And she’d said the salmon wasn’t even that good. We’d gone out last night with her friends to celebrate her graduation from Etonsons. It had been a small gathering. The garden party my parents were planning would happen over Memorial Day weekend when the weather was better.
My mother locked eyes with me as Emily coughed and moaned. “Wear something nice. You might have to represent both my daughters today.”
After much arguing, I wore the pomegranate dress Emily had intended to wear. With my green hair, I was modern Christmas colors in May. The V neck party dress wasn’t my style, but it fit me and satisfied my frazzled mother.
After getting dressed and putting on the makeup my sister insisted I wear, I lingered upstairs as long as I could when the Hale men arrived. I waited until my father had to call for me to join them. It had been a small miracle I’d gone this long without running into Royce since I’d returned from college, but I couldn’t avoid him any longer. I teetered down the staircase on Emily’s heels, which were a half-size too big and made me clutch tight to the banister.
The polite conversation ceased at my entrance, and for a moment I became Medusa, turning everyone into statues. My father was the first to break form and gave a surprised smile, happy to see me. There was safety in numbers around the Hales, after all.
The patriarch of the visiting family took longer to recover and look mostly human again.
At fifty-two, Macalister’s hair didn’t contain a single thread of silver. It was swept perfectly over to one side, not a strand out of place, and I wondered if he simply decreed it in the morning and his hair fell into line. His nose was long, his cheekbones were high, and he was in perfect shape.
And just like his sons, Macalister was ruthlessly attractive.
But there was an unsettling edge in his eyes. As if he’d seen the entire world, down to every crevice, and found all of it so very disappointing.
His top lip curled as his gaze evaluated me top to bottom. Oh, he fucking hated my unnatural hair color, and it was so bad, he wasn’t even going to acknowledge me. I didn’t deserve a sliver more of his attention.
Royce, on the other hand, was frozen and focused only on me. His wide eyes didn’t blink for an abnormally long moment, and with the surprised expression fixed on his face, he looked . . . strange. Like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Otherwise, he appeared the same as last time. Still irritatingly sexy, wearing a cobalt blue suit with no tie, and shoulders set with confidence.
Had he not expected to see me? I guessed that made sense. His younger brother Vance hadn’t come, and when Macalister had requested the lunch, he’d only asked Emily attend.
The anxiety of it hadn’t helped my sister with the nausea.
Macalister cleared his throat, jolting his son from his stupor, then narrowed his exacting gaze on my father. “Where’s your other daughter?”
My father stiffened. “She’s still not feeling well.”
Macalister was only a few inches taller than my father, but he seemed to loom over everyone, and his displeasure drifted down, permeating the room. “Then she can join us after lunch.”
My mother’s shoulders sagged, but she nodded and gestured to the dining room, ushering us toward the table our housekeeper Delphine had set with our fine china.
Since my father sat at the head of the table, I ended up across from Royce, and I spent the majority of the meal staring at the gold filigree in my plate, rather than endure his stare that drilled down into me.
The conversation was stilted pleasantries like it always was. Macalister’s only hobby was being an asshole, so it made him difficult to talk to. He’d changed so much over the years. I barely remembered how he used to be, or if he had ever genuinely smiled.
As soon as Delphine cleared the plates from the main course and disappeared through the door to the kitchen, my father’s boss laced his fingers together and set them on the table. The air shifted in the room. It was time to discuss business.
“Royce will be joining the board of directors,” Macalister said.
Holy shit.
He dropped his plain statement on the table, but it fell like an anvil and crushed through the floor, threatening to pull us all down with it. It was no secret my father wanted the coveted seat on the board. Royce was a Hale, so it was natural he’d be offered one eventually but, Jesus, he’d only been working at the company for a year.
And he was twenty-five.
Splotches of red crawled up my father’s neck and peeked out over the starched collar of his dress shirt. No doubt he was thinking how he’d been working for Hale Banking and Holding from before Royce was born. Charles Northcott was supposed to be next in line.