Page 34 of Olive Becket Plays the Rake (The Seattle Suffrage Society)

Apparently, bringing a girl home to meet the family was nothing short of miraculous. Emil had barely ushered Olive over the threshold when he was summarily shoved aside.

“Welcome, welcome!” his mother cried, her face enthused with the sort of joy usually reserved for weddings and babies. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Miss Becket. Just wonderful.”

“Let me take your coat,” Astrid added, already tugging at Olive’s collar.

“Thank you, I—” The rest of Olive’s reply was muffled as her knit scarf tangled around her face in Astrid’s haste.

Good God. They were going to terrify her with their exuberance.

“Give her a moment to breathe.” Emil tried to intervene, but Beata blocked him with a perfectly timed, strategic sweep of her wide hips.

“We are giving her room.” Beata captured Olive’s newly freed hand in her own. “Aren’t you a pretty thing? That scarf makes your eyes shine. Is it from New York, perhaps?”

“Subtle,” he muttered.

He was once again ignored. And Olive, either oblivious to the loaded question or already developing a notion to join the coalition against him, delivered the fatal line without hesitation.

“Emil made it.”

Beata and Astrid turned to him with slow, synchronized precision, their expressions somewhere between delighted and mildly threatening.

“I thought I recognized that pattern,” Astrid said with narrowed eyes.

“You gave her something you made? Voluntarily?”

“Without us having to trick or beg?”

Beata gave Astrid a sly glance. “Must be love.”

“Calm down.” Emil threw up his hands. “It’s only a scarf.”

He was on the verge of abandoning the entire afternoon plan when he realized Olive was smiling.

Not the polite one she gave strangers or the careful one she wore when uncertain.

She looked…at ease. As though she belonged.

The sight of it made something warm unfurl in his chest, slow and steady and impossible to ignore.

He blew out a breath. Seemed he was in for an afternoon of teasing, after all.

“You must be someone very dear.” Mor patted Olive’s hand. “Emil never brings anyone home. Not even the dog he rescued once.”

“That dog bit me.” He sent Olive an exasperated look. “Don’t fall for their charm, Olive. They’re deeply untrustworthy.”

“You poor thing,” she replied, utterly unsympathetic. “Outnumbered in your own home.”

“I like you,” Astrid declared, linking an arm through hers. “I’m even willing to let you torture me at the piano for half an hour.”

“An hour,” Emil said.

“God, no. Someone else will have to take my place.”

“I thought you wanted to learn.” Olive’s brow wrinkled. “Emil assured me that was the case.”

“Uh oh. Seems he lured you here under false pretenses.”

Olive turned to him. “Emil?”

Obviously, it was a ruse. He knew it, she knew it. Hell, they all knew it. But damned if he was going to suffer under their tyranny a moment longer. He turned and squinted at the doorway down the hall.

“Hear that? I believe Far’s calling me.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“You don’t have my sharp ears, Mor,” he replied, already backing away. “I should go see what he needs. It’s probably important. Possibly life-threatening.”

Their laughter followed him down the hall, and Emil allowed himself a smile. He’d been right to assume his mother and sister would welcome Olive with open arms. The teasing was a small price to pay for Olive’s comfort.

As he neared his father’s home study, however, his smile faded.

He braced himself for an interaction, or, more aptly, an altercation with his father.

They hadn’t seen eye to eye in a long time.

How could they when Olof persisted in questioning every decision he made?

When he diminished Emil’s goals and chastised him like a child?

He paused outside the study door and considered a detour to visit his brother in the woodshop behind the house.

He could make out the rhythmic rasp of plane on timber even from there.

But that would only delay the inevitable.

Much better to have it out in private and not at the table during the afternoon kaffekalas—there was no reason to believe Olof would pull his punches simply because they had a visitor.

Olive didn’t need to know how fractured their relationship had become.

He leaned into the doorway and cleared his throat. “God morgon, Far.”

Olof looked up, pencil poised in the air. “Min son.”

Emil scanned his father’s desk with mounting dismay.

All he saw was ledgers sprawled open, invoices half-sorted, contracts bleeding red ink in the margins.

Olof could have cleared it with a single afternoon of discipline, but instead, he’d chosen to leave the mess as the centerpiece.

It wasn’t proof of industry; it was theatre. A stage set for Emil’s guilt.

