NICHOLAS WALKED around the exterior of the house, his polished shoes squelching into the damp ground. His grandfather had left him a voicemail asking him to come as soon as possible. Nicholas had canceled a meeting and gotten in his car.
When John Chandler said jump, no one at Chandler’s wasted time asking how high. Except his dad, but then Brendan actively wanted to fuck with John.
He found his grandparent hunched over his beloved late wife’s rose garden, carefully pruning the dead heads off the branches. Nicholas came to stand next to his wheelchair. “Grandpa. You called?”
His grandfather didn’t stop what he was doing. “There’s some weeds over there I can’t reach.”
Most corporate executives probably weren’t ordered to weed in the middle of the workday, but then, most executives weren’t employed by a man who had changed their diapers. Nicholas stripped off his jacket, draped it over the banister of the porch, and rolled up his sleeves, tossing his tie over his shoulder so it wouldn’t get in the way. He grabbed the soft foam knee rest near John’s chair—laid there for him, he assumed—and knelt on the ground, pulling the offending weeds out.
Unlike his grandfather, he didn’t count gardening among his hobbies. Nicholas frowned at a stubborn weed. Actually, what were his hobbies? Working out, but that was out of necessity and discipline. When was the last time he’d engaged in an activity for pleasure?
Five nights ago.
He ripped the weed out so hard, dirt sprayed on his white shirt. He glanced down in dismay. He’d have to shower and change when he got back to the office.
“These protests. What’s happening?”
Nicholas sat back on his heels and swiped his arm over his forehead. Right. Business. Work. Things that had nothing to do with Livvy and that seedy hotel room where he’d fucked her and left her lying naked on the bed.
Shame and self-disgust wrestled inside him, but he tried to focus past them. “I got the report today. The store the activists are protesting is selling a tomato sauce from a company that uses prison labor to farm tomatoes and a honey from a company that hires inmates to raise bees. There may be a few others. It’s hard to source back to every ingredient.”
“Have you told your father?”
It was always “Brendan” or “your father.” Brendan had stopped being John’s son when he’d bought Tani’s shares behind John’s back. “Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said the products are fine sellers and it doesn’t make sense to go down the slippery slope of discovering where everything comes from.”
“I bet he said, if it became more publicized, we could spin the discovery as corrective rehabilitation, correct? A good deed.”
Nicholas reluctantly nodded.
“I looked into this particular program myself. If the prisoners are lucky, they earn a few thousand a year.”
“Yes, sir.” Nicholas wasn’t surprised his grandfather had researched it. John was more than a little technologically adept.
“That’s exploitation.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Nicholas said diplomatically.
“I want no part of it. We will not carry those products, and I want a top-to-bottom review of every supplier we use to ensure none of them are using companies like this. I won’t profit off the backs of men and women who have no choice in their employment.”
Nicholas pulled off his gloves. “Dad’s going to say that’s an expensive proposition.”
John finished snipping at the thorns and sat back in his chair. His gaze was shrewd when it met Nicholas’s. “What do you say?”
“It doesn’t matter what I say. I don’t own half the company.” He didn’t mean for his tone to be so testy, and he recalibrated immediately. “I mean, the ultimate decision is up to the two of you.”
“Which one of us do you think is right?”
Ha-ha. No. He wasn’t falling into that trap. Privately, he agreed with his grandfather, as he often did, but that was an opinion he’d take to his grave. The usual way he handled situations like this was to get both of their visions and then create a perfect compromise neither could wiggle out from. His thoughts were part and parcel of that compromise, but picking sides was a fool’s errand. He was Switzerland, a neutral party in this world war. “I’ll have to consider it some more.”
John harrumphed. “Fine. Consider it fast, though. This could blow up.”
In many ways, his grandfather understood public relations far better than his dad. “Yes, sir. I have people drafting a few different statements we can circulate to the media as well.”
“Good. Good.”
“I think once we come to a decision on this, we should come up with some general guidelines so we can handle these sorts of issues without needing to bother you. Or Dad,” Nicholas said.
John smirked. “Are you saying we micromanage you?”
Yes. “Our company has grown dramatically in a short period of time. It makes sense to periodically review all of our job responsibilities.”
“I swear, son. You got this diplomacy directly from your grandmother.” John removed his gardening gloves. “Very well. Speaking of your grandmother, I’ve sent Shel to you for a job.”
