by Lucy Score
Aiden bit back a reply. He was forty fucking years old. His girlfriend wouldn’t even consent to meet his parents, not that he could blame her now. Building a new generation to carry the weight of a family legacy was not on his to-do list.
“I’m about as far away from having a family as I can be,” he told his father.
“Aren’t you seeing someone?”
Aiden lifted an eyebrow. His father always had his fingers on the pulse whether it was business or family. “Where did you hear that?” he asked.
“I know you’ve been spending time in Brooklyn.”
“And?”
“Defensive about her,” Ferris mused. “Just make sure you’re making the responsible choice for the family.”
Aiden bristled. “Dad, you just walked in here and told me you’re leaving your socialite wife for a woman who makes cargo pants.”
“I’ve served my time. I’ve made every decision for the last fifty years with family and responsibility in mind,” Ferris said coldly. “It’s your turn now. And we both know this Baranski woman isn’t the kind of wife a Kilbourn needs by his side.”
Aiden shook his head in disbelief. No, Frankie wasn’t a woman to stand quietly in the wings. She belonged on center stage.
“I’m asking you to give me this, Aiden.” Ferris wasn’t a man who wasted time on please or thank you. “I’m asking you to choose family first.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Aiden stared at the glass on the side table. His father had gone home to get ready for some event or another with Jacqueline. They’d decided to continue their appearances together through the end of the month before quietly parting ways. Jacqueline would go to the no-longer family home in Provence for a few weeks. Ferris would announce his retirement and then whisk Alice away to the home in St. Barths. Everything would blow over while they were gone.
And Aiden would be left to pick up the pieces.
He picked up the glass and took it into the kitchen. It was all dark wood and white marble. A room he rarely if ever used. Every once in a while, if he couldn’t sleep, he’d whip up a grilled ham and Brie. He had a feeling tonight would be one of those nights.
His father had lost his sense of familial duty. The man had confessed that running the company had killed his soul and then turned the keys over to Aiden without a thought as to the effects on his son’s. There was no “there’s more to life than business, son.” No “you’ve done so much for us, you deserve to take a step back and focus on something you care about.” But that was his father: selfish with zero self-examination. Why would Ferris think about others when he paid them to think about him?
He had assistants getting him his afternoon almond toffee snack. He had a personal chef that made his favorite meals in a specifically choreographed rotation. He had a wife who organized his social calendar to include only the most advantageous events. And he had a son who would run the family business while he abandoned all responsibility for a new girlfriend who made fucking windbreakers and cargo pants.
He glared at the glass, channeling all of his anger into the crystal and McCallan. He didn’t feel much better after he shattered the glass in the sink. But at least he hadn’t felt some overwhelming desire to drown his sorrows.
He thought of Frankie. Of the departure from this life that she offered. She was a respite from Kilbourn business. From the constant battle for success. Maybe there was something more productive he could do with his time.
He left the mess for later, grabbed a water from the refrigerator, and headed down the hallway into his private office.
The file was where he’d left it, front and center on his desk. He opened it and propped his bare feet up on the corner of the desk. One of their holdings was a small security firm that did an excellent job quietly digging into people’s lives.
Frankie had twenty-one thousand dollars in student loan debt. Not bad considering the fact that she’d returned to NYU for her MBA. He could make that disappear within hours. He planned to. If he could get the slightest inkling of interest out of her. It was a point of pride that he could take care of those closest to him. But when one of those select few did everything she could to shut him out, he would tread lightly.
Perhaps there was another gift that would be more beneficial to them both? He picked up his desk phone and dialed.
“It’s Aiden Kilbourn. How soon can you make a delivery for me?”
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Aiden pushed aside the contract his team of very well-paid lawyers had spent weeks dissecting and moved on to the newest candidates for chief information officer at another holding. For a software firm, their management was woefully antiquated. He fired off an email to the current CEO saying he found it hard to believe the only candidates for the position were white men over the age of fifty. He suggested they restart the search with a more “interesting and energetic” crop of candidates.
The Knicks game was on in the background, drawing his attention more often than usual as he’d found himself added to the text message conversation between Frankie’s brothers about the game.
It was after ten, not nearly late enough to consider turning in. He slept on average five, possibly six, hours a night. But the day, the evening, had taken its toll.
His phone vibrated from under a stack of papers. Reflexively, he checked the TV to see what was happening with the game, but it was a time out.
Frankie: Why are there three men with a mattress at my front door at 10:30 at night?
Aiden: Your bed is a disgrace to beds everywhere.
Frankie: It’s my bed!
Aiden: Well, you’re not the only one sleeping in it now.
Frankie: Don’t you think you should have run this by me?
Aiden: And this is how that conversation would have gone. You: No. Me: Yes. You: Fuck you, Aiden. Me: Fine, but it’s going to be on this nice new king-size. You: *has several orgasms on new bed* Okay, we can keep the bed.
Frankie: You’re insane.
Aiden: You’re welcome.
