Nothing good. But judging wasn’t the point.
I was still working on that part, the non-judgment, ten years later.
These exercises didn’t always work, but they were better than nothing. The point wasn’t to escape my emotions, but to learn to observe and tolerate them without losing myself to them.
Yeah, I was still working on that too.
The problem was, I knew what was waiting for me in there. Dad was probably pacing the drawing room with Violeta, furious about the defection of yet another son, and even more angry that another piece of his company had just been given away.
And then there was the other problem.
Niall Black was supposed to be CEO of Blackguard Holding, but he hadn’t been cleared to work after his heart surgery three months earlier. Dad was strong as an ox for a man in his eighties, but he was still an old man. He wouldn’t be cleared for months to go back to work, if ever, which was why he had announced his plans to name a successor.
I’d stood by as he first named Brendan, the heir presumptive, only to be made a fool of when Brendan traded that for life on a dairy farm. Now it had happened again with Ronan, and someone had to step up.
That left me, Shea, or someone else.
I didn’t think our father would choose my baby sister, but I’d be damned if I let the position go outside the family.
I’d earned this. I’d given everything for this family, even when it seemed I couldn’t measure up. When school hadn’t worked, I’d given up my twenties to the military to make myself a man my father could respect. Special Forces and three tours, plus scars and a Purple Heart I kept in a drawer later, I had somehow managed to force myself through college and mold myself into a man who could learn the business.
“It’s my turn,” I muttered through my teeth. “It’s my fucking turn.”
Except… I already knew what they were going to tell me. That no one wanted a vet with PTSD at the helm of one of the largest companies on the planet. That I was too much of a wild card, too intense, too crazy to trust. What showed that I could commit? What showed that I had calmed down enough to do what it took, that I was the reliable sort a bunch of rich old men could trust?
I knew what my brothers had done. Brendan had gotten fake engaged for the same purpose, and then Ronan had decided to keep the wife he married on a bender.
And then they were stupid enough to fall in love.
Well, I wasn’t going to make that mistake.
Love was a weakness. A vulnerability. A way for people to get leverage over you.
I’d seen what love did too many times over. To soldiers who got Dear John letters in combat zones only to go home and find their sweetheart fucking another man. So many times that was the difference between a man who could figure out the mess in his head the war left and the ones who got lost in a sea of mental illness and drug addiction.
Love wasn’t permanent. It was a joke. A really fucking dangerous one that ruined almost everyone it touched.
No, I definitely wasn’t making that mistake. And if I had to get married, I’d do it before they told me to do it. And I’d do it with the right person.
I pulled out my phone, scrolling through my contacts until I found the name I was looking for, then hit the call button.
The phone rang three times before she picked up.
“Owen Black.” Jenny Churchill’s voice, warm with just a hint of husk, was pure annoyance. “To what do I owe the displeasure?”
“Ace.” I used her old nickname, the one from high school when she’d been editor of the school paper, and we’d dreamed of a life where she traveled the world covering political intrigue and I served as her bodyguard.
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Well, I don’t listen to you, so I ignored it. See how that works?” Yes. This was good. This was what I wanted. Hatred, pure and simple.
“Still an asshole, I see.” I could hear her moving, like she was pacing her office at The Globe. Or did she work at home since she only wrote for them on contract? “What do you want? I’m on a deadline. Your family’s making the news again.”
I grimaced. God, she knew how to push my buttons, and one of the biggest ones was the gossip about my family. Me in particular, but all of us.
“Stop what you’re writing. I have a proposition that will make it better.”
“Nope. I don't take bribes, if that’s what you're calling about. And for the thousandth time, I do not know Ivy Ink. Not every reporter in this city knows each other?—”