Worlds Away

by Alexa Land

  When we finally came up for air, I returned Alastair to an upright position and said, “I love you, too. You know what, though? I don’t think I look very good in white. Would it be weird to wear a black wedding dress when we get married?”

  “It’ll be sensational! We’ll hire a designer and have something made that’s one hundred percent you, a bit of leather, a little lace, and black of course, like you said. Pure Sawyer. I’m already picturing it, and I have to say, I’m also picturing tearing it off you on our honeymoon.” Alastair flashed me a wicked smile before turning to his family, who were lined up on the other side of the kitchen table with their jaws hanging open. He said lightly, “Mum, do shut your mouth before you catch a fly. You too, Gran, it’s rather unbecoming.”

  That reanimated his grandfather, who turned red and shouted, “How dare you speak to your mother and grandmother that way?”

  Alastair just shrugged. “I didn’t say anything rude to them. I just pointed out that it’s not flattering to stand about with your mouth agape.”

  His grandfather stepped forward and said, “What’s become of you, boy? You’ve never behaved like this!”

  To which he replied, “Well, it’s about damn time I did, then.”

  The elder Mr. Penelegion turned to me and hissed, “I can only assume he learned this rude behavior from you. I knew we shouldn’t have allowed him to run off to America! I told his parents he’d fall in with the wrong crowd, but I never thought he’d sink this low, cavorting with a stripper, a homosexual, and a transvestite!”

  I said, “Calling me those things isn’t an insult, so much as a simple statement of fact.” He stared at me as if he had no idea what he was looking at, and I stared right back.

  Alastair’s mother spoke up. She was a petite but formidable woman with a helmet of blonde hair and an icy glare, and she turned to the Fosters and said, “What’s gotten into the lot of you? You were loyal to my family for generations, but I have to find out from a tabloid what’s going on under my own roof! I’m astounded that none of you had the decency to call and tell me my son has been associating with an individual who takes off his clothes for money and does God knows what else! And I won’t stand for it. You’re all fired! I want you out of my house within the hour. That goes for you too, Roger. I trusted you to look after Alastair, and yet you allowed him to associate with this lowlife!” She waved her hand in my direction.

  Poor Bertie’s expression was stricken. Alastair went up to her, put his arm around her shoulders, and said, “Don’t fret, Bertie. You’re all rehired at double your previous salary. Roger, I’m tripling yours. The amount of overtime you put in is truly staggering, and I should have taken over your contract from my family and done that years ago.”

  “Does this mean we’ll be looking after your apartment in London?” Bertie asked, glancing around her beloved kitchen with big, sad eyes.

  “No, dear, you’ll be staying right here, under my roof,” Alastair told her before turning a level gaze on the Penelegions. “And it is, in fact, my roof. Did you forget the codicil to Bernard Penelegion’s will? It says Wordsworth Manor passes automatically to each new president of Penelegion Enterprises, so long as that person is a blood relative. He wanted to make sure the estate and the company always went hand-in-hand, since to him, this place was the ultimate bonus for whoever held that all-important position. I signed a stack of papers just last month naming me company president and taking ownership of this place. I’d intended to treat the change of ownership as a formality, but if you insist on treating the man I love and members of my family with rudeness, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to get out of my house.”

  His grandmother huffed, “Members of your family? Those people are the help, Alastair!”

  At the same time, his grandfather exclaimed, “You can’t be serious!”

  “If you care to apologize and remain civil, you’re more than welcome to stay. But only then,” Alastair said. He poured Bertie a cup of tea and added some sugar, and she accepted it from him with a thank you before lowering herself onto the bench in a daze.

  “You’re an ungrateful brat,” his grandfather snapped. “I’m taking back the company and this house right along with it, and then you’re breaking up with that freak and remembering your place, boy.”

  “No, sorry, that’s not actually happening,” Alastair said, leaning casually against the kitchen counter. “I read all those contracts before I signed them, and they’re iron-clad. That should go without saying. We employ the best lawyers in the country to make sure of that.”

