the blazing trees that looked set on fire by autumn—or ‘fall’, as he called it.
It was a short drive—just two blocks to his father’s—but there was no question of their walking. They were dressed for a photo shoot and Ethan was tense.
‘I hate these things,’ he said, running a finger along the neck of his shirt. ‘It shouldn’t take too long. It’s just a magazine piece. But there’ll be some questions.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
Merida wasn’t looking forward to the photo shoot either. Yet she understood that Jobe wanted some pictures with his son and his new wife. She just wished it wasn’t all so formal and staged.
But there wasn’t time to change the world.
In fact, Jobe didn’t have much time at all. He was going into hospital next week, to start a new treatment, but he was fading before their eyes.
Jobe hadn’t made it to the annual shareholders’ meeting, and he had stepped down a week prior.
‘Thank God for the little one,’ Jobe had said, because the news that Ethan had married, and that there was a baby on the way, had buoyed things up enough that when their founder stepped down, the shareholders’ long-anticipated bloodbath was more of a hiccough.
‘I think it’s more to do with the Dubai announcement than the baby,’ Merida had suggested.
‘Well, we’re going to have to agree to disagree,’ Jobe had said, and smiled.
Jobe and Ethan had said the same thing to Merida on the night they had met. The two men were so alike. And yet, apart from about work, father and son barely spoke.
Time was running out, Merida knew. Not just for Jobe, but for Ethan to build bridges with his father.
If it were even possible.
Once at the stunning Fifth Avenue residence, they were informed that Jobe was getting ready and would be down soon. Ethan and Merida walked into the drawing room.
Abe and Candice were already there. Abe was standing with one elbow on the mantel, nursing a whisky.
‘Merida.’
He gave her a nod. They didn’t bother with the kiss-kiss thing, and Candice barely looked over.
Ethan and Abe bitched about their good friends Nikkei and Dow Jones as the photographer and interviewer arrived, and as they set up Merida wandered out into the hall and stood looking at family photos of old.
God, Elizabeth had been beautiful, Merida thought as she examined one of the photos.
The stunning family sat on a pale sofa with carefully arranged pastel silk cushions. Elizabeth was holding the newborn Ethan. Her long blond hair was brushed so that it fell over her left shoulder and she held Ethan on her right. Jobe sat beside her, with a serious-looking Abe on his knee.
