Chapter 49
He locked himself away, stayed in his apartment, and worked. Stayed busy. Hired two new virtual assistants, too. And tried to forget the things Izzy had said to him.
Weeks passed.
He ventured out one Sunday. The Stones were having lunch at The Four Seasons and his mother had told him he’d better be there, or else.
And so he had turned up, and made small talk.
But he’d almost choked when Tobias had casually mentioned that the guy sitting a few tables away was Gideon Shoemoney.
Seeing the douchebag sitting at a table with men in suits had unleashed a tidal wave of anger in him and he didn’t give a shit if the guy was in a business meeting or with friends.
Rage bubbled up inside him like a hot spring. He couldn’t sit by and do nothing, which was why he’d gotten up and walked over.
“Gideon?” he asked, not blinking when the guy turned to him and smiled. It was then that he threw the glass of wine at his face.
“That’s for a friend you molested. You dirty, filthy, slimy piece of shit.” He leaned over, until his face was barely two inches away, and the man flinched as if he was scared shitless, before expressing outrage. One, two, three expletives followed.
“Keep your dirty paws off of your au-pairs, old man,” Xavier threatened, “Or else.”
The mouths of the other men on the table fell open, and Shoemoney turned silent. His face had turned red, and Xavier wasn’t sure if it was the wine or his outrage. Red streaks ran down his face and shirt, and two servers rushed over to him to help wipe up the spill.
He walked calmly back to his table and continued with his lunch as the commotion a few tables away raged on.
“What the fu—” Tobias had started to say, glaring at him over the table.
His mother’s cocktail glass halted in mid-air. “Xavier, what on earth is wrong with you?”
“Son?” his father asked.
Jacob’s mouth had remained fixed in in an O.
“Son,” his father said, again. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
“Language, dad,” Tobias cautioned, his face dark, his mouth twisting. It was entertaining, seeing his brother try to resist the urge to explode.
Only Savannah eyed him silently. She had that look about her. The one where she made no judgement, but knew there was more to tell.
“Eat up, kid.” Xavier told Jacob. “I won’t apologize for that.” He pointed his knife at Shoemoney’s table. The head waiter approached. “Is everything alright, Sir?” he asked.
“Everything is perfectly fine,” he replied. Nobody would ever dare tell a Stone to leave. When Xavier next turned to look, Shoemoney had left, but his guests were still digging into their meal.
“It had better be good,” Tobias said, sipping his wine, and glaring at him. “Your explanation.”
“You’ll understand.”
He knew Tobias would.
~ ~ ~
He stepped out into the busy sidewalk and decided to walk back to his apartment instead of jumping into a taxi.
Walking was good. It cleared his mind, helped him to think. Except when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and his fingers hovered over the button when Tobias’s name appeared on the caller ID.
He was surprised his brother had lasted a day. Now he wasn’t sure whether to accept the call or send it to voicemail. He answered, bracing himself.
“How’s it going?” Tobias asked, a simple enough question, but one which left him wondering what he was walking into.
“Good,” he replied, wondering why Tobias was so calm and hadn’t uttered an expletive yet. Or maybe this was the calm before the Stone eruption?
“Need to talk to you. Are you free to meet up? I can come by if you’re at home.”
Free to meet up? His brother hadn’t yet made any accusations, or apportioned any blame, or made assumptions. This didn’t sound like Tobias at all. Dare he risk it? “I can come by your office,” Xavier suggested. “I’ve come out of a meeting, and I’m a couple of blocks away.”
“Come by.”
And so he did.
Tobias had a relaxed look about him, and he was actually smiling at him as Xavier walked in, so much so that he was tempted to ask him if he was feeling alright.
“Everything okay with Savannah and Jacob?” he asked, sitting down across the desk.
“Everything is fine.” Tobias got up from his desk, and gazed out of his floor-to-ceiling windows. “Do you know why I like being so high up here?”
“Because you like to feel like a king?”
