CHAPTER THREE

BRAND TOOK THE TIME FOR a coffee and to run a few necessary errands before he took himself back to the Harrington Steel tower and his young Master’s office.

In truth, he needed a touch of time to compose himself as well. While he had not intended to in any way test the young Master, simply oblige him in a more private manner than his usual tabloid scandals…

He had not expected Ashton Harrington to push him away.

Particularly not for those reasons.

Pride and ethics.

Perhaps the young Master was not as the papers had painted him.

He smiled to himself faintly, finished the last of his coffee, and dropped the cup in the bin just inside the top-floor reception area before exchanging a nod with Ms. Vernon and crossing the room to the office door.

He rapped his knuckles briefly to announce himself, then slipped inside. Harrington made a small and miserable bundle in the massive desk chair, but he was still there, frowning at the screen of his laptop, puzzlement clear on his pretty, rather princely features. When Brand stepped inside, the young Master froze, glancing up at him almost guiltily, before looking away with a quite fetching blush and scowling at the screen.

“You appear confused, young Master,” Brand said. “What are you looking at?”

“I…” Harrington’s voice broke on the first try; he cleared his throat and began again. “I’m not sure. I think it’s an overseas supply contract with a company in India…it…was supposed to take effect yesterday but it doesn’t look like anything’s been done or shipped out. I can’t tell.”

“It’s possible there was an issue with customs, or something was awaiting your signature.” Brand rounded the desk, reclaimed his chair, and reached over to tilt the laptop so they could both read. “Let me see.”

Harrington froze, staring at him sidelong, his blush deepening.

Before he lifted his chin with clear pride, and fixed his gaze firmly back on the screen.

Very well, Brand thought with a touch of amusement. If his young Master didn’t want to discuss it, then far be it from him to press the matter.

“I’m not sure this is the best place to start unraveling everything,” Harrington mumbled. “But it was the first thing I could halfway make sense of. Got to start somewhere, right?”

“Somewhere is better than nowhere, young Master,” Brand murmured.

And that was that.

Somewhere turned out to be a spaghetti tangle of maritime shipping laws and some kind of problem with the containers, delaying shipment until a replacement could be found. The sourcing department had been on top of it, quickly finding a supplier for new containers, but a purchase that large had required a Harrington to sign—and there had been no Harrington in residence to do so.

Brand walked Ashton Harrington through not just signing off on things without reading, but on understanding why this mattered—how it impacted the entire business, when one late shipment took time away from other things that must be done on a tight schedule to fulfill a number of global contracts. Rather like a game of Jenga…pull the wrong block loose, and everything came tumbling down until there was nothing left to do but stack up again and start over.

“Is that how bad it’s gotten in a few days?” Harrington asked, staring morosely at the dozen documents open on his screen. “I just…let everything fall apart, and now we have to rebuild?”

“Not yet,” Brand said. “But the tower is teetering. Be very careful where you pull, young Master.”

Wide, almost frightened blue eyes flicked to him. Harrington swallowed. “I don’t know where to pull. I…show me?” His soft lips pressed together, the shape of teeth pushing from the inside, their plushness briefly drawing Brand’s eye and reminding him of that moment when Harrington had gone soft against him with his mouth ripe and wet, a sweet darkness waiting to be explored. “Really show me. Show me what it means. Don’t just tell me what to do.”

“Ah,” Brand replied, and bit back his smile again. “As my young Master wishes.”

And so they spent the day: navigating through a tangled mess of contracts and schedules and trade agreements, researching maritime trade law, sending emails, dashing off signatures. Harrington looked as if he’d break down crying at any moment, but every time he started to falter something went stiff in his spine and his mouth tightened and he glared at the laptop screen. Brand tactfully kept his mouth shut, and only gave him those moments to collect himself—and for today, Brand took on the task of making calls the young Master should be making, speaking as his representative and soothing ruffled hackles and offering adjusted timelines and favorable easements on contract terms to keep them from being cancelled altogether.

By the time close of business came, even Brand was starting to feel the strain around his eyes. They’d not even stopped for lunch, despite scheduling no fewer than nine business luncheons in the coming weeks so that key political players in the trade market could meet the new young prince of steel and make their obligatory obeisances. The young Master was, quite frankly, looking rather pale.

But he kept doggedly reading, the note pad at his side scribbled down with messy, scrawling handwriting jabbed in the notes he’d been taking all day. Master Harrington had taken his suit jacket off, draped it over the back of his chair, loosened his tie in a most disgraceful way, and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Brand lingered on his profile, on the lines of determination written in his fiercely pretty features, a touch of youthful fire shining through his misery and despair.

He’d had his whinge, worked through his feelings…but he wasn’t giving up, Brand thought.

And so Brand held his tongue, and only bowed his head over his own work, organizing a tentative schedule over the coming months to restructure production to meet the most high-priority deadlines and reallocate materials for more critical projects until order could be restored.

However, he could only allow this to continue for so much longer—and when he heard the sound of a vacuum running in the reception room, he glanced up, pushing his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose and glancing out the window. The New York city skyline was all jewels on black velvet, bright colors glimmering and winking against dark silhouettes, the sky a bed of blue.

Bloody hell, it was after ten.

He saved the file he was working on, closed his laptop, and stood, touching Harrington’s shoulder.

“Young Master,” he said. “It’s well past time we leave. We’ll be in the way of the cleaning staff.”

Harrington jerked, rubbing at heavy, shadowed eyes, blinking slowly before looking owlishly at Brand. “What?” His dulled, tired gaze flicked between the laptop screen and Brand. “But…I’m not done…”

“It will hold,” Brand said gently, and reached across Harrington to save and exit the program on his desktop, before carefully closing the laptop lid. “When you’re this tired and you’ve not eaten, you’ll make mistakes. Come. I’ll take you home.”

