Текст книги "Seven Nights to Surrender"

Автор книги: Jeanette Grey

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chapter TWENTY-FIVE

Three months later

The stool next to Rylan’s made an ugly, scraping noise as it was dragged against the floor. He furrowed his brow. He hadn’t thought he’d been quite that unaware of what was going on around him. But shit happened. He looked up from his paper to take in the girl settling herself in beside him.

Smooth, caramel-colored skin, tight curls. One of those weird teardrop-shaped bags.

Shorts. Converse.

He folded his paper over and shot her a halfhearted grin, feeling a little sick at himself as he did. God. It was like muscle memory or a reflex, the way he flirted. No wonder he didn’t come across as the kind of guy to trust.

The girl smiled back and held up her hand to try to get the bartender’s attention. The man came over and glanced between the two of them.

Rylan tapped at his own empty glass. The man looked at the girl expectantly as he reached for Rylan’s whiskey.

“Anglais?” the girl asked. English?

Fuck it. Rylan was bored. Holding up a hand to stall the bartender, he turned to her. “Allow me. What would you like?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Red wine. Dry. Local would be nice.”

Rylan knew just the thing. He rattled off her order to the barkeep. While the bartender was pouring, Rylan held out his hand to the girl. “Rylan.”

She took it, her grip warm and firm. “Naya.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

Her wine appeared in front of her. Dropping her hand, Rylan plucked his own glass off the bar and held it up. She clinked obligingly and they each took a sip.

It was a promising start, if a tired one. There were more than enough free stools at this particular bar this early in the evening. She didn’t have to pick the one right next to his. He didn’t have to buy her a drink. And yet she did and he did.

A handful of months ago, he’d have considered it ideal. Now it was just another way to pass the time.

“Traveling by yourself?” he asked. Creepy as conversational openers went, but he didn’t really care. This wasn’t going anywhere.

“Nah. My girlfriends ditched me for a club. Not my speed.”

He hummed and took a sip of his drink. “And what is your speed?”

“Quiet bars. Dark, mysterious strangers.” Her elbow nudged his, and God. A handful of months ago, he’d have considered this a dream.

Today, he shook his head, grinning wryly. “What else?”

At least the girl could take a hint. She shifted her arm away. But she didn’t pick up her drink and go. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Art museums, I guess.”

She said it so casually, as if they were just another thing she’d get around to while she was in town. Not the way Kate had said it, voice warm with reverence. Like those shrines to old, dead masters were exactly that. Sacred.

Still, he lifted his gaze, his flagging interest recaptured. “Yeah? Which ones have you been to so far?”

“Hit the Louvre today. Musée d’Orsay is on tap for tomorrow.”

Rylan twisted in his seat to face her more fully. “You’re going to love it. They—” He paused, the back of his throat suddenly dry. “They have an amazing collection of Cézannes.”

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for them.” Her gaze raked him up and down. “And what’s your speed?”

Nope. Not happening. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me.” He turned his glass in his hands, feeling that tight ball of wistfulness unfurling in his chest. “I’m just a guy.”

Just a part of the scenery.

He didn’t know why he was still here.

He slammed his fifth glass of whiskey down.

She pulled out her sketchbook.

He ordered another.

“Whoa, you okay there?”

Rylan listed in his chair, frowning unhappily at his empty glass. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Just fine.”

The girl paused, lifting her pencil from the paper.

Squinting, he tilted his head to the side. “You know who you remind me of?”

“Who?”

His smile felt like it would break. Just like his ribs.

Just like his heart.

He opened his mouth to answer—

Rylan woke the next morning to the sound of his phone. His head throbbed dimly, and vague flashes from the night before skipped through his mind as he struggled to sit up, reaching for his nightstand where he always plugged the damn thing in. Only it wasn’t there—

Only it wasn’t even his bed he was lying in. Jesus, he’d passed out on the couch again. A quick pat-down of his pockets and he found his phone. Holding it up to his face, he saw his sister’s name. Mashing the button to ignore the call, he tossed his phone aside. With a groan, he lay back down.

He hadn’t forgotten about her fucking board meeting, thank you very much. As if he could forget that the whole future of the company was riding on him tucking his tail between his legs and letting himself get sucked right back into the life he’d finally escaped. The one full of mandates and guilt trips and his father always breathing down his goddamn neck. High-stakes negotiations with clients and business partners, wining and dining, and the blood-heating rush of adrenaline, of power when you got what you wanted.

