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Nico frowns but doesn’t complain. A prickling on the back of my neck draws my gaze across the tent. Penelope’s bright blue gaze makes my whole body turn rigid. I freeze, caught up in her eyes. There are a hundred people between us, with cheering and clapping and speeches, but the whole world exists in her stare. She looks almost yearning. Like she’d want to be here, beside me.
And I—well, I’d like that.
Then the Queen blinks, and her face is shuttered again. She turns her head toward the speaker, and I follow Nico out of the tent. Pushing down the discomfort raging within my chest, I ignore the smell of roses and the laughter at my back.
I don’t belong at this wedding. I don’t belong with these people. Penelope took me to a dirty back room and we did what we wanted in a few quick, filthy minutes. It doesn’t mean I’m worthy of standing beside her.
I found out about Donovan’s plans in Nord from Penelope, but that’s her problem. Not mine. Donovan is on his last legs, limping away from a hostile merger that my family’s company is initiating. If we find out what he’s doing in Nord and stop it—or take it for ourselves—he’ll have no choice but to sign on the dotted line.
If Pen didn’t want me to find that out, she shouldn’t have said anything.
But, but, but…
I walk away from the tent. Away from Penelope. Away from her eyes of crushed ice and the fire she ignited in my core.
My father is a man in his early sixties. His hair used to be dark, almost black, with only two patches of white hair around his temples. Now, though, he’s starting to show his age. New lines have appeared on his skin and his hair is almost completely gray. His face is clean-shaven, and his eyes are dark like mine.
We would have looked similar, if not for the fire. I curl my hand into a fist to stop myself from running my fingers over the border of the scar on my cheek.
Father sits behind his desk like a king on a throne, hands resting on the arms of his chair. “So,” he starts. “What have you discovered about Donovan?”
I hesitate. The wedding was two days ago, but I still can’t shake the feeling that saying something about Nord would be a betrayal. In the past two days, Nico confirmed that Reggie is hoping to expand into Nord, and even planning a trip up there in the coming weeks. I still don’t know what mines he wants to develop, or how good his information is about the resources up there. It could all be bullshit, but something tells me it’s not.
But I haven’t acted on the information. I haven’t delivered the killing blow. I can still see Penelope’s eyes, staring at me across the tent. I can feel the way her gaze made my body heat up. The way she made me feel when her arms were wrapped around my neck. How her lips drifted over the scarred skin on my cheek almost reverently.
She didn’t recoil from me. She came apart in my arms like I was sent to that wedding for the sole purpose of making her feel alive.
But my father doesn’t know that. No one knows what happened in that room. I gulp, staring at the man who’s made me feel small since I was a child.
His eyes drift down to my cheek, to the pink skin that’s shinier and paler than my normal complexion. If I weren’t looking for it, I’d miss the twitch of disgust in his lip. I wouldn’t notice the flash in his eyes, or the way he drops his gaze all too quickly to the papers on his desk.
Before I can answer, the door behind me opens. My little brother enters, shirt half untucked and hair disheveled. His bright, green eyes shine, and a disarming smile graces his lips. His unmarked skin has a thin sprinkling of stubble on it, as if he hasn’t shaved in two or three days.
“Father,” he says, dipping his head. Logan’s eyes shift to me, to my scar, then back to my eyes. “Asher.”
“Thank you for joining us, Son.” My father gestures to the armchair next to mine, and I bristle. Son. He never calls me that. Asher, yes. Boy sometimes, when he’s angry. Mostly, he doesn’t call me anything at all.
But Logan is son—even though Logan spends his days chasing supermodels and socialites. Even though Logan is Farcliff’s most popular bad boy, gracing every front page of the tabloids every week. He has brought more controversy to this family than the rest of us combined.
Yet my father’s eyes still soften when Logan walks in. He plans to pass the company onto my brother, even though I’m the one who’s made it grow beyond what anyone could have ever imagined. I’m the one who’s brokered every major deal in our company’s history. I’m the one who’s laid other businesses at my father’s feet, presenting them like an offering to a god. I’m the one who’s made my father richer than he could have ever imagined.
But Logan is son, and I’m just boy.
My brother lowers himself onto the chair next to mine, slumping down and letting his legs stretch out toward the desk. My father folds his arms on the desk, leaning toward the two of us.
“Logan, I wanted to thank you for your work with the Farcliff Times. The newspaper sent me a preliminary version of the article you worked on, and the company comes off really well. You’ve done good work.”
Pride glows in my father’s eyes, and I clench my jaw so hard pain spears into my head.
Good work? Logan? Is he insane?
I guarantee you my lazy, party-animal brother hasn’t done good work. He probably pawned it off to his assistant and just showed up for the photoshoot looking like the perfect male model he is. Logan hasn’t done good work, because Logan wouldn’t know work if it hit him across the face, which, incidentally, I have an urge to do right now.
But my father looks pleased, and Logan nods, accepting the praise as if he deserves it.
Anger peppers my chest like a thousand tiny daggers. They cut my flesh as I sit here and bleed.
Father swings his eyes over to me. “And you? I gave you the task of completing this merger with Donovan Enterprises. I’ve heard talk he’s making a move, and he might not agree to this merger. If the shareholders side with him, we’ll lose the deal. It’s worth multiple hundred millions of dollars, Asher.” His lips pinch, deep lines bracketing his mouth.
