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I rise from my armchair. “This has been a lovely evening. Thank you both.”
Anthony grins. “Yeah, I’d leave now, too, if I was you.”
“You would have left an hour ago,” I say.
He chuckles. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t have been as nice about it as you are.”
“Mhm.”
He stands, shifting the sleeping baby to his other arm. “The women she set me up with weren’t for me,” he says, nodding toward Summer. “I had my sights set elsewhere. But they might be for you.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and give him the most aggressively polite of smiles. “You’re so lucky you’re holding my nephew right now.”
He smiles crookedly. “You haven’t punched me since we were kids.”
“Clearly an oversight on my end.”
I leave their townhouse, the heavy door falling shut behind me. Summer and Anthony are living in one of the family’s houses. It had been our grandparents’ once, and under Anthony and Summer’s stewardship it’s been lovingly restored.
Not that they spend a lot of time there during the warmer months, anyway. My brother had bought a Montauk house a few years back, not far from our parents’ summer house, in an area where we’d spent most of our holidays as kids.
I roll my head and start walking back to the hotel.
Seeing my brother happy has lifted a burden off my shoulders I didn’t know I’d been carrying. He’s now once again the person I remember from my childhood.
I rub a hand over my chest. His damn eyesight, though. It’s a problem without a solution, an issue I can’t fix, and not a day goes by when it doesn’t bother me, even if he has come to terms with it.
My mind lingers on Summer’s hand on my brother’s neck, casually possessive. And then I see Sophia’s eyes, bright and teasing, as she says something she suspects I’ll disagree with.
I shouldn’t have said her name. Shouldn’t have implicated her in my white lie.
Shouldn’t have lied at all.
I pull up my phone and scroll through my emails as I walk. None from her or her team.
It’s been a week since DC, and the Exciteur team hasn’t been back at the hotel. Why would they? They’ve gotten the full tour. They’ve spoken to all my employees. They’re working on the pitch now, just as instructed. I have no reason to talk to her or contact her.
Around me, New York is abuzz.
It’s early in the evening still, the weather oppressively hot, and the city’s inhabitants who haven’t left it for greener pastures are all outside. Sitting on stoops and drinking in the park. A teenage boy skates past me, upbeat pop music pounding from a speaker in his backpack.
I shove my hands in my pockets. Walking had been the right choice.Sophia,I think.Sorry, but you saved me tonight.
When I finally make it to the hotel, I find it every bit as busy as the city streets I’ve just left behind. I walk through a group of newly arrived tourists in the lobby. I listen to them talk to one another in a language I don’t understand. One of the youngsters lies in one of our chaise lounges, half-asleep, a teddy bear tucked beneath her. Must have been a long international flight.
I stop by the offices. Andrej is there, looking through the systems.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes, sir. We’re almost at capacity.”
“Things running smoothly?”
“Yes,” he says. “For the restaurants, too. They’re all fully booked.”
I nod. There are few day-to-day issues that require my oversight. The machine has always been designed to run that way. “Good. Make sure you get something to eat if you’re working the late shift,” I say. “Get Flake’s and put it on the company.”
“Thank you, sir,” he says. “There is one other thing…”