  His grandfather glared at him while Alastair’s mother exclaimed, “I don’t even know you anymore!”

  “You never did, Mum,” Alastair said quietly. “You never bothered to. The fact is, I’ve always been this person. I’ve also always been gay, and that was never going to change. The advice Granddad gave me to marry a woman, then sneak around and sow my wild oats with men on the side is appalling! You should be ashamed of yourselves, the whole lot of you, for advocating infidelity.”

  “You’re an embarrassment to this family,” his grandfather said. “Don’t try to turn this around on us!”

  “I’m just me, and if who I am isn’t good enough for you, well, that can’t be helped.”

  “You knew what you were doing was wrong! Why else would you sneak around?” It seemed like his grandfather was grasping at straws.

  Throughout it all, Alastair had remained perfectly calm and in control, and his voice was level when he said, “My father is just a couple months this side of a major heart attack, and upsetting him was never my goal. I was going to tell all of you about my boyfriend when the time was right, but the tabloids beat me to it. Now that’s it’s out in the open, here’s all you need to know where Sawyer is concerned: he’s completely nonnegotiable. Did you hear that? Under no circumstances will I give up the man I love. If you decide to disown me as a result, so be it. I’ll miss all of you a great deal, even though you probably don’t believe that right now. But my trust fund has already fully vested, and this house and the company will still belong to me. It’s in my contract that I can’t be fired, and the largest share of Penelegion Enterprises has already been transferred to me. Given all of that, disowning me would be a pretty hollow gesture overall, but if it’ll make you feel better, then by all means, proceed.”

  His grandfather growled, “You ungrateful little shite,” and started to rush around the table toward Alastair. I had no idea what he was going to do when he reached him, but I wasn’t going to wait around and find out. I squared my shoulders and stepped in his path. So did Alastair’s dad.

  His father had remained silent during the confrontation, but he said, in a voice that rang with authority, “That’s enough. Go home, father, and take my wife and yours with you. You’re all behaving like barbarians and embarrassing me in front of my future son-in-law.”

  The elder Penelegion looked stunned, and he exclaimed, “You can’t possibly side with Alastair, after the way he’s behaved!”

  Alastair’s dad said, “Of course I’m siding with my son. That’s what fathers are supposed to do, not that you’d know that. Now please, all of you, just go back to London. If Alastair has to call the police to evict you forcibly from his home, you’ll be a laughing stock. You know how the locals love to gossip, and it’ll surely get back to our circle in London as well. Everyone will be talking about it for years to come.”

  That was enough to take the wind out of their sails. After a bit more blustering and complaining, his mom and grandparents headed for the door. On the way out, his grandfather huffed, “This isn’t over. I’m calling my lawyers. There must be some loophole….”

  And his wife said, “You’ll do no such thing! How will it look if the family turns against one another? The press will have a field day! They’ve been waiting for us to fall apart for decades!”

  We watched them leave, and then I exhaled slowly and turned to look at Alastair. He seemed as surprised by al
l of that as the rest of us. Our group remained rooted in place for a minute, until we heard the front door slam behind the departing Penelegions. Then a cheer went up around the kitchen, and everyone descended on Alastair and hugged him and patted his back.

  “You were amazing,” I told him as I pulled him into an embrace.

  “I’d been dreading that for so long,” he murmured, “but then it just…happened.”

  When I let go of Alastair, Bertie hugged him, and his dad turned to me and stuck out a hand. “Hugh Penelegion.”

  I shook his hand with a firm grip and said, “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Sawyer MacNeil. Thank you for stepping in.”

  Alastair looked a bit dazed as he walked up to his dad. The two men stared at each other for a long moment, and then Alastair grabbed his father in an embrace. “Thank you, Dad. I didn’t mean to upset you, are you alright?”

  “I’m fine, son, just fine.”

