Page 69 of Boss of the Year

His brow furrowed a bit, but the tension seemed to melt when our eyes met.

“It was part of the custody agreement my father renegotiated a few years after he and Winnifred were married,” he said. “She struggled to get pregnant. It took them more than a decade to conceive Daniel. My father was worried he wouldn’t have another heir, so I think he pressured my mother to give me up so he could raise me to take over the company.”

And she did.

The words were unspoken but lingered anyway.

I decided not to ask exactly what would make a mother give up her child. A large sum, no doubt. Or maybe she had been blackmailed in some way. Whatever it was, the betrayal had made Lucas far less trusting of the world.

It seemed that was something else we had in common.

“You know, you’re different from what I thought you’d be,” I said as we rambled down a quieter trail. Lucas’s security continued to bookend our progress.

He arched a brow. “Oh? How?”

“I don’t know exactly. Easy to talk to, I suppose. In New York, you’re always so…” I searched for the right word.

“Formidable?” he suggested with a wry curve of his mouth.

“I was going to say grumpy, but sure, that works.”

Lucas let out a short bark. “Fair enough. It’s an occupational hazard, I suppose.”

“Is it?” I wondered. “Or is it just easier?”

Something like surprise painted his face. “Easier than what?”

“Well, I imagine it would be harder to boss everyone around if they knew who you really were.” I peeked up to find him staring at me like I’d just wounded him. “Bosses aren’t supposed to have fears, right?”

We had reached a pond where the city lights reflected like scattered stars across the water. Lucas stopped walking, his hands still in his pockets, and was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer.

“What else am I supposed to be?” he wondered, maybe more to himself than to me as he looked out over the water.

I sat on a bench and waited until he lowered himself next to me.

“We all grow up with labels, don’t we?” he asked.

I nodded. “That’s true.”

“Mine were pretty clear. Some supposedly good, like ‘genius’ or ‘heir.’ Some not. Like ‘tyrant’ or ‘bastard.’”

The last one made me flinch. “They didn’t really call you that, did they?”

His shoulders lifted, then fell. “Not to my face. But it was there just the same.”

I considered what that must have felt like. As alienated as I sometimes felt from my family, I had never doubted that they loved me.

“I never got to choose any of my labels,” he continued. “When I was six, I had to become the heir. At twenty-one, I had to be the future CEO. My father said even then he knew Daniel wouldn’t be suited to run it. Though how he could make that judgment about a nine-year-old kid, I’ll never understand. But I was the smart one, the dependable one. It was my job to keep the business together after he was gone.” He looked up at the sky, still lingering in twilight. “I think he knew then he was sick. He has Alzheimer’s, you know. That’s why his diet is so different. But no one else besides the family and his doctors is aware.”

When his eyes met mine again, they glowed like the stars above, the ones that wrestled with the light pollution, dying to come out.

“My family’s a mess, Marie. No one knows how bad it is. If I let everything go—if I let myself go—I wonder sometimes if any of us would survive.”

The vulnerability in his voice made my chest ache. “I know the feeling.”

“Do you?”

I nodded. “There are six of us, but for a long time, it was just me and Joni after the others left. And she…has her own issues. I carried her everywhere. Made sure she went to school, helped with homework, covered for her when she got into trouble.” I smiled sadly. “Until I went to Paris, and she grew up, I guess. She became this amazing, confident woman who doesn’t need me anymore.”