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He was already going to be in a terrible mood, and Oliver was going to have to face his wrath barely hours after having the situation blow up in his face—or rather, under his feet.
“No, we can’t, and you know it.” Oliver hunched in on himself, holding his arm tight over his belly. “You don’t make Alistair Turner wait. Not ever.”
“There are more important things than Alistair Turner’s moods,” Garin said lowly, too quiet for the pilot to pick up.
And there was the thing that—somehow—was the most wrong of all.
Mal’ik had thought so too.
He hadn’t said it in so many words. In fact, he hadn’t said any words at all. But Oliver had seen it in the hardness of his eyes when he’d met them just before Garin barged in. He’d heard it in the coldness of his voice when he’d told Oliver to put his clothes back on.
Except Mal’ik hadn’t actually been cold or hard. Oliver dropped his head into his hand and massaged his temples. He just hadn’t been soft, comforting, doting like he had been before. Because he’d finally seen Oliver—really seen him—and realized how fucking worthless and heartless he was.
He had realized Oliver was the kind of person that focused on his own pain and family strife when other people were dead and dying.
And Mal’ik was better than that. But Oliver wasn’t.
“No, there’s not, Garin.” Oliver lifted his head and met Garin’s eyes firmly. “Not to me.”
Garin stared at him for a second, then sighed and sat back in his chair. “Alright then.”
They spent the rest of the trip in silence as Oliver desperately tried to plug the cracks in his mental wall. He needed to be at the top of his game for this meeting. He could collapse afterward, he could be as pathetic as he needed to be afterward, but right now, he needed to be his best.
By the time the transport docked, Oliver could stand with his shoulders back and his chin up. He stepped out of the ship as though his clothes were still new.
“He’s in his office,” Garin muttered to Oliver as he passed and led Oliver down the hallway, as though Oliver needed the guidance or the protection.
He had grown up on this ship. The Turner family had estates on all major planets, but they’d spent most of their time on this ship, traveling between his father’s various ventures, learning from tutors.
Competing.
Competing for everything. Love, attention, acknowledgment, accolades.
Oliver had always won, but Dominic had always been right behind and he had hated Oliver for it. And Oliver had hated him right back.
Until Oliver had been blown up and Dominic had slid neatly into his place at their father’s side.
Oliver could only imagine Dominic’s glee at Oliver’s second explosion.
Garin stopped at the door to Alistair Turner’s office and turned to face Oliver again.
He looked like he was about to say something, so Oliver cut him off with a sneer. “Stop hovering.”
He tossed his head down the hallway in a dismissal, then knocked on the door.
“Come in.” The familiar words in the familiar deep voice curdled Oliver’s stomach, but he’d locked away any of the feelings there, so when he pushed open the door, his hands were steady.
Alistair Turner turned away from a wall of data screens to face Oliver, and the huge—bigger than Oliver had ever seen—grin on his face stopped Oliver dead in his tracks.
His father opened his arms wide. “Oliver! The man of the hour.”
Oliver had the strange sense of the world sliding sideways as he stood in the light of his father’s bright smile. He opened his mouth to find something to say so he could pretend he understood what was happening. He wanted to seize the opportunity clearly being given to him, but he couldn’t even figure out how.
His father beckoned him over. “Come in, come over here. We’ve got things to plan.”
“The next venture?” Oliver’s feet brought him to his father’s side, and he looked up at the screens to see an array of spreadsheets, figures, and graphs.
His father chuckled. “That’s one way to put it.”
