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“Winston?” she said, bringing my attention back to her. “Are you listening to me?
No. No, I wasn’t. I was thinking about things that I shouldn’t. I was thinking about offering her my name, but only in the most platonic of ways.
But that would be a lie, too. Because what I felt for her was definitely not platonic in any way.
“Yes?” I asked, voice husky.
“What name do you think that I should use?” she asked.
Osborn was on the tip of my tongue, but I managed to quell my thoughts before they could form words. “Smith is pretty easy and utilitarian. You could get far with Smith.”
She scoffed. “That’s so boring. I was thinking something like Clementine. Or Ashwagandha.”
“Ashwagandha is an herbal supplement,” I said. “And Clementine is a first name, not a last. Plus, I’d like to point out that you just stated your first name was odd enough for you not to have a nickname. If you changed it to something like that, you’d be laughed out of the courtroom.”
She sighed. “Like I said, I don’t know what I want.” Her eyes cut to me and she blushed, letting me know that maybe she did know what she wanted. I just wasn’t going to give it to her. “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
A knock at the side of the elevator—because I didn’t have a door at all—had us both turning.
I nearly rolled my eyes when I saw my brother, sister, and parents standing there.
I’d turned off the cameras to the floor, and now they were there surprising me instead of me knowing they were coming so I could prepare.
And by prepare, I meant getting rid of Crimson.
Not that I was embarrassed by her, but I knew without a doubt that my family would see this as a step in the direction of healing, when I most certainly had no intentions of doing that. Ever.
My anger kept me sharp and motivated, and I’d never go back there.
Never.
Crimson stiffened at my side and whispered, “Holy shit, where’s the nearest exit?”
So she had a problem with families, too?
“They’re standing in it,” I pointed out, twisting so that I was practically shielding her from view. “But you could probably just jump out of the window like I’m about to do.”
She poked me in the back. “Get them to move.”
I scoffed. “My family has yet to do a single thing that I want them to do. If they did, I’d be left alone for eternity.”
“We can hear you,” Bellamy drawled out as he moved out of the door of the elevator. “Who’s your friend, brother?”
Bellamy was my much younger, barely out of high school, brother. He was shiny as a new penny and had no idea that this world could be as hard and demanding as it was. I couldn’t wait for the world to rear back and slap him. It would be awesome when he finally realized that life wasn’t as easy as waking up in the morning and going to school, then coming home to a homecooked meal and your laundry done for you.
“My friend is a client, and I’d like you to give me some time,” I said stiffly.
Maybe that would work.
“Your secretary, who we stopped and checked with first before coming to this level, said that you had nothing on the books today,” Mom replied helpfully.
I felt my eyelid twitch. “She also doesn’t control every aspect of my life.”
“Well, I guess we could leave,” Dad drawled.
Even though I could tell he would rather do anything but.
Dad still thought himself important, even though he’d retired from the game five years ago when he suffered a heart attack.
I might’ve taken over his business, but I’d turned it from small potatoes to great, giant sweet potatoes.
Or what-the-fuck-ever I’d done. It was nothing like it’d once been.
It’d gone from a medium size, well earning business that I had to bust my ass to make high six figures to a multi-million-dollar empire that he couldn’t even fathom how to run.
Yet he still treated this place like he was the one who ran it and turned it into what it is.
Truthfully, though, I loved the hell out of my dad, he’d taken the business over from his own father, and had done nothing to improve or grow it. He was a man who loved to feel like he was important, and that meant daily golf meetings, lots of schmoozing at events, and extracurriculars that kept him out of the office where he could make this place shine.
“Actually,” Crimson came out from behind me, “I suppose we’re done. I was just here to ask him to come to an event and sponsor our new business, but he’s turned me down.”
The nerve.
I felt my eyelid twitch again.
“Oh, Winston,” Katrin said, sounding sad. “Why would you turn down her offer?”