A few seconds later she sent another text. It was a selfie on the new mattress.
Frankie: I’m willing to give this bed and the aforementioned orgasms a shot.
He laughed despite himself. He knew what she needed. He was eager to give it to her. But everything with Frankie was a battle.
He started to type a reply and changed his mind. He’d take a shower and read until he got out of his own head, he decided.
He made it as far as the bedroom before his phone rang.
Frankie.
“Hi,” he answered.
“Hello, secret bed buyer. Where do you even get a king-sized bed and mattress at 10 o’clock at night?” Frankie asked.
“I have a guy,” Aiden joked.
“Are you okay? You sound… off.”
Aiden sat down on the edge of the bed and stretched out. “Nothing I can’t deal with,” he said, flippantly.
There was a pause on her end. “Wanna talk about it?” she offered.
Did he?
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” he admitted.
“You’re not just patting me on the head and shooing me away so the menfolk can talk business, are you?”
It was exactly the kind of behavior Ferris treated his wives to.
“Gorgeous, you know more about business than I do.”
She laughed huskily, and it went straight to his chest. “Let’s hope my Corporate Social Responsibility professor thinks like you do. So, what happened?”
“My dad came over tonight.”
“Hmm, not enough information for me to make snap judgements and offer unwarranted advice. Keep going.”
Aiden covered his eyes with his free hand and soaked in the sound of her voice.
“He announced that he’s retiring at the end of the month.”
“Holy shit. Stepping down as chairman of the board?”
“Walking away from everything. Oh,
and he and my stepmother are getting a divorce.”
“Mid-life crisis?”
“If you can have one at sixty-five. There’s a girlfriend.”
“Of course there is. Let me guess, a dancer? No, wait, not classy enough. Oh! A museum docent?”
“An athletic apparel designer.”
“Nice! You finally have an in for all the sports bras you’ve been wanting.”
Aiden’s lips curved. “I wish you were here.” The words were out in the world before he could stop them.
She sighed into the phone. “Maybe sometime. But for now, I wish you were here in this big bed with me.”
Just imagining her stretched out, her wild hair fanning out in all directions, stirred him.
“So, what does this mean for you? You’re COO—I Googled you—what happens next?”
“I make the move to CEO, take on more responsibility, including the care and maintenance of one Elliot Kilbourn.”
“You’re shitting me. That man-child is an epic asshole. Why would your father let him within five-hundred yards of the company?”
“He’s blinded by Alice the sports bra designer.”
“Funny. So your dad is dumping all his responsibilities on you so he can what? Retire on a topless beach in Boca?”
“Sail down the Intercoastal Waterway and spend the summer in the Bahamas.”
“Is he going to change his mind?” Frankie asked hopefully.
“I don’t think so. He wants me to carry on in the business and family.”
“Oh,” she said flatly. “You mean find a nice billionaire debutante and create perfect male heirs.”
It was amazing just how much Frankie understood about the inner workings, the expectations of his life.
“Something like that.”
“Did you buy me a bed to break up with me?”
Aiden laughed, and the sound echoed around the quiet room. “I bought you a bed to fuck you on without dumping us on the floor.”
“I’m not mistress material, Aide.”
“No, you’re not. My father also wants me to groom Elliot for a VP position. Something respectable.”
“Eeesh. Sounds like your dad’s asking for a unicorn for Christmas. Never gonna happen.”
It was simple for her. When presented with a decision, if it wasn’t satisfactory, turn it down, move on. But his life was so much more complicated than that. Where was the gratitude for everything the previous generations had built that he now enjoyed? Shouldn’t he be happy to sacrifice for that legacy as his father had?
“So, you’re not out shopping for a wife right now?” Frankie asked.
“They don’t exactly have stores for that,” he said dryly.
“Oh, I don’t know. Everything can be bought for a price.”
“What’s your price, Franchesca?”
“Hmm. I guess it depends on the currency.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
January gave way to the icy fingers of February. New Yorkers spent the month shivering their way from building to building on gray, slushy sidewalks. But Frankie stayed warm enough with Aiden in her apartment at least three nights a week.
They were getting along better than she would have imagined. He was smart and funny and horrifyingly generous. The new bed had been broken in, and now when Frankie went to bed alone, it was in the middle, hugging the pillow he’d used last.
She tried not to think of the countdown clock. His relationships usually lasted between two and three months. They’d been going strong for six weeks. It was longer than she thought they’d survive. In fact, neither one of them was showing any signs of slowing down.
Frankie finished up the email she was working on and fired it off. It was her half-day today, and with her evening class canceled for the evening, she had a luxury she wasn’t used to. Several unfilled hours. She thought about texting Aiden to see if he would come out tonight, but as he’d been there last night, it wasn’t likely.
She turned to eye the flowers he’d sent this morning. Raul liked to joke that if Brenda had turned the office into a greenhouse with her pretty plants everywhere, Frankie’s boyfriend had turned it into a tropical rainforest.
