I stayed, soaking it all in.
It was my second time in the vault after Alex had handed over the keys, and I was still wrapping my head around the fact that it was mine. My place to shape, mold, and design as I saw fit (with some professional input). It was my responsibility, which was both thrilling and terrifying.
A familiar chime reverberated through the empty space.
I glanced down, my high melting into concern when I saw who was calling. I had a lunch date with Sloane soon, but I was too anxious to let the call roll to voicemail.
“Is everything okay?” I asked without preamble after picking up. Eduardo wouldn’t call me in the middle of the day unless something was wrong. Then again, it wasn’t like I had any more parents left to lose.
A brief, humorless smile flicked into existence at my dark humor. Coping mechanisms were coping mechanisms, no matter how morbid.
“I wanted to see how you were holding up and how the nightclub is going,” Eduardo said. “I’ve heard good things from Sloane, though she may be a bit biased considering the, ah, recent developments.”
So news of our relationship had made its way to Bogotá. I wasn’t surprised. I bet the inheritance committee was watching me like a hawk.
“We didn’t start dating until after I came up with the idea,” I said. “If you’re worried about it compromising Sloane’s judgment, don’t be. She’s not that type of person. She’ll be honest regardless of our relationship status.”
Even if she were the type to go easy on me because we were dating—which she wasn’t—I wouldn’t want her to. I’d succeed on my own merit or not at all.
“I know that, mijo, but not everyone does. There are growing whispers of her conflict of interest. She’s your publicist, and she’s one of your evaluators come May, yet you two are…involved,” Eduardo said delicately. “It doesn’t look good.”
“I don’t care how it looks.” Stubbornness set into my jaw. “We’re consenting adults. What we do in our free time is our business, and my father’s will didn’t say a thing about conflicts of interest, nor did it forbid me from dating a committee member. If anyone has a problem with us dating, they can take it up with the executor of his will. Sloane is one judge out of five, Eduardo. She won’t make or break the decision.”
“Unless there’s a tie, but I see your point.” A long pause preceded his next words. “I’ve never heard you so fired up over a woman.”
“She’s not just any woman. She’s…” Everything.
I almost said it. The word came so easily, it would’ve slipped right off my tongue had its potential implications not hit me at the same time like a hollow-point bullet.
Sloane couldn’t be my everything.
Yes, I cared about her deeply, and no, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She set my blood on fire whenever she was near and when she hurt, I hurt. She was the only person with whom I felt comfortable enough to share the secrets I’d shared, and if a genie popped out of a bottle this very second and asked me to change something about her, I wouldn’t change a single thing.
But all that wasn’t the same as her being everything, because if she were everything, then that meant she…that meant I…
“Ah.” Eduardo’s voice softened. “I see.”
I didn’t know what he heard in my silence, but I wasn’t ready to face it. Not yet.
“How’s the CEO search going on your end?” I asked, abruptly switching subjects. I needed something to take my mind off my Sloane spiral, and the Castillo Group’s seemingly eternal CEO search was as good a distraction as any.
“It’s fine. The board probably won’t make a final decision until the New Year. There’s strong contention over which of the candidates is better suited for the role.”
“They should choose you.” I meant it as a quip because Eduardo had never wanted to be CEO, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. He was included on the shortlist as a courtesy, but why wouldn’t they choose him? I’d seen the other names; he could run circles around them. Plus, he wasn’t an asshole like ninety percent of the list.
His shocked laugh rolled over the line. “Xavier, you know this was always supposed to be a temporary arrangement. My wife would kill me if I took it on permanently.”
“She might be more open to it than you think.” Eduardo’s wife was unyielding when it came to family time, but she was also a lawyer. She understood how to balance work and her personal life, and I bet Eduardo did too. “You care about the company, you have the institutional knowledge, and you’re good at the job. You helped my father build it into what it is today. What external candidate could possibly beat that?”
Silence reigned for several beats. “I don’t know. It’s a big decision. Even if I want it, I can’t guarantee the board will go for it.”
“Just think about it. I bet the board isn’t pushing it because they think you don’t want it.”
“Maybe.” He sighed, the sound edged with sadness and frustration. “Alberto had to go and leave us with this mess, didn’t he?”
“He always did like fucking people over.” I leaned against a pillar and stared at the wall of old safe-deposit boxes across from me. The sight transported me back to Colombia—my father’s room, my mother’s letter, the scent of old books and leather during the reading of the will. “You know what I don’t understand? How and why my father failed to catch the loophole in his will. He didn’t stipulate the company I should be CEO of, Eduardo. Does that sound like Alberto Castillo to you?”
“No. At least not the Alberto Castillo I knew before his diagnosis. But impending death changes people, mijo. It forces us to confront our mortality and reevaluate what’s important.”
I snorted. Eduardo always liked to sugarcoat things when it came to my father. “What are you saying? That he had a sudden change of heart while lying on his deathbed?”
“I’m saying that in the last days of his illness, he had a lot of time to think. About the past, about his legacy, and most of all, about his relationship with you.” Another, heavier pause in which I could hear Eduardo turning words over in his mind. “He found your mother’s letter at the beginning of the year when he was getting his affairs in order. Alberto wanted to tell you about it in person, but…” He hesitated. “That’s why I was so insistent that you visit him. I didn’t know how much longer he had, and some things are meant to be shared face-to-face.”
Wisps of cold stole through me and pulled my chest tight. “Don’t put that burden on me, Eduardo,” I said harshly. “You know why I didn’t want to come home.”
“Yes. I’m not blaming you, Xavier,” Eduardo said, his voice gentle. “I merely want to share the other side of the story. But for what it’s worth, your father didn’t read the letter. That was for your eyes only. He knew Patricia enough to know that was what she would’ve wanted. But seeing that letter from your mother…I think it forced him to think about what she would’ve said if she saw the two of you after her death. How she would’ve hated the way your relationship fell apart, and how it would’ve broken her heart to see him blaming you for what happened. She loved you and your father more than anything else in the world. Your rift would’ve devastated her.”
The gut punch from his words cracked the concrete wall I’d built around my chest, making my ribs ache and my throat close. “Did he tell you all that, or did you put the words in his mouth?”
“Half and half. Your father and I were friends since we were children, and we’d confided in each other enough that he didn’t always have to express his thoughts out loud for me to understand them.”
The safe-deposit boxes blurred for an instant before I blinked the haze away. “Fine. Let’s pretend everything you said is true. What does that have to do with the will?”
“I can’t say for sure. He didn’t tell me he was changing his will until after the fact,” Eduardo admitted. “I didn’t know about the new inheritance clause, nor did I know I would be on the evaluation committee. But you’re right. Alberto Castillo was not a man who would’ve overlooked such a glaring loophole, which meant he put it in there on purpose. I suspect…” This time, his hesitation carried a hint of caution. “It was his way of simultaneously extending an olive branch and pushing you closer to your potential. He could’ve easily cut off your inheritance unless you followed whatever terms he dictated, or he could’ve written you out of the will altogether. But he didn’t.”
An olive branch from my father. The idea was so absurd I wanted to laugh, but Eduardo wasn’t wrong. My father could’ve cut me off. It would’ve been his last big fuck you before passing.
I thought he’d changed my inheritance terms so he could manipulate me into doing what he wanted even after his death. That was definitely part of it, but…maybe there was more to the story.
