“...but I can’t go directly against your father.”
And Mitchell Hunter wins again.
Nick’s eyes flashed, but he held his tongue. It had been a long shot, but he had to at least try. At any rate, we had managed to win the reluctant sympathy vote.
“Of course.” He bowed his head, suddenly uncertain how to proceed. “I’m sorry, Harold, I shouldn’t have asked—”
“Nicholas, please. You know you can ask me anything—”
“I just don’t really know what to do at this point,” Nick interrupted, running his fingers back through his hair. His face froze for a split second as his eyes found the pen, then a genuine shudder rippled through his shoulders. “I don’t know what to do,” he repeated quietly.
By this point, Nick had given up the game, but Harold was still ready to rip his own heart out—if only to provide a momentary distraction. His face tightened with a look of tortured concern, before he, too, pulled in a deep breath.
“You like parties, don’t you?”
He placed a firm hand on Nick’s knee, forcing the guy to meet his eyes. Nick nodded.
“Then Nick my boy...we’re going to throw you the biggest party this city’s ever seen.”
I think it was the first time he’d ever called him Nick. Between that and the sentiment, he was actually able to coax a small smile.
Of course, I had to go and ruin it...
“And me too, right?” I leaned over to catch their attention, shattering the touching moment to pieces. “Because I’m getting married too, right?”
Nick straightened up with a grin, while Harold closed his eyes with a painful sigh.
“Ms. Wilder, for one blissful moment I actually forgot you were here.”
I cocked my head to the side, and gave him a bitchy smile. “Well that makes the two of us. Now, as for the timing of this blessed event, what do you say to a rather long engagement?”
In my mind, it was the only chance that Nick and I had. But it was a rather good chance at that. If the entire point of this rapidly-accelerating relationship was to appease the board in time for the merger—then didn’t the carriage turn back to a pumpkin in just three short months?
Surely we could stage an engagement until then. After which point the two of us would simply go our separate ways...
Or not. You have fucked each other by now. No reason to split up entirely—just get that damn forced wedding off the table.
Nick—who was thinking along the same lines as me—seized upon the idea with a passion, but Harold simply lowered his pen and braced for the worst.
“Actually...your father was rather hoping they would coincide.”
“WHY?!” Nick and I both snapped at the same time.
Harold continued on rather mildly. “Well, there are some third quarter decreases that could benefit from a slight distraction—”
“Third quarter decreases?” Nick repeated in a dangerously soft voice.
“A slight distraction?” I quoted scathingly. “This is our life, Mr. Oates!”
“It’s actually Sir—”
“Yeah, I’m not calling you that.”
“Enough!” Nick banged his palms against the coffee table. As if by instinct, both Harold and myself fell instantly silent under the weight of such an expression. “Harold.”
Harold threw up his hands in surrender.
“I will talk to your father about the length of the engagement. That, at least, I can promise you. What he’ll say, of course, is a different story.” He made some sort of annotation on his paper, still muttering under his breath. “After all, there’s no reason you should actually have to go and marry the little trollop...”