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“Will you come for dinner?” she asks us.
I frown. “To yours?”
Mamie rolls her eyes. “I’ve only just arrived, my fridge is empty. Besides, you know your mother. She’ll pout if I don’t pop by before flying to Japan.”
I shake my head. “I think Sarah’s met enough family for one day.”
Because we’re at the end of the deadline he gave me before getting involved in that stalker business.
Sarah will be fine. Today ensured that. But I’m going to have to come clean to him. Mostly because I need his help.
“Ah.” Mamie sighs. “I take it you haven’t met my son yet.” She grimaces. “Well, in that case we’ll have to part ways. I’ll be back in June. Lunch again?”
I note she’s asking Sarah, not me. Mostly because if she were talking to me, it wouldn’t have been a question.
“I’d like that.”
We all hug, and I grin, taking my girl back to my car.
Today’s a win for many reasons, chief among them: deep down, Sarah is likely starting to understand I’m not letting her go.
69
MARIUS
“Ilove your grandmother,” Sarah says as we drive back to the Hunts’.
That much was obvious.
“You’ll like my mom, too.” I say nothing of my father.
Liking him isn’t really possible. We, his family, are obligated to love him, but he’s too cold, unflinching, and severe for anyone to actually get close to him. Except my mother.
“Do you remember yours?” I ask, out of curiosity.
She shakes her head, leaving it at that.
The files I had compiled on her was comprehensive—I know she lost her very young, but I figured she could have some flashes of memories.
“Do you have extended family?” I check. “Aunts, uncles, cousins—”
“No, my mother was an only child and her parents died in a car crash.” Her tone, and the fact that she’s staring out the window again, make it clear she wants to drop it.
I can imagine why. I have too much family. Being a Goltz isn’t only a legacy, it’s a chokehold that comes with responsibilities, expectations—such as loyalty to the brotherhood.
And reproducing. I will be expected to do that early, like my father and his father before him. Having no children by age thirty is considered a failure. According to the terms of her own father’s will, Liliya could cut us off if we don’t have kids by then. We wouldn’t actually be poor—my father’s company is entirely his own, and we’re its heirs—but we’d lose billions.
My grandmother might be lovely, but she is pushing that condition pretty hard—primarily on Magnus, as he’s the only one of us three who tied the knot so far. I doubt she’d actually disown us, but she definitely could.
For a moment, I wonder what it would be like, to be no one—an Andrews. I imagine I’d be a little more balanced. I’d also be poor, and I don’t think I’m cut out for that. Good thing I’m never finding out.
“So, no family. And the fosters you had were all various shades of awful.” Which made her the perfect target, for people like Brandon and for her stalker.
Brandon. The stalker has been my number one priority until today, but I have to handle him, too. I sigh.
Our finals start in a week and I’ve barely even glanced at my work, with everything going on with this stalker business. I have a brain, so I should be fine, but still. I really could use a break from all this.
I’m definitely not getting one today.