The satisfaction of a job well done.

He thunked his head back against the arm of the couch and instantly regretted it. A shock of pain burst through his skull. Wincing, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter and gripped the top of his head.

See? Why would he need his old life back? Here, he had an uncomfortable designer sofa. An empty apartment and empty days and an empty fucking heart.

And a hangover from hell.

What the hell had he done to himself last night? He’d dragged himself home at least, but he’d slept in the living room, in his clothes, and he smelled like the bottom of an ashtray.

Like perfume.

Fuck. There had been a girl. An artist. She’d tried to pick him up, and he’d said no. He’d definitely said no. He knew how that kind of thing ended now.

Kate had left and Lexie had left, and he had stayed, and he had tried to go back to his routine. To his distractions. But no one was Kate.

This girl hadn’t been Kate, either.

She’d still tried to draw him, though.

His stomach gave a protesting lurch as it started to come back to him.

The girl had waited until he was pretty hosed before she’d asked if she could do a sketch of him, and he’d tried to decline. But the girl hadn’t given up. Eventually, he’d closed his eyes and let her do her worst, and it had hurt. Deep inside, in a place that liquor could never touch, no matter how hard he tried, it ached.

Because he remembered that. He remembered being as naked as a person could be, lying back and letting a woman see every part of him. Letting her capture it on a page.

Only to have her walk out the door the very next day.

At some point, the girl had finished. She’d shown him her sketch despite his protests, and it hadn’t been like it’d been with Kate. The image staring back at him had looked as ugly as he had felt. In the very center of it had been the gap of his shirt. The glint of his father’s ring against his chest.

His hand darted up to his neck, to the chain draped over his collarbones. And it burned. He’d been wearing the thing for years now, and why? When it just reminded him of his father, how he threw everything away. He’d thrown away their mother for being as faithless as he was. Had thrown away Lexie for being a girl and Evan for wanting more, and Rylan . . .

Bile filled the back of his throat.

Rylan he’d kept, but only the parts of him that served. Anything else Rylan had wanted for his life had been discarded like so much trash. Like he’d tried to discard the ring itself.

Only for Rylan to save it. To hold on to it and wear it above his heart.

Just like that, Rylan was back in his father’s office, the day the papers had been signed on the divorce. He’d watched his father rip the band from his finger and hold it over the garbage bin. And Rylan said, “Stop.”

The world threatened to swim, and it wasn’t the low ripple of nausea or the way last night’s bad decisions still throbbed through his brain.

Kate had worked her way under his skin because she’d looked at the world differently. She’d looked at him differently.

And the sudden twist of vertigo was him seeing his life in a whole different kind of light.

Clutching the top of his head against the lingering ache there, he shoved himself off the couch and stumbled down the hall toward his room. He caught himself in the doorframe for a second, then made his way to the wardrobe in the corner. He tugged on the handle of the drawer he never let himself open.

Kate’s sketchbook was sitting there. Right where it always was.

He reached out a hand for it. Gripping the spine as delicately as he could, he pulled out the book and dropped backward, bracing himself as his ass connected with the floor. He winced at the impact, clasping his head a little tighter before letting go. Crossing his legs, he cradled the book on his lap and brushed his fingertips over the cover. And then he flipped it open. Past the cover where she’d written her name and her address, past her warm-ups, to the image of his body, naked on a bed for her.

Without even really thinking about it, he gripped his father’s ring. It stood out in Kate’s drawing, the chain darkly shaded against the bare skin of his chest. He’d kept it on him when he’d stripped everything else of himself away, and Kate had rendered it as if it were a part of him. Maybe it was.

Their very first day together, Kate had shown him this little sliver of her world, reminding him of art and beauty and all the things his father had taught him there wasn’t room for in his life. He’d wanted to give her something back, and it hadn’t even occurred to him at the time, as he’d led her into a deserted museum wing . . .

He hadn’t just been showing her a painting he’d once been fond of. He’d been showing her a sliver of himself, from before. When he’d still had hope.

Hope for Zeus and Hera and hope for his parents’ marriage. A vain hope, because he knew they both ended in ruin, but still. A hope that maybe, from all that pain and awfulness, there was something worth saving.