His brother issued a rare smile. “Because it gives me a bird’s eye view of things.”
“Oh-kaaaay,” he said slowly, and wondered if he ought to call Savannah and ask what the hell had happened to Tobias, because clearly, something had.
His brother gave him a sidelong glance. “I need to remember that, because it’s easy for me to get so caught up in the minutiae of business that I don’t see the bigger picture. And that means, I don’t have clarity.”
What the fuck was he going on about? “What—” Xavier paused, and struggled to find the words. “are you saying?” he asked, slowly.
Tobias turned away from the window and stood facing him. “I’m sorry for blaming you. I know you didn’t leak the news about the twins.”
Jeez. This wasn’t even about the Shoemoney incident. An apology from the almighty Tobias. He’d expected that Savannah would tell him at some point, but he’d never held out for an apology. He’d have been lucky to receive an acknowledgement via text, but this, an apology, and in person. “Savannah told you.”
“You should have said something,” Tobias continued
“I didn’t want Jacob to get into trouble.”
“I know. That’s what Savannah told me. He would never have gotten into trouble.” Tobias walked over to him and perched on the corner of the desk. “Do I come across as a monster?”
Xavier blinked. “Uh—” He was caught in a serious dilemma, should he tell the ugly truth or make up a pretty lie?
“The truth, Xavier. I want the truth.”
“Can you handle the truth?”
His brother raised an eyebrow, and swallowed. “Yes.”
“I find you intimidating at the best of times, and I’m a 27 year old guy. Can you imagine how you might come across to that kid?”
“I love that boy. I’ve never raised my voice at him, I never would. He can’t do any wrong in my eyes, not only because I’m biased, but because that’s the kind of child he is, because of the way Savannah raised him.”
“Sometimes you don’t even have to open your mouth, Tobias. You have a look about you that could turn people to stone, if you had any supernatural powers.”
“I’m working on fixing that.”
“Marrying Savannah was a start.”
“It was. I’m going to adopt Jacob, before the twins are born.”
“You are?”
“Would have done it sooner, but his damn father was hard to track down.”
“Nice.”
“And,” Tobias’s face darkened. “I’m sorry for coming down on you like a ton of bricks, about that whole Matthias situation, about him being a partner in that company with Hennessy. I didn’t tell you about what happened between us, and it was wrong of me to take it out on you.”
“I’ve pulled out of the contract.”
“You did what?”
“I pulled out.”
“But you needed it. You said he had contacts and the infrastructure you needed in China.”
“I can find someone else.” It would take a while, and it would set back production, but it made sense. He felt it had been the right decision.
“But you’d already signed contracts.”
“Doesn’t matter. I told Hennessy that it wasn’t the right fit for me.” That was the meeting he’d come from, and he had given some vague but believable reasons for backing out of the deal.
Tobias looked surprised. “Why did you back out?”
“Because of you. Something had obviously gone down between you both, and it didn’t feel right for me to proceed.” He needed the investment, but did he need a pissed off brother to deal with at every turn? This had to have been big, the fall out with Matthias.
“You don’t even know what happened,” Tobias said.
“I didn’t see the point of going into business with someone when you clearly had a problem with the guy’s company. I know it had to be something serious, because you still haven’t been able to tell me.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Tobias, “I’ll tell you when I’m ready to talk about it.”
“For the record, I want you to know that I haven’t seen Matthias for months, and he wasn’t a party to any of the meetings I had with Chad.”
“See that,” said Tobias, pointing his finger at him, “that’s what I mean. I was so wrapped up in the emotion of it all, I didn’t even care to see how it affected you. I used to be better at detaching myself from emotions, that’s how I built all of this.” He gestured around the room. “But things are different now, with Savannah, and Jacob, and the pregnancy. I’m losing my ruthlessness.”
Xavier smiled, unable to hold back. “You’re becoming more human, bro.”
“I think of my family, and it makes me want to tear up with joy. You ever felt that way about someone? That you would give your life for them? And if they hurt, it kills you?”
