“But more than that, my father meant a lot to me. She thinks she’s cornered the market on those emotions, but she hasn’t.”
Ziara recognized the ache in his voice from that first encounter in his father’s office. “This really does mean a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
His head dipped as if in defeat, though she couldn’t imagine him being defeated by anything—even Vivian’s determined animosity.
“My childhood was wonderful until my mother died.”
Ziara couldn’t imagine how different her life would have been without her mother, how much better. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
She winced. “That’s a bad age for major upheaval.”
“Yes,” he said with a slow nod as he looked out at the desert sky. “Her death was quick, only six weeks after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.” His pause was heavy with memories. “I had a new stepmother within a year.”
What had his father been thinking? “It must have been hard for him to be alone.”
“He wasn’t alone. He had me.” His deep sigh blew away any sounds of self-pity. “My father changed after he married Vivian,” he said, the words slow but gaining speed. “Life became all about his new wife—her demands, her needs, her desires. What little was left went to his company, not to a fifteen-year-old boy in need of reassurance after losing his mother to cancer.”
The picture of isolation he painted was nearly as bad as her own teenage years, living in her mother’s house but not really living with her mother.
“She told my father I was lazy, unmotivated. But instead of wondering why, he simply condemned me. Any protests were considered a teenager’s way of trying to weasel out of the consequences.”
“And things never got better, even after you became an adult?”
“Not with Vivian poisoning his brain. At least, not that I could tell.” He turned to her, the movement bringing them almost as close as they’d been on the dance floor. “He died from a heart attack, you know. Very unexpected.”
Ziara had known, but he seemed to need to talk so she let him.
“When the lawyer read his will, I could hear Vivian screaming in frustration even though she never uttered a sound. The fact that he left me any part of Eternity Designs completely shocked her.”
As if he needed some connection with Ziara, his hands reached out to rub up and down her arms, warming her from the outside in. “But that forty percent meant more to me than all the money, houses and stuff Vivian inherited. I could have sold it, resented it. But it made me think that in some small way, he had truly seen what I’d made of my life and was telling me that he believed in me.”
An alien urge to wrap her arms around his waist and snuggle close swept through her. She just barely kept herself from acting. “Then why did you stay away so long?” If the company had meant so much to him, why had he left Vivian to it?
Laughter rumbled in his chest, the vibration echoing in her own and setting off all kinds of sparks under her skin. “You’ve seen how well Vivian works with me. For Eternity’s own well-being, I stepped back from the running of it. She wanted free rein. I gave it to her.”
“But you knew the time would come...”
“I knew without strong business acumen, Vivian probably couldn’t keep the firm afloat. So I waited, and showed up when she didn’t have a choice but to let me step in.”
His cold calculation should disturb her, but what choice had he been given?
“Vivian should have known I wouldn’t walk away forever,” Sloan said. “Eternity is the only part of my father that I have left.”
Which said all she needed to hear.
Retracing their steps back through the house, Sloan found Patrick in the front room surrounded by people laughing. He gestured, letting his friend know he needed a moment.
Patrick approached with a casual, lanky stride. If he’d been into computers, he’d have been a geek, but he’d been designing clothes and dressing those around him for most of his life. He and Sloan had bonded as young men over the neglect of their home lives. Despite their many differences, Patrick was always the person to shake Sloan out of his anger, force him to look in a new direction or simply bust his chops until he could solve his problems. Sloan offered the same support, and they took every opportunity to dog each other about relationships, jobs and various life issues, just like the brothers they should have been.
Now Sloan needed something more than camaraderie. His thoughts must have shown, because Patrick flashed a rueful grin. “Do-or-die time, huh?” he said.
Sloan didn’t disappoint. “Yep.”
With a gesture Patrick directed them to his office. As Ziara moved into the space, she gasped. Sloan watched with a warm feeling in his chest as an almost childlike excitement burst over her face. He certainly understood.
The room was completely out of character with the rest of the house except for the pale walls and arches over the double windows. Otherwise, overflowing bookshelves lined every other wall, with more shelves jutting out to create aisles and hidden nooks. There were several oversize leather chairs with huge ottomans and a table-style desk supported by intertwined pieces of wood that formed the legs. It was slick, modern, but washed with an antique feel. An incredible contrast that Ziara obviously loved.
“This is so unique,” she breathed.
“Patrick would live in here if everyone would leave him alone,” Sloan said, earning a sucker punch in his upper arm.
“Would not.”
“Would, too, you little recluse.”
Ziara looked back at them in surprise, then glanced at the door separating them from the party.
“That’s right, Ziara. Sloan calls me a recluse, but look at the parties I put on. He’s clearly delusional. As is perfectly evident by his insistence that I join him in this crazy designing venture.”
“I’m not giving up, Patrick. You have to give me an honest chance at talking you into this.”
His friend waved toward the closed door, and the lavish house and glittering guests beyond it. “Why would I want to leave all this?”
“You know you get bored easily. This is just an opportunity for a new challenge.” He might as well start off simple.
“You think working with fifty cast members and a demanding director isn’t challenging?”
“How about—to teach an old nemesis she doesn’t know what’s best?”
Sloan noticed Ziara stiffen out of the corner of his eyes. Though her back was turned politely to them as she perused a nearby bookshelf, he still couldn’t dismiss the connection he had to her every emotion.