He raked a hand through his hair, tugging at the scalp until the ache lit up into a fierce, splitting pain.

Rylan had been so eager to believe the best about his parents’ lives, and about the lives of ancient, fictional gods.

But not about his own.

When he’d first gotten to Paris, he’d felt like hell itself was on his heels. The trial had still been fresh, the loss stinging. He’d thrown himself into wasting his life with gusto, and he’d done a damn good job of it, too. The time had flown by, right up until it hadn’t. Even then, the restlessness had only driven him to pursue his diversions more intensely.

Until, one day, a beautiful girl with eyes that saw the world in a way he’d never managed to before had walked into a coffee shop. She’d reminded him that there were parts of his life worth not throwing away.

And then he’d done what he’d been doing all year. He’d denied his past. God, but he’d deserved it when she’d left him.

Every day since then had felt like a year. He had no idea what he was doing anymore. Casual sex was ruined; sightseeing and chatting up tourists and exploring the city—they were all ruined.

He flipped to the page where Kate had drawn just his face.

It was such a contrast from what the girl last night had drawn.

It looked like the man he wanted to be.

His vision went blurry, his fingers curling in on themselves. Before he could destroy anything else, he closed Kate’s sketchbook and pushed it away across the floor.

Right before she’d left, Kate had told him that he needed to figure out what he wanted. That he had to stop lying. To her, to himself.

Maybe he already knew. Maybe he just had to get past the things that were stopping him, too.

Around him, everything went still. He held his breath.

With unsteady hands, he reached for the back of his neck. He fumbled with the clasp of the chain. One, two tries, and then it was slipping from around his throat.

Nothing happened. No music played, and his life didn’t suddenly change, but he felt lighter somehow. Dropping the ring into his open palm, he stared at the dull gleam of it.

Fucking off to France had felt like a way of saying to hell with everything and everyone. His father and all the ways he’d betrayed him; his mother and her distance, her abandonment. But all the while, he’d worn this symbol around his neck. He’d kept this reminder that even in the midst of an awful defeat, there had once, at its core, been something good.

Something worth not giving up on.

He’d done a lot of giving up of late.

He’d given up on Kate, had let her go without a fight.

He’d given up on his life and his family, on the company he’d helped build—and so what if it hadn’t been his choice? He was the one who’d let himself be corralled down his father’s path.

He was the one who could salvage something from its ashes.

But he’d given up on himself, too.

With his blood roaring in his ears, he took his father’s ring, and he set it down. Let the chain that had tethered it to him for years fall by its side, and then he stared at them both on the ground.

It was time to stop romanticizing people who’d been too flawed to save themselves.

There was something worth saving. In his life. In his work.

And with the girl who’d opened his eyes to all of it.

With Kate.

It didn’t seem to matter how hard Kate tried. Nothing was working.

Her frugality was the only thing keeping her from tossing the stupid canvas in the trash—or better, lighting it up. Well, her frugality and her vague goal of trying to come across as sane to the others in her program. Pulling her earbuds from her ears, she glanced around the studio. No one else was paying her any attention. Still, she suppressed her groan of frustration as she dropped her brushes in the turpentine and covered her face with her hands.

The semester had only just begun, and she was already starting to wonder if she’d made the wrong decision.

No. That was her father talking again.

She mentally slapped herself, pulling the brushes out of the soup and swabbing them off on her wad of paper toweling. Stabbing a little harder at it than was really a good idea for the health of the bristles, but whatever.

She belonged here, dammit all. She was as good as the rest of the students in her cohort, and she’d worked just as hard for her spot. Sacrificed as much, if not more. She was just in a rut, was all. A big Rylan-shaped rut.

Her heart gave a little pang, and she tightened her grip on the paint-soaked towels.

Three months it had been since she’d left him. Since she’d walked away from him and all the amazing, incredible things he’d done for her life and her confidence. He’d made her body and her art come alive. And then he’d torn her damned heart out.

She’d tried to paint him. Tried to process the mess he’d left of her chest in charcoal and oil. Working from grainy cell phone photographs and out-of-focus candids she’d snuck while he wasn’t looking, she’d traced the outlines of his face. And every time she’d tried to sketch in those lips or those soulful eyes, she’d just about broken down.

