AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Words I’d never thought I’d feel let alone think.
Vince practically inhaled the rest of his scotch before he continued, “His wife Lucy is wonderful.”
“Congratulations.” It sounded like an unenthusiastic question, so I repeated my congratulations and tacked on, “Asher must be so happy.”
“He is. So am I. When I leave this world, I want to know my family is okay. Asher… he’ll do great things, as will Lucy. They’ve both got great heads on their shoulders.”
“I think some would say Asher has already done great things.”
Black Enterprises was a Fortune 100.
“They’d be right, of course. But now he’s found someone, and that makes all the difference to the parts of his life that truly matter. You were the one who said it seems insignificant to spend the last moments of your life without someone.”
“I did,” I allowed, feeling uneasy at having my loneliness rubbed in my face.
Not that I thought he’d meant it like that. It just never got easy to swallow my solitude.
Vince poured himself some more of the scotch. “I’m not married. Never have been. That’s a lonely life. I’ve loved a woman, but we never married. I’d rather Asher live a humble life with someone who made him happy than the life of a billionaire entrepreneur with every material object at the tip of his fingers except someone who matters. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to choose between the two because he found Lucy.”
I didn’t know where he was going with this, so I nodded my head, took a sip of my fake vodka, and said, “Mhm.”
He matched my sip with his own.
“My brothers… They’re of a different generation. Jumping from woman to woman and living an emotionally distant life doesn’t make them unhappy. Their goals are different. I don’t have to worry about them in that way. This lifestyle was meant for them, not my nephews and sons. Not Bastian.”
My eyes jerked to his.
“Bastian seems miserable, but it gives him no right to project that misery onto others. He’s not a nice person, and it makes him unpleasant to be around unless Tessie is there as a buffer. Even that is debatable.”
He nodded, but a fond smile spread across his face.
“You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with anything you just said.” He turned to stare at me. “Has he told you about Elsa?”
“No.”
I hadn’t heard her name from the files either.
“Ask him about Elsa.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“It’s not my story to tell.”
“It’s not my business anyway. I’m just an employee.”
“We both know you’re not.”
My eyes darted around the room. I didn’t know how to take that.
What the hell did that mean, and how would Vincent Romano know anything about me and Bastian? Bastian and I weren’t anything to know about in the first place.
I settled with a question. “Why are you here?”
“Closure.”
“What closure can I offer you? I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t know you.”
“Word of advice, darling—it’s never too late to get closure. Life happens. You live one second; you die the next. If there are loose threads when that time comes, you’ll take them to your grave, and everyone you know and love will hurt for it. If you care about the people in your life, you handle your business when you can.”