  Alastair led him to the bench beside the farm table and said, “Sit down Dad, and let me fix you some tea. Do you still take it with milk?”

  “Aye, and two lumps of sugar. Your mum never lets me have the sweet stuff, but she’s not here to complain.” He settled in on the bench, and when Alastair handed him the tea, Hugh clinked his teacup against Bertie’s and said, “Cheers, old friend. I apologize for my wife, and I want you to know that even if Alastair hadn’t stepped in, I never would have let her fire you.”

  I studied him as he took a drink. Hugh had a ruddy complexion, a spare tire around the middle, and his dark blond hair was shot through with gray. He also had a genuine smile and blue eyes like Alastair’s, and looked younger than his fifty-four years.

  We sat across the table from Hugh as Roger poured tea for everyone. Alastair took off his glasses, rubbed his hands over his face, and let out a ragged breath as Roger told him, “You were magnificent, Gromit. I always knew you had it in you to stand up to that lot. Er, no offense, Mr. Penelegion.”

  “Hugh, and none taken.”

  “I never wanted to ruffle anyone’s feathers,” Alastair said. “I let them boss me around my whole life, but when they turned on Sawyer, and Bertie, and all of you, I knew I had to take a stand.”

  “You did the right thing,” his father said. “I’m so bloody sick of this family’s obsession with keeping up appearances! I didn’t know my father had given you the same speech he gave me about marrying a proper wife and sowing my wild oats on the side. It was appalling thirty years ago, and it’s appalling now.”

  Alastair asked, “Dad, are you gay?”

  “No. But when I was just a little older than you, I fell for a lovely girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and that got me the same lecture. She and I ended up breaking up anyway, and then I met and fell in love with your mother, who just happened to pass muster, as far as my parents were concerned. I don’t believe in infidelity, and if I’d known my father was going to give you that speech, I’d have put a stop to it.”

  Alastair slipped his glasses in place and looked at his father closely as he said, “You seem different. I don’t think we’ve ever had a discussion quite this candid.”

  “Well, it’s high time we did. I’ve done a lot of re-evaluating these past couple months. Nothing like suffering a massive heart attack at this age, followed by a quadruple bypass to make you put things in perspective.”

  “I can only imagine,” Alastair said.

  “I’ve been meaning to say thank you, son, for stepping in and keeping the company together after I became ill.”

  “You’re welcome. Honestly though, I’m not doing much. I’m a figurehead more than anything.”

  “Well, you’re still learning. As far as being a figurehead though, don’t discount it. That’s an important part of the job. Our employees and customers feel good knowing there’s a strong, competent leader at the helm. It instills confidence.”

  Alastair frowned and said, “But I’m not that, not by a long shot. I’m an inexperienced twenty-year-old who’s in way over his head.”

  “You’ve always been the very best of us, Alastair,” his father said. “For starters, you’re absolutely brilliant. We’ve all known that since you were a child. You’re something else too, something I always aspired to, but I fell woefully short.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re kind, and you’re loved by everyone who meets you. That instills loyalty and garners respect. I was in the offices last week, and I overheard a group of secretaries raving about you to another employee. One of them told the story of how you popped down to the shop for some cold medicine for her when she was feeling poorly.”

  Alastair shrugged. “I was already running out for some takeaway, and it was easy enough to drop by the chemist’s and pick something up. The poor thing felt awful, but she refused to go home because she had too much work to do.”

  “Don’t discount your actions. It’s what makes you special, Alastair, the way you care about people. That and your intelligence will make you the greatest leader Penelegion Enterprises has ever known.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence. Meanwhile though, the department heads are going out of their way to funnel any real decisions away from me. The staff might like me, but management has no confidence in me whatsoever.”

  “Those old coots all work for you, Alastair. If you don’t like the way they’re doing something, you can change it with a single memo or phone call. I will say though, for now, let them reassign the majority of that stuff, because you’re already busy learning the ins and outs of the company.”