She’d tried to destroy him, in her paintings. Taken him apart in a completely different way from how she had in that perfect hotel room on that perfect afternoon. Sliced streaks of crimson and black through the lying lines of his smile, blocked out the hollow of an eye and scrawled her anger across his ear as if that could make him hear her.

Once or twice, she’d tried to worship him, too. Lovingly rendered the details of his brow line and his jaw. But that hadn’t worked for her, either.

She hated him and she loved him, and if she spent another second dwelling on either, she’d never make it out of this mess she’d made for herself. She needed to move on. Maybe she’d made the right decision, refusing to even so much as hear him out, and maybe she hadn’t. But she’d made her choice, and she had to live with it now.

And so here she was. Even her pictures of the rest of Paris had been soured by her memories, but New York . . . New York was home. Intent on embracing what she had instead of mourning what she’d lost, she’d taken her crappy point-and-shoot to all the corners of the city and tried to capture it. The people and the dirt and the beauty of the place. She’d tried to see it, the way she’d learned to on her trip.

Facing her canvas again, she sighed. The city street looked dull, the line work she’d been so close to getting somewhere with in Paris contrived and stupid and pointless.

She dragged her wrist across her brow.

Then she picked out a brush. Squeezed a little more cerulean out onto her palette and dabbed the bristles into the paint. She closed one eye and regarded the image.

Returning her headphones to her ears, she stepped in closer to the canvas again.

She’d given up on Rylan, but she wasn’t giving up on this. Time healed all wounds, and soon enough, with enough hard work, she’d find her muse again.

She’d find her self again. Here. On her own. At home.

chapter TWENTY-SIX

Home. Rylan turned the word over in his mind as he stared through tinted glass at the streets he’d left behind some fifteen long, pointless months ago.

At the time, he hadn’t given a shit if he ever saw them again. He’d boarded a plane with his proverbial middle fingers up and washed the taste of the trial and his father and his wasted life away with the burn of airline whiskey. He’d left with the clothes on his back and a couple of books in a knapsack, and he wasn’t returning with a whole lot more. A single suitcase and Lexi’s briefcase.

Kate’s sketchbook.

Swallowing hard, he ran his thumb across the cover one last time before tucking it safely back away. He’d have his chance to face that particular bit of smoldering landscape later. First, he had a different set of fires to put out—ones he’d once thought he’d just let burn.

But not anymore.

Smooth as could be, the car made the turn onto Sixth Avenue, and he worked his jaw, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. Closing his eyes, he ran through his talking points in his mind.

It was his first time entering the lion’s den on his own, and that alone made his pulse beat faster. If his father were here, he’d be drilling Rylan, checking with him over and over that he understood the plan. Rylan would’ve stared out the window as he nodded, silently stewing all the while.

He’d put in the time. Earned the degree his father had demanded of him, worked the long hours and sacrificed everything else. The least he could ask was to be trusted to know how to do his job.

There was no one telling him he had to be here now. Well. There’d been Lexie’s entreaties and the board’s demands, but at the end of the day, this was Rylan’s decision.

The first one he’d made about his life in so long.

At last, the car slowed, and he took a deep breath, opening his eyes. There it was. Bellamy International. His goddamn name in big red letters on the side of a hundred-story building, and it made something squeeze in his chest.

No matter how much his father had ruined, this remained. It bore his name, so it was his.

It was well past time he acted like it.

As the driver came around to get the door, Rylan checked his watch. Five minutes to spare. Exactly as he’d planned.

Grabbing Lexie’s briefcase, he adjusted his tie and his cuff links. Did up the button on the jacket of his suit.

Showtime. The door swung open. And he stepped out onto the sidewalk not just Rylan, but Theodore R. Bellamy III. And like it or not, he was home.

The whispers started before he’d made it halfway across the lobby. Tightening his grip on Lexie’s briefcase, he ate up the marble-tiled space with long, measured strides, gaze forward. He recognized one of the girls at the visitors’ desk and gave her a nod, holding a finger to his lips when she did a double take and reached for the phone. He didn’t need to be greeted, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be announced. She narrowed her eyes at him but moved her hand away from the receiver. Good girl.

At the executive elevator, he got a whole different sort of a look from the operator. “Mr. Bellamy. We weren’t expecting you today.”

