He’d called for a limo, and I climbed in, taking the rear-facing bench, and flashed a smile in greeting to Marist. She wore a black suit with a red top beneath, and once she was seated, I watched her fasten her seatbelt over her belly.
“How was your day?” I asked while we waited for Royce to get settled.
“Long,” she answered. “You?”
Truer words had never been spoken. “Yeah. Same.” I watched her scrub a hand low on her lap belt, and saw her eyebrows pinch together. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, although her tone suggested otherwise.
Royce picked up on it instantly. Whatever email he’d been reading on his phone was ignored, and he looked at his wife with concern. “What is it?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m having contractions, but they feel just like they did last week, and those were nothing.” She shot me a look like she needed to explain herself. “I’m not due for another week, and you’re usually late with your first.”
“How far apart are the contractions?” he asked.
She waved a hand. “I can’t time them. They’re random.” He wasn’t convinced, but she took his phone from him and tucked it into his suit pocket. “I’m fine. You said Vance wanted to talk to you, so maybe give him your attention for five minutes.”
“That’s okay,” I said automatically. Maybe this should wait until later.
But Emery’s voice filled my head, reminding me that time was finite. I needed to man up and stop putting things off.
I shifted in my seat, taking a deep breath.
“Actually, no,” I said. “This can’t wait. It’s about Wayne Lambert and how he wants a seat on the board.”
My brother made a face. “Is he still giving you shit about that? If you want me to make it clear to him he’s not being considered because—”
“Oh,” Marist said abruptly, pitching forward and wrapping both arms around her stomach. Her eyes were wide, but it seemed to be more surprise than pain.
Royce went on high alert. “What’s wrong?”
She slammed her eyes shut, her whole face scrunching, and this? This was definitely pain. Stuttering breath was dragged in and out through tight teeth. She reached out, clamping a hand on her husband’s knee. “Contraction.”
We held our breath, not wanting to use any of the air Marist might need, and when her eyes finally blinked open and her face relaxed, my gaze darted to my brother. He was looking at the watch on his wrist, and his cufflink shaped like Ares glinted back at me.
She sounded embarrassed, like she had any control over it. “That one was really intense.” Then she looked down at stared at her lap in disbelief. “Royce?” Her tone was calm and even. “Uh, my water just broke.”
I’d been in the labor and delivery waiting room of Mass General for twenty-five minutes before my father and Sophia arrived.
“Traffic was awful,” she said.
My father gave a dark look, as if he’d ordered it otherwise and the flow of cars had willfully disobeyed his command.
We said hello, sat together on the uncomfortable chairs, and made the requisite idle chitchat while waiting for a text from Royce with an update on Marist. I’d expected my father to be impatient. To act like this whole thing was an inconvenience for him, or for him to storm into the delivery room and demand Marist speed things along.
But he really had changed. I’d witnessed it for the first time last year in a different waiting room in this hospital, when Sophia’s boating accident had sent her to the emergency room. He’d been worried about someone other than himself, and that worry had stripped away his shields. He’d made his first attempt to connect with me, and it had been so disorienting, I’d frozen.
Today, he looked excited. Like there wasn’t anywhere else he wanted to be but here, waiting for the birth of his first grandchild. I saw him as merely a man, not the cunning and ruthless creature intent on winning the game, no matter the cost.
I’d lost the chance to talk to Royce. He was about to be a father, and I wasn’t going to shatter this happy moment or cause any stress over the Lambert news. A voice inside my head reminded me he wasn’t the only person Wayne wanted me to convince to put him on the board. My father could make it happen. I needed to stop avoiding him. He would undoubtedly be the biggest asset for strategy, or the biggest weapon to deploy.
Maybe both.
“Is Emery going to be joining us?” Sophia asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Oh. Uh, I’m not sure.” I glanced at my phone. She hadn’t called or texted since this afternoon, and it was hard to think she was doing anything other than blowing me off. Didn’t I deserve that?
I must have been making a face because Sophia leaned toward me in her chair and lowered her voice. “Did you guys break up?”