  “That’s very true,” Alastair said. “I definitely have my hands full.”

  “I feel terrible about the long hours you’ve had to put in, but it’s about to get a bit easier, son.”

  “How so?”

  “I recently decided I’m coming back to work on Monday, just for two hours a day, five days a week. Your mother and grandmother will go ballistic when I tell them, but they’ll just have to get used to it. I’m too young to be put out to pasture, and you’re too young to devote every minute of your life to the company. You have far more important things to be thinking about at your age.” Hugh flashed me a friendly smile.

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright though, Dad?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m going from sixty-five hours a week to ten, and I’m not made of glass, for goodness sake!”

  “Well, that’s fantastic then. Between you and Lorelei, who I’ll introduce you to next week, I think my life is about to get a whole lot easier,” Alastair said.

  “Aside from the fact that the tabloids just found their new favorite subject and are going to hound you and Sawyer every minute of every day,” Mark said. When we glanced at him, he said, “Not to be a negative Nancy, but you seem to have forgotten that is actually happening, and you two are going to have to come up with some solutions.”

  “Not just those two,” Roger said as he pulled out his phone. “The first thing I’ll do is arrange some crowd control measures for Sawyer’s coffee house. We can’t have the paparazzi crowding out the paying customers.” He glanced at me and asked, “You alright with me taking the lead on that, Bonny?”

  “Absolutely. Thanks Ro,” I said, raising a toast to him with a teacup.

  “No worries, mate.” Roger turned to Alastair next. “Your office building is secure, though that narrow, one-way street out front might become an issue if it gets snarled with paparazzi waiting for a shot of you. Could you work off-site while I figure out another way to get you in and out of the building?”

  “Sure, no reason why not. In fact, I could set up an office in the flat I recently bought. From what I hear, it’s in a very high-security building.” Alastair turned to me and asked, “Will you move in with me, Sawyer? That’s not just because you’ll be a lot safer there, but because I love you, and I want you to live with me.”

  I smiled at him and said, “Of course I will.”

  Mark asked, “What do you mean, you hear it’s in a secure building
? It sounds like you have no idea what you bought.”

  “I don’t,” Alastair said. “I sent a real estate agent out with my list of wants, and when she told me she found the perfect place, I purchased it sight-unseen.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, yes. I bought it primarily to throw my family off my scent, so they wouldn’t realize I was spending every night with my boyfriend. And you know I’ve had way too much on my plate to give house-hunting any time at all.”

  Mark said, “That’s true.”

  Alastair told me, “If you and I don’t like it when we go to take a look at it, we can put it right back on the market and find something else. I want a place that will feel like home to both of us.”

  I pulled him into my arms and kissed him, and then Bertie got up from the table and said, “You’re daft, the whole lot of you. Buying multi-million-pound flats without even looking at them!”

  “Hey, that was Alastair’s doing, not mine.” I looked around and asked, “Bertie, do you have an espresso machine? Not that tea isn’t enjoyable, but I need something higher octane to start my day.”

  “I’ve got a Mr. Coffee and a can of something or other in the pantry. I think I bought it during the Thatcher era, but you’re welcome to it. And Alastair, if you were serious about wanting to learn to bake, I’ll give you a lesson right now. I could use a nice blueberry scone myself.”

  Alastair said, “Fantastic! What about you, Dad, want a baking lesson? You might find it relaxing. That is, assuming you don’t need to get right back to London.”

  “I believe I’ll make a day of it, and baking lessons sound delightful,” his dad said as he took off his suit jacket and tossed it over the bench. “I might even spend the night and call for a car in the morning. That is, if it’s alright with you, son. This is your house, after all.”

  Alastair rested his hand on his father’s shoulder and said, “I’ll begin the paperwork to revert ownership back to your name first thing Monday, if that’s what you want. It was never my intention to take Wordsworth from you, not if you still want it, and I only brought it up today to keep Mum from firing my second family.”