Page 10 of Savage Suit

“Five already?”

Graham smiled. “We can’t believe it, either. All parents say this, but they grow up so fucking fast,” he gushed, his face lighting up as he rattled on. “And the older Chloe gets, the more she resembles my mother. It’s almost uncanny,” he said, referring to his daughter from a previous relationship.

“She’s what? Ten now?”

He nodded, then continued extolling their virtues. I regretted initiating the topic. Call me insensitive or a rotten friend but his droning about his family reminded me how much happier mine had once been.

“…work just to plan the celebration.”

The words caught my attention. “What?” I demanded, to be sure I heard correctly.

“Soraya took time off work just to plan the celebration?” He presented his words as a question, speaking with slow precision.

Bristling, I frowned in disapproval. It never failed to astonish me how little he worried about his wife’s safety. Graham earned more than enough money to support their family, so he shouldn’t allow her to do any tasks outside the home. Being a wife and mother was a full-time job needing a woman’s undivided attention. Therefore, I didn’t see the point in combining that with the stress of managing a professional life.

He raised an eyebrow and picked up the martini. After tasting the drink, he frowned at me. “Do you have anything to say, Noah?”

I nodded, unconcerned at his reaction. “You still let your wife work?”

He gulped half the martini. “A, you already knew. B, what the hell do you mean ‘let her work’?” He stared at me like I’d sprouted another head. “Soraya would have my dick if I told her she wasn’t allowed outside the house.”

“Exactly what I said,” I snapped, not appreciating his twisting my words to turn me into an ogre. “You two don’t need the money, so she has no reason to work. And I don’t mean to hold her as a prisoner, Graham.”

He finished the martini, set the glass on the table, and scowled. Every time I expressed my feelings about working women, he pretended shock.

“Maybe she fucking wants to work?Mywife will continue to work until she decides not to. Ida Goldman retired months ago. Soraya has taken over the column full-time.”

I ignored news of Ida Goldman. “I disagree with that choice.”

“Well, that’s pretty damn cheeky, considering it isn’t your choice to make.”

I raised my hands in surrender, not wanting a full-blown argument between us in this setting. “I’m just saying, man. A woman shouldn’t have to endure the stress of a job.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “You sound so goddamn sexist right now! Are you going to bar your future wife from working?”

“Plenty of women prefer being a housewife instead of a working woman.” Except I hadn’t found her. At least not anyone I’d want with the Keegan name. “I have a lengthy list to choose from if I desire.” Lies, but fuck it.

Graham offered a small smile. Instead of calling me out on the fabrication, he said, “Many of those women are also gold diggers, and you know it.”

Yeah, and like the gold-digger extraordinaires they were, they also wanted my children to milk the golden calf dry.“I have enough sense to avoid them.”

He studied me. “Instead of worrying about what might be, embrace what is, Noah. I didn’t know you when your mother was killed, but the idea that it is too dangerous for a woman to work has morphed into insanity. Plain fucking stupidity.”

At my scowl, he glared at me.

“Fuck you,” he said, answering my unvoiced anger. He was uncanny like that. “Your hobby is scuba diving. The last time I checked, that’s fucking dangerous and isn’t required. Ever thought of hanging up your fins to keep yourself alive?”

“That’s different,” I snapped and raised my hand to forestall the question I couldn’t answer. “And don’t ask me how. You already know.”

Graham lifted a brow. “Do I?” he demanded, then sighed. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but it sounds like you still suffer from the trauma of your mother’s death. You’re obsessive about a working woman. Do you even rememberwhyyou don’t want women in the workplace?”

“Business trips might take them away from their families forever,” I said without a second thought. “My father died of a heart attack. It could’ve just as easily been my mother. Her work kept her stressed out.” I glanced away, the words lodging in my throat demanding I release them. “We were happy until the last few months of her life. Six months before her death, she had a heart attack.” Nausea twisted in my gut. I was revealing a secret I’d sworn to my parents I’d never tell. Yet I respected the hell out of Graham. Whenever I mentioned Soraya not working, his disapproval reminded me no one knew the entire story. “She hadn’t been herself for a couple days. It had been stressful at the office, so Dad insisted she stay home. I don’t remember why I was home that Friday. She couldn’t take a fucking break, even for her health. She was in bed, reading reports, and I was in the room to spend time with her. Shit happened so fast. Sweat began pouring from her and, suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. I ran to her bedside. She looked at me and went limp against her pillows. I tried performing CPR. I broke one of her fucking ribs. EMTs arrived, though I can’t recall dialing 911.”

“Maybe one of your staff did.”

“Perhaps. Dad never told my sisters and brothers. He didn’t want to stress them. I went to Switzerland with my mother after the hospital discharged her. She completed her recovery, and we came back to the States. A few weeks later, we lost her in a fucking plane crash,” I added bitterly.

Graham swallowed, nodded. “I understand your reasons a little better. It has nothing to do with business trips.”