Nicholas racked his brain, but came up empty. “A cousin?”
“Barbara’s sister’s daughter’s niece. She’s in a tough spot.”
Nicholas didn’t bother to try to parse that connection. It didn’t matter how anyone was connected to him. If John said they were family, they were family. Besides, he’d probably recognize the girl when he saw her. “Fine. I’ll find her a place.” He came to his feet and dusted off his pants legs. “Is that all?”
“One more thing.”
“Yes?” Nicholas walked to the porch to grab his suit jacket.
“I want to see Livvy.”
It was a good thing Nicholas had his back to his grandfather, because it took him a second to control his expression. In the meantime, he pulled his jacket on, his brain racing. When he felt more composed, he turned to face his patiently waiting grandfather.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t feed me any bullshit,” John said bluntly. “I know she’s here.”
Nicholas didn’t bother to ask how John had found out. Though he mostly kept to himself now, in Rockville, John was larger than life. There were few people who he hadn’t affected in one way or another. “She’s here. I don’t know why you think I’d be able to arrange a meeting between you.”
“Don’t play dumb, Nicholas. I know you’ve seen her.”
“What makes you say that?” He was proud of how cool and controlled his voice sounded when he wanted to grab his grandfather and demand to know who had seen them together and where. They’d been careful. Had he been spotted at that hotel?
His blood ran to ice to think of what his father would think about that.
“Don’t worry about it. And relax, your dad doesn’t know you’ve seen her.”
Nicholas bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t care whether Dad knows or not.” Look at that. He was even able to lie without betraying a hint of his inner disquiet.
John merely nodded. “I need you to do this for me, Nicholas.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets, not bothering to pretend any longer. “I don’t think I can arrange that. I’m not planning on seeing her again.” She wouldn’t want to see him. Generally, when a woman booked it after sex with a couple of terse messages, it was a pretty good sign she was done.
Bye.
That bye was haunting him. He hadn’t been able to delete it. Ten times he’d tried to work up some sort of response, if only to ask if she was okay or that she’d reached home safely, and he couldn’t.
He’d never felt like less of a man.
He couldn’t shove the compartment on her closed. His desire for her hadn’t eased. On the contrary, he only craved her more than he had before.
Which was why he shouldn’t go anywhere near her.
John looked across the yard to the woods, where Livvy’s old house sat on the other side.
“Do you know what I promised Sam before he died?”
“That you would take care of his family,” Nicholas said quietly. It was a vow he knew his grandfather didn’t take lightly, one that had its origins in the history between their two families.
When Sam and John had been little more than children, the Okas had been sentenced to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans. They’d hastily shut down their successful grocery store. Unable to take more than they could carry to the camp, they’d entrusted as many possessions as they could to the Chandlers.
The two families had a lot in common—John’s parents had been immigrants too, from England. The Chandlers had simply had the privilege not to be viewed as enemies on sight. They’d carefully guarded the Okas’ assets.
When the Okas had been released, Sam and John had headed east, eager for a fresh start. They’d found it. Their tight bond had lasted up until the day Sam died.
“You know, I wasn’t a tenth of the businessman Sam was. Everything we have—everything you have, you owe to him.”
Nicholas dipped his head, having heard this before. He didn’t disbelieve it. His grandfather was shrewd, but he lacked a killer instinct. By all accounts, Sam had been the one to steer the ship during their first tumultuous years.
“I didn’t do a good job keeping my promise,” John said. “I did the worst fucking job.”
“It’s not your fault.” It was Brendan’s fault.
Nicholas tried to beat back that thought. He couldn’t survive if he let the seething resentment he felt toward his father surface. And above all, he needed to survive.
“It was my fault.” John’s trembling, age-spotted hands folded together. “The least I could have done was make sure my own son didn’t steal Sam’s half of the company.”
Nicholas eyed his grandfather with concern. John had been in the hospital when Maria Chandler had died, recovering from cardiac arrest. The news and grief over his daughter-in-law’s death had set him back, and so no one had wanted to risk giving him more stress. He hadn’t learned of what Brendan had done until it was too late.
Sometimes Nicholas wondered if things would have turned out differently if John had been in commission. He would have tried to block his son on acquiring Tani’s shares, without a doubt. Maybe he would have succeeded. Nicholas supposed it didn’t matter now.
