“Why is she eating down here?” I ask Cara, the night nanny, who’s taken our arrival as an opportunity to play a game on her phone. She looks up and answers with some hesitation, “Mr. Malcolm has a guest at dinner.”
“Oh, I forgot.” I’d seen the car, but it’s just like my brother to send his daughter to the kitchen while he entertains a business partner. It’s what our father did. Our mother never allowed that when she was alive. She said supper was family time. My father’s soft spot had allowed that. But when Ellie was born, he hadn’t wanted her at the dinner table. A sentiment his son parroted and her mother didn’t fight. I’d hoped that she’d be welcome there now that there was an empty spot at the table.
“Well, we’ll join you,” I tell Ellie.
“You, too, Auntie Poppy?”
“Of course.” Poppy grabs her tiny hands and they twirl around the kitchen.
Cara puts down her phone, looking nervous. “They’ve set the table for you,” she tells me. “I’m supposed to ask you to head up as soon as you’re home.”
The underlying implication is clear. I’m expected to be at dinner. I’m expected to play my role in this family.
“Is that so?” I stride out of the kitchen until I find Felix in the butler’s pantry. He’s prepping what looks like the second course.
“There you are! Your brother wants you at dinner. He’s been asking where you were since I served the salad.”
“My brother should have invited me to dinner,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m an adult. I might have other plans.”
“I told him so.” He nods sympathetically, and I feel bad for avoiding him. None of this is his fault. “Adair, there’s something—”
“Can you have Lindsay set two more places at the table?” I interrupt.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he warns me. Felix has always looked out for me, but things need to change. Malcolm can’t order me around like our father did. I’m not about to trade one tyrant for another.
“I have guests of my own,” I say.
He glances over at his soup, and I can see he’s calculating how to split it with the sudden addition.
“Unless there’s not enough,” I say quickly, realizing too late that once again my brother and I are burdening someone else’s life with our childish disagreements.
“I can make it work,” he says. “Ginny never eats anything anyway. I’ll give her a smaller portion.”
I make my way back to Poppy and Ellie. Bending down, I lift the little girl onto my hip.
“Miss?” Cara asks.
“She’s going to dinner upstairs,” I inform her.
It’s time for this to stop. If that means making a scene and shaming Malcolm into being the father I expect him to be, then so be it.
“Felix is setting a place for you, too,” I tell Poppy. “Will you stay?”
So maybe I need a little backup to wage this war.
She reads between the lines. “Of course. You can give me more brilliant ideas to sell my mother on the theme. Malcolm won’t mind?”
“I’m sure it’s just another one of daddy’s old buddies. Malcolm is trying to sort out the family estate.” I may have filled Poppy in on the funeral, but I left out the details of the will. It’s not that I don’t trust her with them, it’s that I know she’ll worry. Knowing her, she’ll try to get the money from her parents to help us buy back the stock we lost. It doesn’t matter if she’s my best friend, a MacLaine doesn’t take charity.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I brought guests to dinner,” I announce, unable to keep a smug smile from spreading over my face as we enter the dining room with Ellie in tow. The arrogance oozes out of me when Malcolm’s guest turns to greet us.
“I don’t mind,” Sterling says from his place at the table.
I can’t think of anything to say in response.
“Oh fuck,” Poppy murmurs next to me. Clearly, she’s not been rendered speechless.
“Auntie Poppy, you said a bad word.” Ellie’s voice is hushed with surprise at her angelic idol’s faux pas.
Poppy scoops her from my arms, and I’m too surprised to stop her. “Yes, I did. How silly of me.”
She carries the girl to the opposite side of the table, sitting next to her in two of the available seats and leaving the seat next to Sterling empty.
She said it best.
Fuck.
13
Sterling
I have her attention. Adair MacLaine is on the hook, and I’m going to enjoy watching her wriggle.
“We started without you,” Malcolm says without a hint of apology.
It had been clear to me when we started the soup course that Malcolm hadn’t invited Adair to dinner. He had assumed, like the privileged asshole he was, that she would simply be there. I was annoyed earlier. Now? Seeing her sort through several stages of surprise makes her late arrival worth it.
Poppy does her best to appear oblivious as she deposits Malcolm’s daughter into the seat across from mine. I know she recognizes me. I expect Cyrus told her I’m back in town. It’s neither good nor bad to see her. Her presence is just a distraction for Adair. Still, while I’ve never hated Poppy, her ability to stay politely neutral annoys me. She’s always been a diplomat, more concerned with keeping the peace than standing up in her friend’s defense.
She seems to have flourished. Jetting off to Paris, wearing haute couture, she’s become the Valmont stereotype. Unlike her, Adair is in jeans and a
