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“Well isn’t that nice,” Margot says, as if it’s very not nice. Still, she sticks out a hand, and I shake it tentatively.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, my voice nearly lost in the noise of the street. I’ve never been to New York City before. Nobody warned me it would be so loud.
“I didn’t know you’d come to meet me yourself,” Ankor is saying. “I was expecting Jonathan.”
“Yes, well, Jonathan’s here too. He went to fetch your bags. And did the driving, god knows I should never be allowed behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.” She pauses to glance at me, as if just now remembering I’m still here. “We grew up in New York,” she says. “You know how it is. When you don’t learn to drive young, I don’t think you’re ever any good at it. So what about you. Where did you grow up?” Margot looks me up and down with a look just shy of repulsed that tells me she doesn’t think any answer will do.
“Not New York,” I reply, just as frostily, keeping my smile ice cold.
Ankor squeezes my hand. “All right, Margot, you can lay off the riot act.”
“I’m just curious, Marco. Doesn’t a sister have a right to be curious about her brother’s new love interest? Especially a love interest he just so conveniently met while he was running away from all his responsibilities and his family. And given how his last several love interests met in similar manners turned out.”
My stomach clenches. As irritated as I am by this welcome, I can’t say I entirely blame her, either. After all, Ankor’s told me himself how bad his exes were. “You didn’t tell me you took off without telling your family,” I say, peering up at Ankor out of the corner of my eye.
He glances down at me, looking chagrined. “I told them I was leaving—”
“You said, and I quote, ‘off to the beach for a bit, back soon,’” Margot replies as we reach the sidewalk. She lifts a hand, and for a moment I think she’s hailing a cab, until a nearby Rolls Royce peels away from the curb by the luggage carousels and approaches us. “That’s hardly enough detail to give when you plan on disappearing for months.”
“She has a point,” I say, which earns me a single, rare smile from Margot. And a glare from Ankor.
“Don’t you start,” he grumbles. But he keeps his hand wrapped tightly around mine, and when he thinks I’m not looking, he smiles, glancing quickly from Margot and then back to me. I pretend not to have noticed and lean my head against his shoulder as the car pulls up.
Jonathan turns out to be the family chauffer, who has apparently been working for the Helmtrees ever since Marco was a kid. He might be a tech billionaire, but he clearly came from wealth. He’s at ease, joking with Jonathan, even as Jonathan pops the trunk for us to make sure he collected the right bags before we leave. Jonathan opens our doors too, and I frown a little, stepping back to make way for him, unsure how to feel about this.
My unease only gets more pronounced when we reach the penthouse. Even without ever having visited in person, I know from all the movies I’ve seen that Central Park is a very expensive neighborhood. Much less a penthouse in a skyscraper steps from the park. A penthouse with a private doorman, whose elevator (key operated by the doorman only) opens directly into the apartment.
I’m still gaping at the foyer when I spot another pair of people. An older man and woman, both with Ankor and Margot’s same dark messy hair and tanned olive skin.
“Marco!” A woman who I can only assume must be his mother practically tackles him in a hug. His father hangs back, waiting until she moves aside a moment to squeeze in a hug of his own.
Only then does his mother swat his arm. “Are you mad? We’ve been worried sick about you. And here you were off gallivanting around Hawaii with some—”
Margot coughs pointedly, nodding sideways.
His mother’s eyes fix on me, then widen, as though she’s just noticing me for the first time. “Oh, well, hello there, dear.”
I smile back, even though I’m 99% sure she wasn’t about to call me a delightful new girlfriend. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sinclair.” I offer a hand, and his mother, to her credit, only hesitates for a split second before she reaches out to shake it.
I can’t help but notice, as she lets me go, just how large her wedding ring is. Pretty sure a ring that size could buy the whole house I grew up in, and everything in it. Between that and the outfit she’s wearing, and his father’s borderline tuxedo, apparently what they wear for a casual reunion with their son in his own apartment, I feel more out of place than I did in that fancy first class cabin on the plane.