“Just working through some numbers,” Olof continued in Swedish, gesturing vaguely at the disarray. “Nothing to trouble yourself with.”

You won’t trouble yourself, was what he really meant.

But Emil chose not to bite. There would be more barbs, no doubt.

He stepped fully into the study and crossed to the armchair opposite his father’s desk, only to find it already occupied.

The family tabby lay sprawled in a regal heap, tail twitching, eyes slitted with sleepy disdain.

Emil gave it a nudge. It grumbled, but slunk to the floor with an unimpressed glare that was eerily reminiscent of its owner’s.

Emil sank into the chair and crossed one ankle over his knee.

Olof studied him for a moment. “You look well.”

“Thank you. As do you.”

“I'm told we have a guest today. A young woman. Your mother is pleased.”

“Pleased is one word for it,” he said dryly. “She almost tackled Olive at the door.”

Olof’s face twitched—almost a smile, but not quite. “I wasn’t aware you were interested in courting.”

Courting.

Emil stilled. He’d always detested that word.

Too many implications. It suggested intent, stability—a future.

And that was a far cry from the life he led.

He wasn’t built for permanence. He liked his freedom.

He relied on it. His work, his life, and his choices were his alone, untethered to anyone else’s demands.

And yet…if permanence meant Olive, would it feel quite the same as a chain?

“I’m not,” he said, frowning at the strange kick in his chest.

“Then what are you doing with the girl if you aren’t planning to marry her?”

“She’s part of a case I’m working on, and—” He broke off at his father’s snort. “What does that hideous noise mean?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“Please, you first.”

Olof shrugged. “I didn’t realize becoming personally involved was part of a private investigator’s protocol.”

“It isn’t. I’m helping her—”

“Helping her?” Olof’s voice rose slightly, disbelief creeping in. He leaned forward, fingers steepled. “You’re playing hero to a stranger while ignoring your own family?”

“One thing has nothing to do with the other.”

“Why not? She’s not your family. She’s not even your responsibility. She’s your case.”

Emil stood abruptly, the chair scraping the rug. “You don’t know a thing about her.”

“You’re right, I don’t. And it hardly signifies, not when—”

“Not when I owe blind loyalty to Nordstar Yachts. I know, I know.”

“How could you know anything when you won’t stick around long enough to hear me out?”

Emil gave a bitter laugh. “Pot kettle black, Far.”

Olof’s breath hissed through his teeth. “I’ve spent years building something meant to outlast me.

Every late night, every missed birthday—I told myself it was worth it.

Because one day I would be able to give it all to my children.

Do you know how much it costs me to sit here and beg my son to care? ”

“I do care, but not the way you want. You don’t ask me to help, you expect it. You dangle guilt and obligation like bait.”

“Yet this girl twitches a finger and you go running—”

Emil’s hands fisted. “Don’t you dare talk about her like that.”

Olof’s chest rose with a sharp inhale. “Fine. I won’t. As you say, I don’t know her. But I know you, Emil. I know your talents. Your skills. Both of which Nordstar desperately needs.”

A flicker of guilt caught Emil unaware, and he sat back in his seat. Desperate was not in his father’s vocabulary. “Then tell me,” he said grudgingly.

Olof leaned back in his chair with a sigh, dragging a ledger toward him.

“There’s a backlog of invoices from the fall orders.

I’ve done what I can, but without sharper eyes…

” His gaze flicked meaningfully to Emil.

“Our client vetting process has unraveled since Jensen left. The Port Authority is stonewalling me again, though perhaps they’d take you more seriously.

And rent on the dry dock has risen thirty percent.

Every day I spend fighting paperwork is a day stolen from the company’s future. Your family’s future.”

Emil’s chest tightened with a familiar suffocation only Olof could induce. “That’s not a short-term favor, Far. That’s a full-time job.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t ask if I had any other choice.”

“What you want is to trap me here. Bury me in this office so deep I forget what I wanted for myself.”

“That’s not true—”

“Isn’t it?” Emil’s voice cracked, emotion surging up. “Every time I try to breathe on my own, you pull me back. I’m not a boy anymore. I have a life, a career that matters to me.”

“You call it a career. I call it chasing shadows.” Olof shook his head. “All that talent and fire poured into other people’s troubles. Never your own blood.”

Emil’s blood simmered. “Chasing shadows? That’s what you think about my job?”