The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,21
again. But he was right; she no longer had the luxury of emotion.
Love was for family.
It was not for business.
Getting to her feet, she went around and gave him a quick hug, and when she straightened, she made sure her shoulders were back.
“I expect to continue to use you as a resource,” she announced. And it was funny to hear that tone in her voice: It was not a request, and it was not something she said to her father. It was from one CEO to his or her predecessor.
“Always,” he murmured as he inclined his head. “It would be an honor.”
She nodded and turned away before cracks in her façade showed. She was halfway to the door when he said, “Your mother is smiling right now.”
Sutton stopped and nearly wept. Oh, her mother. A firebrand for women’s rights back when that hadn’t been permitted in the South, in their kind of family.
Oh, she would have loved this, it was true. It was everything she had fought for and demanded and stomped about.
“It’s not why I picked you over your brother, though,” he added.
“I know.” They all knew why Winn wasn’t a real candidate. “I’m conferencing you in during Finance meetings even though officially you have no role. I expect you to contribute as you would have done.”
Again, not a request.
“Of course.”
“You will continue to serve on the board as Trustee Emeritus. I will nominate you myself as my first official duty at the next board meeting. And you will be conferenced in during Executive Committee and all Trustee meetings until you are no longer able to breathe.”
She said all of this while staring into the foyer.
The chuckle her father let out held so much fatherly pride and businessman-to-businesswoman respect she started blinking hard again.
“As you wish.”
“I shall be home tonight at seven for dinner. We will eat in your room.”
Usually by then he was back in bed, his will exhausted from dealing with his body’s rebellion.
“And I shall look forward to it.”
Sutton made it all the way to the study’s door before pausing and looking back. Reynolds seemed so small behind that desk, even though the dimensions of neither the man’s form nor the furniture had changed. “I love you.”
“And I love you almost as much as I loved your mother.”
Sutton smiled at that. And then she was on her way, going over to the console table by the front door and picking up her briefcase, before heading out into the warm May morning.
Her legs were shaking as she walked to the Bentley Mulsanne alone. She had expected her father to be ahead of her, the subtle whrrrrr of his motorized wheelchair something she resolutely ignored.
“Good morning, Miss Smythe.”
The uniformed driver, Don, had been her father’s chauffeur for two decades. And as he opened the rear door, he couldn’t quite manage to meet her in the eye—although not out of dislike or mistrust.
He had been told, of course.
She squeezed his arm. “You’ll stay on. For as long as you want the job.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief. “Anything for you.”
“I’m going to make him proud.”
Now Don looked at her. His eyes shimmered with tears. “Yes, you will.”
With a nod, she got in the back, and jumped as the door was shut with a muffled thump. A moment later they were off, smoothing their way out of the courtyard, off the estate.
Usually, she and her father discussed things on the way downtown, and as she stared at the empty seat beside her, it dawned on her that the day before was the last time that the pair of them would ride to headquarters together. The final trip … had come and gone without her knowing it at the time.
Wasn’t that the way of things.
She had assumed there would be many more ahead of them, countless mentoring, ceaseless drives side by side.
Denial was lovely while you were in it, wasn’t it. But when you stepped out of its warm pond of delusion, reality carried a shivering, cold sting. And yes, if the partition separating the front from the back of the car hadn’t been down, she probably would have wept as hard as if she were going to her father’s funeral.
Instead, she placed her palm on the seat that had been his, and looked out the tinted glass. They were getting on River Road now, joining the line up of traffic that eventually funneled into the surface arteries that ran under the highways and bridges of Charlemont’s business district.