John’s lips pinched together. “I tried to talk to Tani afterward. Even tried to sign my half of the company over to her. She refused to see me.”
Nicholas frowned. “I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know then if you’d take your father’s side.”
Nicholas’s hand tightened into a fist. “Grandpa, you can take my word on it. I’m not my father.” Or at least, he didn’t want to be like Brendan.
“Ah, I know, son. I know.” His grandpa looked away. “You are nothing like your father.”
Nicholas shifted, uncomfortable. “Did you ever consider giving Paul your interest?”
John shook his head. “Not when he was so young. He wouldn’t have been able to go up against your father, and despite what Brendan would like to think, he doesn’t have the qualities that make C&O special. It would have just been another grocery chain then.” John gave a helpless shrug. “It had to be me, even though I hated the unfairness of it.”
His grandfather often did that, referring to Chandler’s as C&O. Nicholas suspected it was deliberate. “The company certainly wouldn’t be the same without you.” Nicholas knew he needed to prepare for a day when his grandfather wasn’t around, and that thought filled him with sorrow and loss. He and his father were the brains, but John was the heart of the corporation.
“I think Sam would be happy I kept our vision alive. Less happy over how his family was treated.” John’s gaze grew watery. “Livvy’s here now, and I . . . I have to see her. I need to make sure she’s okay. Please.”
It was the please that got him. His grandfather rarely asked him for anything that wasn’t business related, and he certainly didn’t beg.
Nicholas looked off toward the woods. He had grown up a few miles down the road in an ostentatious mansion, but he’d had the run of these houses. His grandfather’s house, and the Oka-Kanes’ house.
He might owe Sam Oka, though he’d never met the man, but he definitely owed John. “I’ll ask her. I can’t guarantee anything.”
John squeezed his eyes shut. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. She’s got a mind of her own.”
John’s smile was fond. “Didn’t she always?”
“She did.” He’d always adored that about her. “I’ll get back to you soon.”
“Don’t waste too much time. I’m not getting any younger.”
“Yes, sir.”
A feminine voice came from behind him. “Nicholas?”
He turned to find his sister walking across the back porch. She looked polished and put together in her sensible pumps and black pants suit. Her white shirt had a frill at the collar. Stiff, formal, elegant. Just like her. “Eve. What are you doing here?”
“Grandpa wanted me to look through some of Grandma’s letters.”
“Need to get the right ones for our memoir.” John’s smile held a hit of reminiscing. “She would have killed me for rifling through her stuff, but she’d be okay with Eve doing it.”
Nicholas shared a look with Eve. That sounded suspiciously like a task that could have been done at any time, anywhere, not necessarily on a workday, at John’s house.
Combined with John’s recent trend of not coming into the office, this was worrisome. Nicholas made a mental note to talk to his grandfather’s housekeeper. If John was sad or lonely, he needed to know. He and Eve could step up their visits, or perhaps they could look into some activities for the man. “Sounds like a good time.”
“You can come over on the weekend and go through the albums, Nicholas,” John said eagerly.
Hmm. “I’d like that. But for now, I should get going.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Eve murmured.
He bent down to hug his grandfather, and the older man patted him on the back. Nicholas hid his worry at how weak the hug felt. “We’ll talk soon, Grandpa.”
His grandfather gave him a conspiratorial look. “Yes, soon.”
He walked across the wide expanse of lawn with his sister. She didn’t speak until they turned the corner. “That sounded important.”
“Everything everyone needs from me is important.”
“Must be nice,” she said. “Everything I do is paperwork and party planning.”
He cast her a sideways look, catching the tinge of discontent in her tone. “Are you unhappy at the foundation?”
“Does it matter? One of us has to carry on Mom’s work while the other carries on Dad and Grandpa’s. How lucky that it could be split along gender lines.”
He’d never seen her smile so sour. “If you don’t like your work, we can find something else for you at the company. I thought you wanted to work at the foundation.”
Her smile turned fixed, and she shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”
He had to worry about it. He had to worry about all of them. He’d assumed Eve was more than content carrying on their mother’s legacy.
Despite everything that came with it, he’d never considered doing anything other than what he was doing. He wanted Eve to have that same sense of security.
His car came into view, parked in the circular driveway. Eve rested her fingertips on his sleeve. “Nicholas . . . I wanted to apologize.”
He shot her a quick glance. “Apologize for what?”