He raised a brow and stepped into the waiting elevator car. “Good to see you, too, Marcus.”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t good to see you, sir.” Marcus pressed the button to close the doors. His reflection in the mirror smiled. “Just didn’t know I’d get the pleasure.”

“Ninety-fifth floor, if you would.”

“Sure thing.”

Rylan’s ears finally popped around floor eighty-two. When the doors slid open, he gave Marcus a salute. He waited until the elevator was gone before turning around to face the hall.

Because if he hadn’t, he might’ve stepped right back into that car.

Jesus, but it was his dad’s tastes personified. Red carpet and dark wood and all the little tricks he swore reminded your visitors that they were on your turf now.

It was the furthest thing from home Rylan could imagine. But considering the closest he’d gotten to having one in the last ten years had been a tiny hotel room on a bread-scented rue in Paris, maybe that wasn’t saying much.

Squaring his shoulders, he took the first step forward.

By the time he reached the conference room, it was two p.m. on the dot. The door stood all but closed, just a crack of space revealing the room within. Silently, he nudged it wider and peeked inside.

The scene was familiar enough. Spread out around the giant oak table were men old enough to be his father. There, at the head, was that bastard McConnell. Meanwhile, Thomas had been relegated to a seat maybe two-thirds of the way down. Rylan noted a half dozen other friendly faces and a couple of new ones. More than a couple of unfriendly ones, too. He cast his gaze wider, taking in the rest of the room. Behind the board members, in chairs pulled up to but not quite at the table, were their bevy of secretaries and PAs, and—

And Rylan had always known it looked bad. But in the past, he’d been at the table himself, not looking in.

Not seeing his crazy, fierce-as-hell sister sitting all alone in the corner of the room, lacking even an old white guy of her own to justify her presence there.

A nonvoting member. That was the status Lexie had been relegated to. The shortsighted assholes. The day she came of age or Rylan figured out a way to work around the charter to get her a spot on the board, they were going to be wishing they’d never pissed her off. Because she was going to own them.

Literally.

Only . . . only, she didn’t look entirely her imperious self right now. Rylan tilted his head to the side, watching. Her gaze went from her notes to the head of the table, then to the clock and back again. Her chin was lifted high, her posture straight, because she wasn’t giving an inch of ground, oh no. But there was something resigned about her. Not even disappointed, but like disappointment were a foregone conclusion. Like she’d already been disappointed so many times before.

But today, she wouldn’t be. At least not by him.

Up at the front of the room, McConnell cleared his throat. “What do you say, gentlemen? Time we got started?”

That was probably Rylan’s cue to make his presence known, but he smirked as he leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. Biding his time. Never let it be said he didn’t know how to make an entrance.

“Let’s come to order then. Let the record show that this meeting of the board of directors of Bellamy International began at 2:02. Members in attendance include . . .” McConnell rattled off the names of all the gray-haireds at the table. He swept his gaze around the room, purposely passing Lexie over. “Is there a representative of the Bellamy family?”

And there it was. He paused to the count of three, just long enough for Lex to grit her teeth and open her mouth. But before she could get the first word out, Rylan pushed the door open.

“Why yes, there is.” He projected his voice across the room as he swept into it. A dozen heads swung around to gawk at him, and he took them all in at once. Caught the split-second of surprise on McConnell’s face before he schooled his expression. Caught Lexie’s grimace turning into what was, for her, in this room, the closest thing to a shit-eating grin Rylan had ever seen. “Two of them, actually,” he said, raising a hand in greeting to her. “Hey, sis.”

She nodded back, eyes triumphant but smile restrained. “Theodore.”

Ugh. He’d get her back for that later.

Putting a little extra swagger in his step, he headed straight for the front of the room, lifting an eyebrow at the guy who’d been presumptive enough to sit in his seat. The dude went red in the face, a battle clearly going on inside him about whether or not to budge. Thomas added the weight of his stare, and the chair-stealer finally caved. Leaving his PA to pick up his stuff, he scooted a few feet down, and Rylan dropped himself into the open spot.

Opening the briefcase, he pulled out a folder and set it on the table.

