AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A shake of my head answers him, and he closes the door behind him as he leaves. A man of few words, just what I like and definitely what I need right now. I click unmute on my conference call and wait for the speaker to pause before I cut in.
“I have to go now. Please continue without me,” I say.
There’s quiet, like everyone is waiting for someone else to say something. That’s a first. Usually, I can’t get people to shut up.
“Kingsley, again, er, we would like to send our condole—”
I cut him off. “Right. Please make sure the meeting minutes are sent to me ASAP. I want to know what solutions you have for the warehouse issues in Edinburgh and expect a fleshed-out plan on my desk COB. Thank you, everyone.” I hang up the call and lean back against my seat, closing my eyes for five seconds, counting them down. “Three… two… one.”
And push myself to my feet.
Because today isn’t about me.
But there’s nothing new about that.
It’s never about me. And if there’s anything I ever need to remember in my life, it’s that.
Marcus is standing at his desk when I emerge. He follows, silently, to my private elevator, and when we step onto it, he waits for me to press the button to the garage.
Always there if needed, but always hanging back.
He’s been with me for almost ten years and is like a second skin, fitting me perfectly.
I taught him well what I wanted. I should know being taught well is the secret to it all,.
Ernest is the best teacher I could’ve had.
Was.
Was the best teacher I could’ve had.
And now both he and Grandfather are gone, and I’m alone.
The way they were always preparing me to be.
“Are you ready, sir?” Marcus asks as the elevator doors open to the waiting car.
I guess we’re going to find out.
“The service was beautiful,” someone says two hours later.
Who says it, I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. I’ve heard it multiple times already. Luckily, not by anyone who was sitting in my row at the church. They know better than that.
“He loved you. Could not have loved you more if you were his own son.”
That’s another line. As if it’s a consolation.
If they knew Ernest Hamilton as well as I did, they’d know he loved his actual foster son like a son, and he couldn’t have loved anyone more. He simply loved me because I was his best friend’s grandson, and I reminded him of them in their younger days.
“Hey, son, have a drink.”
I feel a whiskey glass placed in my hand. I look up, and my father’s crinkled blue eyes smile gently at me. There was never any question that my brothers’ and my eyes were ever going to be any color but blue, with both of our parents having irises the color of the ocean. Clarissa, my brother Matthias’s fiancée, calls our eye color “Baxter Blue.” There’s something about that that I utterly love. It’ll be interesting to see if my brothers pass the eye color on to the next generation. Secretly, I don’t mind having something that is special to just the four of us. Something that is just ours. We’ve shared so much of our lives with everyone else.
I look down at the drink in my hand. “What is—”
“You can haveonedrink. You need it,” Dad says firmly under his breath. He knows I try to keep it to one drink a day on weekdays. We all have a tendency to enjoy the taste of cognac too much, and the more restraint on my part, the better.
I give him a small nod and take a sip.
