Chapter 24

24

MASON

T he skyline blurred with snow as I swiveled back and forth in my desk chair, nursing a second glass of whiskey. Not the whiskey contaminated with menthol, although part of me wouldn’t have minded the full body stupor and dirt nap that would have followed. The lack of sleep was getting to me as I clicked my mouse, blearily staring at the most recent reports regarding the barrels at the distillery. I’d recalled everything, every single damn bottle of my product as a precaution, and that turned out to be overzealous, which I’d known from the beginning, but I’d done it anyway.

It was six in the evening, by no means late, but the most recent reports from the lab I’d received over email within the last ten minutes couldn’t wait. I picked up my office phone and dialed the foreman at the distillery across town. He answered on the first ring. “Boss?”

“Everything else was clean. The vodka, gin, and the whiskey and scotch barrels from our main supplier. The only contamination was in the new supplier’s barrels.” I ran my hands through my hair, slouching with relief. “We’re in the green again.”

He sighed with relief. “I’ll tell your guys, we got a shipment of the clear spirits going out tomorrow, but other than that, it’s going to be quiet here until after the holidays.”

“Take the time off,” I cut in, leaning back in my chair.

“You should too, boss.”

I kept the phone to my ear for another few seconds before hanging up and turning back to my computer. This was far from over. Now that we’d established what was contaminated, we still needed to get the products outside of the recall back on the shelves.

I sent the results and a plan of action to the various department heads, calling for a meeting tomorrow morning, and shut my computer down for the first time in days.

That’s it, I guess . I could go home and sleep. I could eat something while sitting down, watching TV, instead of hurrying through a granola bar or protein shake between meetings.

I could call Fia. Hell, I could go to her apartment, fall to my knees, and beg her forgiveness for blowing her off all week.

I drained the rest of my drink, savoring the burn, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed a shadow passing the veiled glass wall separating my corner office from view of the lobby where Gabby’s empty desk sat only a few feet away.

I wasn’t expecting the man who darkened my office doorway but maybe I was. It was only a matter of time.

Dad didn’t bother closing the door behind him as he entered my office, his face cast in shadow. He looked around, noticing my clean desk, the single email chain opened on my desktop.

“Were you thinking you’d find things in disarray?” I said flatly. “That the movers would be here to take apart my furniture and my employees would be carrying boxes of their things out onto the street?”

“You’re rather chipper for someone who’s being plastered on the news as a slimy businessman, accused of cutting corners.” He seethed, his hands balled into fists.

I looked him up and down. Dad looked furious, slightly unkempt, like he’d been wallowing over this for days. But Dad didn’t care about my business. There was only one thing he cared about. Just a few weeks ago I’d been groveling for his approval, going as far as to rope an innocent woman into masquerading as my girlfriend to try to prove that I cared about this family, our reputation, our name.

“I’m not being blasted in the news. It’s the opposite. Sales barely dipped during the recall of the whiskey. In fact, we’re seeing record numbers on our clear spirit lines, not that it’s any of your business.” I stood and walked steadily toward the built-in bookshelf along the far wall and poured myself another dram of whiskey, neat. The good stuff. One of the bottles from the first batch of whiskey I ever made in my dorm room, the same stuff I still brewed in the restaurant below that only got released on very, very special occasions. The color was remarkably like Fia’s eyes, which made me think of her. I smiled to myself as I turned to face my father, which only made him angrier.

“You’re an idiot. You are a stain on the family name?—”

“Our family were poor, uneducated Scots who immigrated here with barely a dollar to their name.”

“I made a name for us,” he reminded me coldly. “And you ruined it.”

“I built an empire?—”

“On your grandmother’s back.” He sneered, red in the face. “She’s rolling in her grave right now, I’m sure, knowing what I know. Contamination, Mason? How careless have you become?”

“Careless?” I choked back a laugh, gripping my glass so tightly I swore I felt the crystal crack. “I haven’t slept in days. I’ve been cleaning up a mess that I took the fall for. What would you have me do, Dad? Fire my employees at the distillery? Go on a public rampage and talk ill about the supplier of the barrels I purchased because our usual supplier couldn’t meet demand during the quarter? Throw everyone but myself under the bus?”

“You could have done something other than go on TV and make it sound like you were the problem. Our name?—”

“Who do you think we are?” Silence swelled for an aching, drawn-out moment. Only the heaving of Dad’s breath cut through the oppressive yoke of tension in the room. When he didn’t reply, I pushed the subject, taking a step in his direction. “I actually want to know. Who do you think we are? What makes us special compared to the circles you run in? We’re not Lennoxes, or Astors, or Kennedys.”

“I know what I am,” he growled. “I expected better from you. Your entire life, I’ve expected better. I gave you everything, Mason. I paved a path for you to follow?—”

“Is this because I chose Columbia over Yale?” I knew it wasn’t, but I had to start somewhere. He had come here for a fight and I would give him one against my better judgment. My absolutely exhausted, starving judgment.

He glared at me. “You knew how much going to Yale meant to me and your mother.”