Ever since the day his father’d been led away in handcuffs, Rylan had been fighting who he was and where he came from, afraid he’d gone too far in becoming the man his father had wanted him to be. Into a copy of himself. But in that moment, there at that table, he remembered. The rush of it washed over him. He was good at this. He’d trained at it all his life.

He let the energy of confrontation fill him up, and then he banked it. With his posture that of a man completely at his leisure, he leaned back in his chair, twirling his pen and nodding along as McConnell fought to recover his balance and start working his way through the agenda. One by one, the other board members got over his unexpected appearance in their midst.

Right up until he asked his first question. Then all the heads in the room turned as one.

“What?” He pointed to the part of the document they’d been discussing. “I did the reading.”

McConnell made a strangled-sounding noise with his throat.

Fortunately, Thomas jumped in before McConnell’s eyes could actually pop out of his head. “Mr. Bellamy does bring up a good point.”

Rylan swiveled back and forth in his chair as the discussion shifted. Over the course of the next hour, he left the running of the meeting to the people who’d been there all along, but he managed to keep things pointed in the direction he wanted them to go.

The direction Lexie had laid out for him.

He looked over at her as the tide started to turn in their favor, quirking one eyebrow in a silent question. Good enough for you?

She made a show of heaving her shoulders as she sighed, but her smile belied it all.

After what felt like about a million years, the meeting neared its close. Just one item left on the agenda.

McConnell looked around the room, and Rylan could see him counting in his head. Well, Rylan had done his counting, too. “As for the matter of reversion of the Bellamy family’s controlling interest . . .” His gaze went to Rylan.

The bastard wasn’t sure he had the votes to stay in control. Honestly, Rylan wasn’t sure he had enough support, either.

But there was one motion he was sure he could get through.

Rylan cleared his throat and stood. “I’d like to call for a ninety-day grace period before the vote.”

Relief fairly rippled through the room. McConnell’s shoulders even lowered a fraction. “The motion stands,” he said. “Simple majority.”

Hands went up in the air to the tune of aye, and Rylan sank back into his seat.

Ninety days. Ninety days to shore up support, to devise a strategy.

To decide exactly how far he wanted this all to go, and whether or not he was prepared to take the helm.

The meeting adjourned shortly after, and Rylan stretched his arms over his head with a sense of satisfaction. There was still a lot to figure out, but he’d taken the first step, at least. He’d shown up. Claimed his place. And declined to let Rome burn.

Standing, Rylan packed up the briefcase, holding off the couple of folks who seemed to want to strike up a conversation by nodding toward his sister. He made his way over to her while she was still finishing her notes.

“So?” he asked. “How’d I do?”

“There’s room for improvement.” She closed her folio and set her pen down. “But I think you’ve got potential.”

He smirked. She’d begrudged him his father’s favor for so long. Even that admission felt like a triumph. “Glad to hear it.”

Rising, she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You cut it a little close there with the timing.”

The corner of his lip threatened to twitch up, but he held steady, expression blank. “Sorry. Traffic across the Atlantic Ocean was a bitch.”

“Asshole.” Her frown held for another few beats. Then all at once, it fell away and she held out her arms.

He stepped into the hug, scooping her up.

“Thanks for coming,” she said into his chest.

“Thanks for the push.”

He held her close for a long minute. There weren’t going to be any big emotional declarations here. Hell, already they’d said more than they usually did. That was how they worked. But all the same, it was apology and forgiveness. Approval and acceptance.

Letting her go, he stepped away.

“So,” she started, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “You want to grab a drink or something? Dinner at Ai Fiori’s? I can probably call in and get Dad’s table. God knows he’s not using it.”

He jerked his thumb toward the door. “Nah. Just got into town this afternoon, and there are some things I need to do.”

“Pfft. It’s been a year. No one’s going to care if you put them off another day.”

“But I will.”

She gave him an appraising look, and not for the first time, he felt like she could see right through him. After a second, she glanced away and shrugged. “If you say so. You have a place to stay?”

God, he hoped he did. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Well, if you don’t . . .”

He shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’m good.”

“Suit yourself. Later this week, though, let’s catch up. We need to talk strategy going forward for handling all of this.” She gestured at the board table.

“Sure.” He half turned away, one foot already edging toward the exit.

She stopped him before he could go. “Rylan?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re home.”

His heart did something strange and complicated inside his chest at that word. Home. “Yeah.”