Hell, yes. He’d come the closest to feeling that depth of emotion about someone, and he’d lost her along with his heart.
“I know how he thinks,” said Tobias. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if Rust thought that doing a deal with you might be a way to get back in with me.”
His thoughts were still wrapped up in Izzy, and Tobias had switched into business mode so fast, he had to force himself to listen. “Yeah?”
“I know how that brain of his works.”
Xavier wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He had believed Hennessy had invested in him. It made him feel small again, to think that Hennessy and his company would invest in him purely so that Matthias could indirectly find a lifeline to Tobias. “Do you always have to make it about you?”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe Hennessy wanted to invest in my company,” Xavier countered. “It’s no corporation, but maybe he wanted to try something risky.”
“Stone Enterprises does risky. Why have you never come to me for investment?”
A sharp shock ran through him. He held his brother’s gaze. “Because you usually take the piss out of my business ideas.”
“I get offers to fund the craziest ventures. You would be surprised.”
“You would invest in me?”
“I could do worse.”
“Why can’t you just say, ‘yes’ sometimes?” Xavier asked. “Why do you always feel the need to patronize me?”
“Yes,” replied his brother. “Maybe I would have said yes a long time ago, if you’d asked me properly.”
Tobias was willing to invest in him? He wasn’t sure how to take this news. The thought that this might be a temporary glitch in his brother’s steely temperament meant he needed to take him up on the offer, and quickly. Getting Tobias to fund his ventures might not be such a crazy idea. And it would be motivation enough to try and double, or triple, his brother’s investment.
“I’ll consider it. I never considered Stone Enterprises in that way.”
“You could do worse. You could go to Matthias Rust, but I’m grateful that you didn’t.”
“Does Stone Enterprises offer internships?” he asked, suddenly.
“No,” Tobias replied, looking puzzled. “We already get hundreds of resumes from Ivy League students.”
That was a shame. A company like Tobias’s would look good on Izzy’s resume. It had been over a month since their break up, and a couple of weeks since he had sought her out at NYB.
He had come away that day feeling broken, wishing he had heeded Luke’s advice and had given her more time before he’d sought her out. That had been his mistake. But it didn’t mean he stopped caring, and he hadn’t stopped thinking about her.
She had gotten into his skin, and burrowed deep into his soul, and trying to forget her was almost impossible.
“Would you ever consider it?” Xavier asked.
“Why?”
“Why not? A lot of companies have internships. It’s how they get the best people for their business.”
“You have anyone in mind, for this internship?” That curious look on Tobias’s face had him wondering if he knew.
“Izzy was going to start looking.”
“Izzy,” said Tobias, hooking his hands into his trouser pockets. “I didn’t know she was looking for an internship.”
“She’s good. Really good, she’s smart, really smart, and quick. She did some work for me a while back.”
“I’d heard.”
He wondered who had mentioned it to him. It was possible that Izzy might have said something to Savannah, because this thing between them had been relatively new. Only Cara had known.
“She could really do with something like that. She’s driven, and she has big ambitions.”
Tobias gave him a look that was part confusion, and part interest.
Non-judgmental.
“This have anything to do with the $500-a-bottle wine you threw at Gideon Shoemoney?” he asked, slowly.
“The guy is a pervert,” Xavier ground out the words. “A. Sick. Fucking. Pervert.”
Tobias looked at him for the longest time, then, glanced at his watch. “You can tell me over a drink, and I’ll tell you about Matthias.”
“You want to go out for a drink?” Wouldn’t Savannah want him home? Didn’t he have better things to do?
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Because we haven’t gone out for a drink since before you got married.” And even then it had been to wrap up stuff for the wedding.
“Savannah knew I was going to speak to you today. Trust me,” said Tobias, turning his computer off. “This will get me extra points, if she knows we at least had a drink together.”
Xavier got up. “You’re doing this to score points?”
“I’m doing this because it was long overdue.”