“For my ridiculous behavior last week. I’m sorry I worried you and you rushed over like that. I’m ashamed you saw me that way.”
It took him a second to realize what she was talking about. Jesus, he’d completely forgotten about Eve’s intoxication. He’d been so focused on Livvy.
It hadn’t been a week since that night. It had been five days. He knew, because he’d counted off each excruciatingly long second and minute and hour, all while burying himself in work.
“You’re of legal age,” he said gruffly. “It’s perfectly fine for you to have some fun.”
Evangeline smoothed her unwrinkled jacket. “I didn’t go to that bar to have fun.”
He nodded and waited. When she’d been a child, Evie had always been slow to confide anything, but she’d spill all in her own time.
“I heard what Grandpa said to you. About wanting to see Livvy.”
Nicholas stopped in his tracks. Eve did the same, her head bowed. “How’d you hear that?”
“I’m a very good eavesdropper. The truth is, I wanted to see Livvy too.” She twined her fingers together. “I followed her to the bar.”
That, he had not been expecting. He stared down at Eve’s shiny black hair. “What?”
“I can’t explain it. It was like something in my brain snapped after our meeting. I sat there, watching her for a while. I drank, even though I hated it. Then she came over, and I . . .” She lifted her head and swallowed. “I berated her about the accident. Not in so many words, but I was angry and hurt and thinking of Mom. I was harsh and out of line.”
“For fuck’s sake.” He never swore at Eve. Never. But he wasn’t quite sure what else to say.
But she absorbed the verbal rebuke like it was her due. She lifted her head. “I’m not proud of what I said or did. I’ve been agonizing over it for days.” She put her hands over her face. “I got angry and it spewed out.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. No matter what her father or brother did—what her brother was suspected of doing—Livvy wasn’t a part of it. She’s as innocent as we were.”
Maybe you should listen to yourself. He swallowed the sour taste in his mouth. He hadn’t treated Livvy well either, in that motel room. And now he discovered that his sister had hurt her before he’d even arrived on the scene.
Just like a Chandler. Selfishly taking whatever you want.
“Eve—”
“You don’t have to say anything. I am so mortified and disappointed in myself. Because that isn’t all.” Eve’s round cheeks turned pink. “I offered her money to stay away from you.”
Anger was something Nicholas had learned early on how to control. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then twenty. Then forty.
Nope. A dull throbbing. “My God. You did not.”
“I remember how you looked when you came home from ending things with her.” Her words tumbled over each other. “I didn’t want you to be hurt again.”
He didn’t remember the direct aftermath of breaking up with Livvy. Had he seen Eve?
Those weeks had taken on a blurry, hazy quality. After the accident, his and Livvy’s contact had been limited to rushed phone calls, filled with sobbing on her part and wooden attempts at comfort on his. He’d known she needed him, but so had Eve and his grandfather and the company.
He’d assumed they’d work it all out because they were in love. And love won, right?
Even after his dad had taken over the company, he hadn’t considered ending his relationship with Livvy. But then Brendan had called him into his office and pounded the final nail into that coffin. It had been hopeless after that.
She hadn’t fought him when he’d told her it wouldn’t work. Part of him had hoped she would, even if he’d chosen his words carefully so she wouldn’t. It had been as mutual a breakup as it could have been when he’d had to be coerced into it.
“While I appreciate your concern, that was a long, long time ago,” he growled.
“That day in the office, when I told you she was back, I saw. You were shaken.”
Yes, he had been shaken, but she shouldn’t have known that. He was the master at keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself, damn it. “No, I wasn’t.”
“I know you think no one can read you, but I can. I know you, Nicholas.” Eve searched his face. “And what I saw that day in the boardroom, it was the same thing I saw when you came home from breaking up with her.”
He shoved his hand through his hair. “I—”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Eve’s voice was gentle.
Unable to stand still, he continued walking, struggling to find the words to express his dismay. “You shouldn’t have done what you did.”
Eve came abreast of him. “I feel terrible, trust me. I only told you because I figured if you were carrying messages to her, maybe you could ask if she would see me so I can apologize? I don’t want to thrust myself on her again.”
An unholy urge to laugh came over him. “Why does everyone think I have some sort of direct line to Livvy?”
Eve put her hands in her pockets. “Because we remember how you guys used to be?”
