“He doesn’t need to do that. He’s a thousand years old with a heart condition, so all he needs to do is let me do my fucking job.”
“If you can do it without losing your cool.”
And there it was. The doubt. The bitterness. The assumption that would probably never go away that Brendan had made the wrong call by nominating me to the position instead of Owen.
Still. He wasn’t wrong.
“You think you could do any better, jarhead?”
He bared his teeth like a wolf. “You’re baiting me, and it’s not going to work. Better get your head on straight before the reception because the press is going to be there. And they’re already onto her. My assistant gave me this after lunch.”
He slid a piece of paper in front of me bearing a printed internet article with the worst headline I’d ever seen.
What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas: The Jesper Just Got Hitched!
“Ivy Ink’s newest hit piece,” Owen said.
I pushed the paper away. “You’re obsessed with her. The Herald’s a trash heap. Nothing they say matters.”
“It matters when everyone else reads it. They already think you’re a loose cannon with a penchant for partying, and this doesn’t exactly discourage that notion. If the board is thinking of someone else, you need to convince them you and Laney are for real.”
“We are for real, asshole,” I snapped. “Why would anyone think otherwise?”
Probably because you do.
Owen just rolled his eyes. “I said what I said. Consider it a heads up. But fair warning: you fuck this up, I’m not going down with the ship. I’ve put too much of my life into this company?—”
“And you think I haven’t?” I cut in. “You have no idea the kinds of things I’ve sacrificed for this family’s success. No fucking clue!—”
“Too much,” Owen continued blithely, “to see it pass out of our control and into someone else’s hands before I get my shot. So you and Laney better step up, Ronan, or get out of the fucking way.”
“I know that,” I spat. “I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Don’t you?” He looked back at the article. “Because every time someone mentions your ‘wife,’ it’s like I’m looking at my little brother in the backyard again, too fucking crazy for his own good and ready to tear the world apart just to prove himself.” He stood. “Brendan cared a little too much about a woman, too, and look what it got him.”
“What’s that, happiness?”
“Exile,” Owen replied grimly. “Remember that.”
He left, and I sat there alone in the empty conference room, staring at the city skyline through the windows. For so long, this family had considered itself the ruler of this city. Boston wasn’t huge, but it was ours. No one dared cross us.
But now I was starting to understand why Brendan had given it all up.
Not just for love, whatever the fuck that meant.
For freedom.
There was a price to being the de facto heir. The crown, I had discovered, was also a yoke.
25
COMMISERATION
LANEY
Icouldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. When I’d woken this morning, it was to an empty bed and house. My erstwhile husband and his sister were gone, and I was left to spend the day on my own unpacking, exploring the neighborhood of Charlestown, and doing my best not to text Ronan.
At two-thirty, I lost the battle. At two-forty-five, I tried to flirt. And then had done everything I could think of to avoid checking my phone for the response that would not come.