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“Aric, do you and Jason ever talk about having children?”

The man sitting across from me blinked. I had to admit the question really did come out of left field.

“We’rescheduledto talk about it,” he answered carefully. “Sometime next year.”

“Nextyear?”

“I mean, he’s brought it up a few times, but I’ve always tabled it.”

“And what made you table it?”

My second-in-command’s lips pursed together as he scratched the back of his head. “Lots of things, I guess. We’re still young for one, or so I keep telling him. But that excuse is only going to work for another year if I’m lucky. Two, tops.”

“He wants kids and you don’t?”

“Oh I didn’t say that,” Aric answered. “I want a bunch of kids, actually. I want them very much.”

“Well you’ve got a beautiful place,” I said. “A good partner. Plenty of room. And I know you makemorethan enough money.”

At the last comment, he delivered an obligatory smirk.

“So what’s stopping you from doing it now?”

“Want the truth?”

“Always.”

He extended a finger, inverted it, then tapped my desk. “This place.”

I was floored. Thinking about it however, I probably shouldn’t have been. “Really?”

“Yeah, well right now there’s just too much going on here,” he shrugged. “Too many irons in the fire. Maybe once things calm down a little—”

“But things never calm down,” I countered. “They only ramp up.”

Aric wasn’t just my right-hand man, he was my whole right arm. He ran every single thing at Shameless that I didn’t, and maybe even some that I did.

“I guess that’s why I’m still waiting,” he said. “You know. For the right time.”

The right time…

He was looking over my shoulder now, at nothing in particular. Or maybe he was looking through the glass walls at something or someone else.

“Aric?”

“Yeah boss?”

“I want you take the rest of the night off,” I told him. “Use the black card. Take your husband to a really nice restaurant, on the company’s dime.”

His eyes lit up. “Seriously?”

“Fuck yes,” I smiled. “A good steakhouse, that new Asian Fusion place over on Seventh Avenue; whatever you guys want. You know you damned well deserve it. Without you, this place is just a pile of glass.”

His face deepened to a bright scarlet under all the praise. I had to turn away for fear of turning a matching shade.

“Well shit, boss,” he said. “I don’t care what people say about you, you’re—”

“And while you’re at it, tell Jason I’m sorry.”