“Key words are used to be.” They reached his car. She was shivering in the fall air. He reached out and pulled her suit jacket together. “You need a coat.”
Her smile was warm, but wobbly. “I’ll remember that.”
He sighed, the anger seeping out of him. How could he stay mad at Eve? It was impossible. “Don’t try to buy any other women away from me, okay?”
“I won’t,” she said, meek.
He leaned down to kiss her but she surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tight. He returned the hug gingerly. He’d showered her with physical affection when she was young, to make up for their mother’s loss, but they’d settled into a pattern of simple pecks on the cheek in the past couple of years. He gradually relaxed into the hug and patted her back.
“When I heard she was back, all I could think about was what life was like before the accident, and the fire. What it was like to have Mom around. How Dad was different,” she whispered. “He was, wasn’t he? He loved us then.”
He tightened his grip on her. That was what he’d led Eve to believe. When he’d sat with her day after day, night after night, in the pediatrics ward of that hospital, he’d told her their father would have absolutely been there if their mother’s death hadn’t broken him two years prior. What else could he have said to a fifteen-year-old? Sorry, your father is too busy to care about you.
No chance in hell.
His father had always had issues. From the time Nicholas was a small child, he could remember hiding in his room or escaping to the Kanes’ when his father grew angry or cold. No physical abuse. His dad was disdainful of men who used their fists. The man preferred to use words and leverage and silences as his weapons of choice. They left no marks. Not obvious ones at least.
Nicholas suspected his mother had shielded him and Eve from the worst of it, especially Eve. He’d taken over after Maria’s death. Their grandfather was the only other person who might have an inkling as to Brendan’s true nature, but not the full extent. John couldn’t know. He’d be devastated to learn what his son was capable of.
Nicholas lowered his head to speak directly into Eve’s ear. “Little bit, never doubt it for a moment. You were and always have been loved.”
She went so still, he wondered if she’d heard him, but then she dipped her head. “I love you too, Nicholas.”
He had things to do. Still, he remained there, content to embrace his sister for however long he could.
He rested his cheek on her head. Peace. A different kind of peace than the one he’d experienced briefly with Livvy in her chair, but peace all the same.
“Are you going to see her?”
He didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. “Yes.” He had to, if only to relay his grandfather’s message.
And apologize. For Eve, and also for himself. He’d barely been able to look at himself in the mirror when he shaved this morning.
“Be careful, okay?”
He drew back to peer down at her. “I’m fine.”
“I mean, be careful with her.” She grimaced. “I’m the last person to say that, after what I said to her, but I saw the way she looked at you when you came to my place . . . she’s not invulnerable.”
“You were drunk.”
“Drunk, not unconscious.” She gave him a wry look. “I know we aren’t the most sensitive people when it comes to emotions. But I know what I saw.”
“We are definitely not sensitive.” Their father was an emotional wasteland; their grandfather was sentimental but gruff; their mother had always been cheerful, but that had just been a different kind of mask.
Her small hand stroked over his sleeve. Her fingers were round, the nails blunt. “Maybe we could try expressing our feelings a little more. It might keep us from doing things like stalking people.”
Nicholas almost laughed. What would his life have been like if he’d been free to express how he felt? The closest he’d ever come to indulging himself that way was . . .
The time he’d spent with Livvy.
And even then, he’d kept a tight lid on himself, never allowing himself to fully immerse himself, because he knew she’d be gone soon. Except last week. He’d almost lost his control in that motel room. It had scared him so much, he’d had to run away from the bed.
I should punish you for making me want you. For making me need you.
If you punish me, you’re punishing yourself.
“We do need to cut down on stalking,” Nicholas said wryly. “But I’m not sure if extravagantly indulging our id is the answer.”
“It doesn’t have to be extravagant. We should make a pact. One feeling, at least one,” Eve suggested. “What can it hurt? Try it today. When you experience some emotion, don’t run from it or try to stuff it down. Express it.”
It could hurt a great deal, when you were sitting on a pressure cooker like he was. Twist the valve, and God only knows if he could stop at one. He would gorge himself, lose himself.
He couldn’t explain to her how dangerous and foolish that was. He forced a smile for his sister, because that was what he did for her. Pretended everything was normal, even when it wasn’t.
And a part of him recognized the seductive appeal of this exercise. To feel alive and not like an automaton? Even if it was for only one heartbeat. “Okay. One feeling.”