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“Thank you, Trevor.” Becca nodded at the receptionist before sweeping her hand toward the bank of elevators. “This way, please.”
They stepped into an empty car. Becca pushed the button for the top floor. “My brother threw away his title and inheritance over you.” She regarded Nathalie with more interest than malice.
Nathalie stiffened. “I didn’t make Ryder do anything. And I certainly never asked him to turn his back on his family.”
“Hmmm,” Becca arched one neatly groomed brow, “family seems to have been the problem all around, hasn’t it?”
The elevator doors opened. “I’m not to be disturbed,” Ryder’s sister instructed the middle-aged blonde woman seated at a desk in front of a large, glass-walled office.
Inside, on the exterior wall flanking a double window, photos of modern high-rises hung, matted in clear glass with narrow black metal frames. The desk was equally modern—a sleek geometric frame in white and gold with a white leather chair behind it and a slim silver laptop on its surface.
Modern, elegant, and somewhat cold.
Nathalie glanced at her companion. And fitting of its occupant.
Becca pushed a button on her computer and privacy blinds embedded in the glass walls shuttered. “Would you care for some tea or coffee?”
“I’m here to see your father.”
“Something stronger, then?” Becca’s lips tilted upward a fraction. She waved Nathalie toward a white leather settee in the corner. “Please, do have a seat.”
Nathalie stifled her impatience as she smoothed her skirt beneath her and sat. What did Ryder’s sister want? To indulge her curiosity or to waylay Nathalie from seeing Philip?
“Does Ryder know you’re here?” Becca took a seat in the metal-framed armchair next to the couch.
“No.”
He didn’t even know she was in England. The decision to surprise him now seemed like a foolish one. What if he didn’t approve of the changes she’d made in her life? As for her visit to Arborleigh Holdings, she’d known he would try to stop her, and this was one mission she was determined to complete.
Becca’s lips twisted into a grimace. “He won’t return anyone’s calls.”
“I’m sorry.” Nathalie was, really. Ryder’s family might be locked into their outdated patrician ways, but she knew they loved him. “He’s angry. Give him some time.”
“We—my mother, sister, and I—didn’t know about my father’s arrangement with you. My mother is quite devastated.”
“What your father did was wrong.” Nathalie’s fingers twisted in her lap. “But what I did was wrong as well, accepting his help and sacrificing Ryder in return. I can’t change the past, but I can close that chapter and move on.”
As soon as she met with Ryder’s father.
A look of regret crossed Becca’s face. “Ryder and I haven’t had the easiest of relationships. He was destined to lead Arborleigh Holdings and gain a title simply by having been born male. The irony is both were positions he never truly wanted.” She sighed. “Whereas I have spent my life trying to earn my place in the family business, always aware that Ryder, with one word to my father, could displace me.”
Becca leaned forward, her blue eyes so like Ryder’s. “Despite everything, I love my brother and I want him to be happy. You made him happy once.”
Nathalie met the other woman’s stare head on. “He’s given me a second chance. I’m not letting him go again.”
Surprise flared in Becca’s eyes. “He has? Well, this is news he didn’t share with us when he was busy blowing up my father’s hopes and dreams.”
“Your father needs new hopes and dreams.”
Becca smiled. “True.”
Nathalie glanced at the time on her phone. “I really need to speak with your father.” As important as the meeting was with Philip, she had an even more important wrong to right this afternoon.
“Of course.” Becca stood. “I’ll take you.”
They walked to the dark wood double-paneled doors at the end of the hall. Becca gripped one of the ornate brass doorknobs but didn’t turn it.
She glanced over her shoulder at Nathalie. “I’m sorry, you know.”