About Last Night

It also sounded illegal.

“You can’t be serious. No place of business can blackmail its employees into marrying. For the board even to have discussed this is a serious breach of ethics.”

Winston leaned back in his chair, smirking. “The conversations were all quite informal, I assure you. I think you’ll find, if you care to investigate, that our position is perfectly legal and completely secure.”

Translation: try to bring a lawsuit, and you’ll lose. In the networks his family belonged to, influence and convention mattered a great deal more than the law. The law could be bought, and cheaply at that.

Nev crossed his arms over his chest. “It may not be necessary for you to send me off to Swansea. I’ve been thinking of leaving the bank behind to pursue other options.”

This wasn’t strictly true, unless daydreaming about finding a gallery for his paintings counted, but he needn’t tell his brother that.

Winston merely smiled. “What are you going to do, paint? You’re too old to play at being an artist.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

“I suppose it is. But I should tell you, if you leave the bank, you’ll be on your own. Mother will cut you off without a cent.”

Nev relaxed, relieved to hear the other shoe hit the floor. If he didn’t marry, he’d be demoted. If he left the bank, he’d become a pauper. Mother was fond of marking out her approved course of action by making all the alternatives as unattractive as possible. She didn’t have a high opinion of his intelligence.

Of course, he could always find work with one of the rival banks, but he wouldn’t, and Mother and Winston knew it. He lacked their vindictive streak, as well as their passion for the family business. If he wasn’t to work at Haverford Bank, he’d just as soon leave banking altogether, and both of them would have guessed that.

“Does Dad know about this?”

“I haven’t spoken with him.”

That was most likely a no, then. His father wouldn’t approve. But he wouldn’t do anything about it, either. He always went along with Mother.

Winston set his unfinished tea on the table and stood, straightening the creases in his slacks. “You have until the bank holiday. You’re to bring a fiancée home with you.”

The next bank holiday was at the end of August. That gave him a month to comply with this ridiculous scheme. “You can’t be serious. Even if I were inclined to go along, you can hardly expect me to manage to find a wife in a few weeks’ time.”

Winston simply shrugged. “You can be charming when you put your mind to it. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

Nev saw his brother out, resisting the urge to help him down the stairs with a foot in the arse, then closed the door with a weary sigh.

He ought to have seen it coming.

But it was bizarre, wasn’t it? By any objective standard? He found it difficult to be certain sometimes. His family was so far from normal, they had a way of scrambling his sense of how ordinary people behaved. Which was one of the reasons he’d insisted on moving out in the first place.

He couldn’t imagine why Mother and Winston were so anxious to get him down the aisle. It was hardly a disgrace to be a bachelor at twenty-eight, and it wasn’t as though Mother required an heir or needed more grandchildren to cuddle. The notion of her cuddling anyone was frankly alarming. Perhaps she simply wanted a big social event to plan.

More likely, his move to Greenwich had loosened the noose she kept around his neck, and she wanted to tighten it up, simply to demonstrate that she could.

She could. But only if he allowed her to.

What his mother failed to understand was that he’d made up his mind to stop allowing her to. He’d grown tired of living someone else’s life, of waking up in the family home and commuting to work at the family bank under his brother’s thumb. Moving to Greenwich had been his first step toward independence. He wasn’t about to turn around and find some polished society woman to wed because his mother and brother thought he should.

He wouldn’t play along anymore. When they went to tighten the noose, they would find it was no longer around his neck.

Chapter Seven

She did what she could to avoid City. Skipping her Monday-morning run, she showed up at the station at six-thirty, more than half an hour before his usual train. Once seated, she plugged her iPod into her ears and delved into her bag for her journal and favorite pen. But when she looked up for inspiration, she found herself staring into a very familiar pair of green-brown eyes.

“Good morning, Mary Catherine.”

He was standing with one hip braced casually against the pole for support. Dressed for work in a dark blue suit and a silvery tie, City was every inch the banker again—except he was smiling his shark smile, and he no longer looked the least bit remote or cold.

Nope, everything about the man was seriously hot.