Harrington looked as if he might argue, but then he nodded, sighing heavily and dragging to his feet. “You’re right. We can finish in the morning.”

“Indeed,” Brand replied, and bent forward in a bow, gesturing toward the door. “After you.”

The young Master was subdued, on the drive home. Brand watched him in the rear view mirror; Harrington leaned his elbow against the windowsill and stared out the window, his expression withdrawn, fingers curled against parted lips that never said a word. Brand had the feeling that today had been a bit of a wake-up call. Perhaps the young Master had had an inkling of the work ahead of him—hence seeking Brand’s assistance—but today had truly driven home the enormity of it. The reality of it, too.

And particularly, the reality of the circumstances that had brought him to this point.

Brand made a mental note to schedule a visit to the hospice center in the young Master’s diary in the next few days.

It was, after all, part of his job to see to all aspects of his Master’s well-being.

At the house, Brand barely put the car into Park before Harrington was out of the backseat and heading for the path toward the pool house.

“Young Master,” Brand called softly, then bowed and nodded toward the front door to the main house.

Harrington faltered, his expression falling briefly, before settling into resigned defeat. “…right. Of course.”

Brand kept a respectful distance as he trailed Harrington into the house and toward the darkened open kitchen, where he shrugged out of his suit coat, draped it over one of the stools ringing the kitchen island, and rolled his sleeves up.

“I’ll have your supper together in less than twenty minutes,” he said, pulling the massive double-doored refrigerator open—only for Harrington to duck under his arm, reach inside, and snare one of over a dozen bottles of champagne before turning and stalking down the hall.

“Don’t bother,” drifted back, the line of Harrington’s shoulders tense.

Brand sighed, watching him go until he was just a shadow vanishing into the night-locked hallways of white stone arches and lightless niches.

“As you wish, young Master,” he murmured.

Then promptly uncorked every last remaining bottle of champagne in the refrigerator, and poured them out in the stainless steel sink.

Satisfied, he draped his coat over his arm and retired to his chambers.

He would take on the liquor cabinet in the morning, if he had to.

His rooms adjoining the master suite had their own entrance, as well as the entrance accessible through the young Master’s rooms. Brand lingered in the hallway outside his door, listening to the sounds of the young Master moving around the spacious grand suite, noise reckless and worrisome but at least he was there. The shadows crossing the faint light seeping beneath the door gave no hint as to what he was doing, but as long as he wasn’t destroying the place then Brand would let him be.

The rooms had just been refurbished.

He’d hate to make more work for the housekeeping staff.

He let himself into his own suite—smaller than the rooms he’d originally been assigned, but he didn’t need much. Like the rest of the house the décor itself was a study in neutral colors and minimalism, making the most of even small spaces with delicate touches, much of the furniture made of reclaimed wood and Brand’s bedframe itself a thing of delicately contoured and sanded driftwood in a weathered shade of gray. He stripped down, folding his suit away for a proper steam cleaning later, and replaced it with a pair of loose pajama pants before settling into the cool, comfortable linens to sleep.

Only to sigh as his feet slipped over the foot of the queen-sized bed.

Another item for tomorrow, perhaps. A larger bed.

He would deal, otherwise.

Tucking himself on his side so he could draw his legs up, Brand set his alarm for four in the morning, slipped his phone into the charger he’d left on the nightstand, and let himself drop off into sleep, sliding easily into the dark.

Until the door creaked open, faint enough that he almost slept through it—but over twenty years of listening for his Master’s slightest need keyed his senses to high alert immediately. He tensed, opening one eye, but didn’t move, just listening. A light tread, one he was beginning to recognize as Harrington’s; bare feet, he thought, against cool stone. Then another creak as the door closed, the sound of a latch clicking so slowly it could only be an attempt at silence, secrecy.

Then the hiss of cloth and skin on sheets, a feather’s weight pressing into his bed.

And the warmth of a lithe body pressed against his back. Pajama-clad legs bumping against the backs of his thighs. Slim hands curled against his shoulder blades.

Soft breaths against his spine, as with a hitching sound Ashton Harrington buried his face against Brand’s back.

Brand stiffened. “Young Master…?” he asked softly.

Harrington shook his head, his dark shock of hair teasing and feathering against Brand’s skin. “Don’t say anything,” he answered in a choked whisper. “I don’t want anything from you. Not like that. Just…just…” That rough, hurting sound again. “…just let me be here. Let me…let me not be alone.”

Brand started to look over his shoulder, unable to help himself when that aching, rough edge to the young Master’s voice caught at the quiet strings of his heart and pulled at them to the point of pain. But Harrington hunched into himself, pressing his hands harder against Brand’s back, then curling them into fists.

“Don’t,” Harrington pleaded, rasping and thick. “Don’t turn around. Just…just stay like this.”

For a moment, Brand remained as he was, taking in the hints of Harrington’s profile he could see in the dark—before he turned to face forward once more, settling into the pillow with the candleglow warmth of his young Master cradled against his back.

“As you wish, young Master Harrington,” he murmured.

Harrington remained silent for several shaky breaths, then, “…Ashton. Ash.”

“Young Master Ashton.”

The bed shook faintly as Ash let out a near-soundless, bitter laugh. “…that’ll work.”

Brand said nothing.

He only let things be, and listened long into the dark of the night as Ashton’s rattling, raspy, tear-filled breaths quieted one at a time.

And slowly, sweetly slipped into the quiet respite of sleep.