His focus shifted out into the night. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the stone balustrade. “But more than that, my father meant a lot to me. She thinks she’s cornered the market on those emotions, but she hasn’t.”
Ziara recognized the ache in his voice from that first encounter in his father’s office. “This really does mean a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
His head dipped as if in defeat, though she couldn’t imagine him being defeated by anything—even Vivian’s determined animosity.
“My childhood was wonderful until my mother died.”
Ziara couldn’t imagine how different her life would have been without her mother, how much better. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
She winced. “That’s a bad age for major upheaval.”
“Yes,” he said with a slow nod as he looked out at the desert sky. “Her death was quick, only six weeks after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.” His pause was heavy with memories. “I had a new stepmother within a year.”
What had his father been thinking? “It must have been hard for him to be alone.”
“He wasn’t alone. He had me.” His deep sigh blew away any sounds of self-pity. “My father changed after he married Vivian,” he said, the words slow but gaining speed. “Life became all about his new wife—her demands, her needs, her desires. What little was left went to his company, not to a fifteen-year-old boy in need of reassurance after losing his mother to cancer.”
The picture of isolation he painted was nearly as bad as her own teenage years, living in her mother’s house but not really living with her mother.
“She told my father I was lazy, unmotivated. But instead of wondering why, he simply condemned me. Any protests were considered a teenager’s way of trying to weasel out of the consequences.”
“And things never got better, even after you became an adult?”
“Not with Vivian poisoning his brain. At least, not that I could tell.” He turned to her, the movement bringing them almost as close as they’d been on the dance floor. “He died from a heart attack, you know. Very unexpected.”
Ziara had known, but he seemed to need to talk so she let him.
“When the lawyer read his will, I could hear Vivian screaming in frustration even though she never uttered a sound. The fact that he left me any part of Eternity Designs completely shocked her.”
As if he needed some connection with Ziara, his hands reached out to rub up and down her arms, warming her from the outside in. “But that forty percent meant more to me than all the money, houses and stuff Vivian inherited. I could have sold it, resented it. But it made me think that in some small way, he had truly seen what I’d made of my life and was telling me that he believed in me.”
An alien urge to wrap her arms around his waist and snuggle close swept through her. She just barely kept herself from acting. “Then why did you stay away so long?” If the company had meant so much to him, why had he left Vivian to it?
Laughter rumbled in his chest, the vibration echoing in her own and setting off all kinds of sparks under her skin. “You’ve seen how well Vivian works with me. For Eternity’s own well-being, I stepped back from the running of it. She wanted free rein. I gave it to her.”
“But you knew the time would come...”
“I knew without strong business acumen, Vivian probably couldn’t keep the firm afloat. So I waited, and showed up when she didn’t have a choice but to let me step in.”
His cold calculation should disturb her, but what choice had he been given?
“Vivian should have known I wouldn’t walk away forever,” Sloan said. “Eternity is the only part of my father that I have left.”
Which said all she needed to hear.
Eleven
Retracing their steps back through the house, Sloan found Patrick in the front room surrounded by people laughing. He gestured, letting his friend know he needed a moment.
Patrick approached with a casual, lanky stride. If he’d been into computers, he’d have been a geek, but he’d been designing clothes and dressing those around him for most of his life. He and Sloan had bonded as young men over the neglect of their home lives. Despite their many differences, Patrick was always the person to shake Sloan out of his anger, force him to look in a new direction or simply bust his chops until he could solve his problems. Sloan offered the same support, and they took every opportunity to dog each other about relationships, jobs and various life issues, just like the brothers they should have been.