“Mom didn’t care. She was happy I was staying closer to home, in the city. You know that.”

He shook his head. “We have traditions, whether you like it or not.”

“Grandpa marrying an heiress, you mean?”

Blood-red rage shone behind his eyes.

I smiled cruelly, too numb to watch my words, and spoke out of hot, untethered anger and frustration when I said, “This is about the recipe. It always has been. Your disdain for me started when Grandma died. It’s been fifteen years, Dad. Just say it.”

“It should have gone to me . If she’d known what you’d do with, where you’d end up—” He motioned to the room as if I had boxes of recalled whiskey stacked in crates, covering every surface. “She would have never given it to you.”

“That was her decision, not mine.”

“It was meant to be kept safe. A secret.”

“And it is still a secret?—”

“You’ve ruined it. Our family legacy. You single-handedly pitched us into the dark ages, Mason. Careless and stupid.” He waved a hand in dismissal, scoffing. “Contaminating the whiskey? Our family’s whiskey?”

“This is my company, not yours,” I said.

“That recipe doesn’t just belong to you.”

“It does.” I held his gaze, teeth bared, biting down on each word. “Do you know what she told me on her death bed? The very second she slipped that aged, weathered piece of paper in my hand? She told me to do something with it. To make something of it. And not to let her down. I didn’t.”

He shook his head. “You built an empire, Mason. I can give you that. But I’m watching the bricks crack as we speak. What’s next? You run off and marry that plain, poor girl you picked up somewhere across the bridges?”

Too far. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me. Is this some scheme to piss me off even more? We’ve introduced you to several well-bred?—”

“Well bred?” The glass actually shattered. I would have been impressed with my own strength had I not been so completely out of it with rage. “Do you hear yourself? Are we talking about women or show ponies? Well bred?” I choked out a bitter laugh, setting the remains of the glass on my desk. The whiskey burned into my skin, into the gash across the meat of my thumb. “Get out.”

“We’re not done here.”

“You can say all you want to say about my business, I don’t give a shit. But the second you bring my girlfriend into this, we’re done.”

“I did some digging on her family, Mason.”

“Of course you did.” I shook out my hand, curling my fingers into a fist to stop beads of blood from dripping onto the carpet. “Let me guess, you found a few parking tickets?”

“Her dad is part of the union.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, God, no. How will your reputation ever survive?”

“She isn’t our kind!”

“Because her dad worked for the city and her mom is a teacher?!” I shouted, turning on him. “Because she didn’t go to an ivy league school? Because no one in your circles knows who she is?”

“She’s in this for the money, Mason. You can’t be this na?ve?—”

“I love her.” The words fell from my tongue as naturally as the air I breathed. Dad blinked, taken aback, his lips parting to argue but I shook my head. “I love her.”

“What does that have to do with anything? This is our legacy?—”

“Your legacy.”

“You are an O’Leary.”

“And she’ll be one, one day. One day soon, I hope.”

He frowned. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.” I straightened up, swallowing past the lump forming in my throat. “Fia is the best person I’ve ever met, the kindest, bravest, sweetest person that’s ever walked into my life. And the only thing that’s been on my mind this entire fucked-up week is her. I’d throw all of this away, Dad, for her. In a heartbeat. I’d go work behind a counter selling two-dollar slices and I’d be happy knowing that I’d be going home to her regardless of my status, of my reputation, because she doesn’t care about that. She doesn’t care about my money. The only person who cares about that is you.”

“You’re making a huge mistake,” he muttered, shaking his head. He turned to the door, which we had both been ignoring, and he stopped, his shoulders slumping.

So did mine.

Fia was standing in the doorway, panting, dressed in a black wool trench coat over a faded gray sweatshirt and jeans, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun that had seen better days. Her cheeks were flushed as she looked at us, her eyes round and full of shock.

Dad chuckled and flashed me a bitter look over his shoulders before he sauntered out the door. Fia stepped out of his way, watching him leave.

“How much did you hear?” I asked by way of greeting. Wincing, I sat on the armrest of the leather chair in front of my desk.

“A lot,” she whispered, closing the door. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine?—”

She padded across the carpet in her sneakers, wet from the snow. Her chilled hand unfurled my fingers and she hissed a breath. “You need stitches.”

“It’s not that bad.” The feeling of her hand cupping mine was everything I needed. It thawed the anxiety, the stress weighing me down, in an instant. For the first time in days, I felt like I could breathe. “Fia, I’m sorry?—”

“Don’t be,” she replied with a soft smile as her eyes met mine. “I do wish you’d told me what was going on, though. I thought—I thought you were ghosting me.”

“Ghosting you?”

“Going radio silent after we—after we hooked up.”

“No.” I wrapped my fingers around hers. “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t.”

I held her gaze. She held mine. I swore time stopped for a moment.

“Did you mean that?”

I knew exactly what she was talking about. She heard it all. How could she not have? “I think we should talk about what’s going on between us now.”

Her answering smile ignited something in my heart I’d never felt before and didn’t know how to name. “Are you hungry? I know a place.”