These were exotic and colorful with green spikes.
Wild and beautiful. Just like you.
—A.
Frankie’s phone rang from the desk drawer, and she retrieved it.
“Well, if it isn’t my old married friend Mrs. Stockton-Randolph,” she answered.
“Frankie! Tell me you don’t have plans for lunch,” Pru squealed into the phone. “I haven’t seen you in a thousand years, and I need you to tell me if I look like an old married lady.”
“Send me a selfie so I can see first. I don’t want to be seen in the city with some old lady,” Frankie teased.
Ever the obedient friend, Pru sent her a selfie with crossed eyes and a scrunched nose.
“Yeah, I’m definitely not being seen with that.”
“Har har. It’s your half-day, isn’t it?”
“It is. I get off in twenty.”
“Well get off and get your ass downtown. I want all the dish on you and a certain most eligible bachelor who’s been seen smiling from time to time since he got back from my wedding.”
“Smiling you say?” Frankie asked. So maybe she wasn’t the only one walking around with a stupid grin on her face.
“Meet me at The Courtyard in an hour,” Pru ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
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The host hustled Frankie through the restaurant with its bamboo walls and artsy chandeliers to the bar area where Pru waited. Her friend was dressed in trousers that molded to her like a second skin and a body hugging cashmere turtleneck. Slouchy gray boots poked out from under the wide legged cuffs of her navy blue pants.
They hugged as if it had been years rather than a few weeks.
“Well, marriage certainly agrees with you,” Frankie quipped, sliding into the leather backed booth.
“I’d say that dating Aiden agrees with you,” Pru said, eyeing her coat.
“Yeah, keep it down, okay?” Frankie glanced around the restaurant. It was one of the places where important private conversations were often overheard for the gossip columns.
“Tell me everything,” Pru demanded.
“There’s not much to tell,” Frankie fibbed. She wasn’t exactly prepared to put into words the feelings she had surrounding Aiden. They weren’t identifiable at this point, and she was in no hurry to hash them out.
“You’ve been dating the most eligible bachelor on the eastern seaboard for six weeks, and there’s yet to be a picture of the two of you together. You never bring him up. You only don’t talk about men when you’re really serious.”
“We’re not serious,” Frankie said. “We’re just having fun, enjoying the ride.”
Pru snorted into her still water at “the ride.” “Oh, I bet you are.”
“He’s great. Okay? He’s smart and funny, so much more than the gorgeous son of a bitch I thought he was. Happy?” Frankie asked.
The waitress appeared and rattled off the daily specials. Pru ordered the kale salad with steamed chicken. Frankie ordered a beer and a turkey panini with fries.
“Why do you do this to me? All my snotty rich friends order green juice and plates of air,” Pru lamented.
Frankie took a bite out of one of the breadsticks the waitress delivered. “I’m your snotty poor friend, and I love carbs. I thought your stupid diet was over the minute the dress came off?”
“I’m on a new diet called fat blast the honeymoon weight.”
Frankie shoved the breadstick in Pru’s face and waved it from side to side. “Eat me. Eat meeeee…”
“God, I miss you,” Pru sighed, snatching the breadstick out of her hand and taking a tiny nibble out of it.
“You rebel, you,” Frankie teased. “I miss you, too.”
“So, tell me about Va
lentine’s Day. What did Aiden the perpetual bachelor do for you?”
“Well, he tried to surprise me with a long weekend in San Francisco. He had to go for business, but I couldn’t get away. So he ended up bringing over take out when he got back, and he got me a bracelet.”
A very nice bracelet. One that was too nice to actually wear. But she did open the swanky case and stare at the diamonds every night.
“Jewelry already? Margeaux would be impressed and dying of jealousy. What did you do for him?”
“I got him a Knicks hat.”
Pru sat waiting expectantly. “And?”
Frankie shrugged. “And that’s it. Well, I did flash him from the fire escape when he got to my place.”
Pru looked like she smelled something funny. It was her concentrating face that Frankie recognized from a few years of finals weeks.
“What?”
Pru shook her head, her honey blonde hair never moving from its sleek knot at the base of her neck. “Nothing. Hey, let’s do dinner tonight! The four of us! We can go to The Oak Leaf.”
Frankie wrinkled her nose. “Eh. Doesn’t Page Six camp out there?”
Pru rolled her eyes. “Who cares? Their crab puffs are to die for, and I miss you, and I want to see you and Aiden together so I can give you my official seal of approval. I’m texting Chip right now.”
“I don’t know what Aiden’s doing tonight,” Frankie began to argue.
“So text him. Find out,” Pru said without looking up. “It’s Friday night. You’re already here. You can stay at Aiden’s.”
“I’ve actually never been there,” Frankie said, taking a bigger bite of breadstick. It lodged in her throat.
Pru dropped her phone on the table with a clatter. “I’m sorry, what? You’ve been dating him for almost six weeks, and you haven’t seen his place yet? Is he just taking you to hotels like some skank?”