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“What a thing to say.”
Anger shimmered through him.
“Excuse me?”
“He was proud of you, Griffith.”
He barked out a harsh laugh. “Yes. Proud of his overindulgent son.”
“He blamed himself.”
Stunned, his head snapped up. “What?”
“Your father blamed himself for how you dealt with your mother’s death.” Alicia sighed, her shoulders drooping as if she’d been carrying a heavy burden for a long time and had finally let it go. “He told me that his family didn’t talk much about their feelings. More of a soldier-on attitude.”
Griffith remembered that well. He’d never doubted his father’s love for him, for his mother. But he had overheard, more than once, his mother encouraging him to talk to her, to share the bad along with the good.
“I still made my choices.”
“Yes. And he let you. He didn’t try to talk to you, get you counseling, anything.”
“I doubt I was in a place to listen.”
“Eventually, no. But I remember those first few months, Griffith. You were obviously grieving and depressed. And Belen, as much as he loved you, didn’t know what to do. He just assumed you’d buck up. By the time he realized how bad it was, you’d...found another way to cope.”
A delicate way to put it, he thought in self-disgust.
“He loved you, Griffith. Even when you were at your most self-centered, you never let that bleed into your professional life. You accomplished a lot at a young age.” The look she directed his way made him feel like he was five and had just been caught sneaking into the conference room to play with the projector. “Think. Do you really believe your father would have left you the fortune he did, or an international company, if he didn’t think you were capable?”
Before he could reply to that astonishing bit of logic, an assistant from the public relations department arrived to walk them down to the conference.
Minutes later Griffith was outside the front door of Lykaois Shipping, stationed behind a podium on an elevated stage as dozens of cameras flashed.
Instead of pushing the world away, retreating into his isolation, he stood and faced them.
He read his official statement. He paused at the end, took a breath.
“I hope to not only serve my employees and our clients, but to do my father proud.” The improvised words, torn from his heart, were rough with emotion. “To honor the legacy my family has created.”
Alicia placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezed. He acknowledged the gesture with a slight nod in her direction before turning his attention back to the reporters. Tried to stop looking for Rosalind amongst the sea of faces.
And failed.
He hadn’t thought she’d be there. Why would she be? He’d pushed her away. Had told her in no uncertain terms they were done, that he didn’t want to see her again.
Yet a foolish part of him had still hoped he would find her watching, encouraging him with that beautiful, confident smile of hers.
The first few questions were routine. Plans for future expansion, the exploration of adding a route through the Northwest Passage. One bold reporter asked about Kacey, a question Griffith deftly handled by arching a brow and replying with “I don’t see what that has to do with shipping,” much to the amusement of the others in attendance.
“Mr. Lykaois, what are you looking forward to in the coming year?”
His lips parted. Several answers would have been more than appropriate. But none of them felt right. None of them were right.
Because when he thought about the next year, his thoughts had nothing to do with Lykaois Shipping. They centered around a woman with unruly curls and a sunny smile who had fought her way through grief and still managed to find the good amidst the bad. Memories slipped into dreams of mornings spent on the patio of the chateau, afternoons exploring the neighborhoods of London he’d always avoided because they had never been wealthy enough to catch his interest. Dreams of a wedding, a ceremony that had never interested him but now made his heart twist at the thought of gazing down into her face and saying vows that would join them forever. And dreams of the life after: children, supporting Rosalind a she pursued her goals, hands joined through the ups and downs of life.
The crowd quieted. Whispers rippled through the crowd. Cameras clicked. The world watched as the answer became clear.
Rosalind.
