After taking a slow, deep breath, I turned back around, ensuring my face hid all of my conflicting emotions. “What’s your idea?”
Ellison’s jaw moved back and forth as if he was second-guessing himself. I decided to loosen his tongue.
“Why don’t we have a drink?” I offered, tilting my head in the direction of the living room. “Glass of wine or a beer?”
He nodded and followed me. “I’ll take a beer. Honestly, I wish I’d thought to pack my running shoes. A jog in the park would relax me more than anything.”
I thought about asking what size he wore so I could offer him the use of a pair of mine, but I clamped my lips closed. We weren’t best buds. If he wanted running shoes, he could buy some.
Instead of waiting in the living room, he followed me into the kitchen and took a seat at the island. I grabbed two bottles of beer and opened them before handing him one and taking the stool next to his.
It was hard to believe that we’d been in these same seats just that morning, and his proximity had made me tense and irritable. Now it felt almost… comfortable.
I didn’t like it.
Ellison took a long gulp of the cold brew before spilling his thoughts. “The only way Ian and Binnie would believe a relationship between us was serious enough for me to bring you to their party is if we’ve been together longer than this week.”
I nodded and sipped my own beer. That was the problem. It would mean I was the worst of boyfriends for taking over the father’s company while dating the son. Ian might easily believe that, since he had plenty of reason to dislike me, but it would hardly make him more amenable to doing business with me.
Ellison continued. “So we’d need a reason for you taking over the company with my blessing.”
Not a bad idea.
“Maybe you’d lost trust in your father’s leadership,” I suggested. “Or maybe there was a legal reason someone else needed to be in charge? Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe you were trying to save your father from some… negative consequence.”
He blew out a breath. “I know you don’t trust me, and I completely understand why. But what I’m going to share with you… it means I would like to think I can trust you.” His eyes met mine with hope and questioning.
Could he trust me? Should he? Probably not. Did I care about betraying his trust? Absolutely not.
Liar.
I ignored the devil on my shoulder. “I appreciate your trust,” I said, because it was the truth. “Go on.”
“My father and I don’t get along. Ever since… well, for a long time we haven’t exactly been on good terms. I went to work for York Capital under a very specific set of conditions, conditions that were enumerated in a legal contract between us.”
His confession surprised me. I had wondered why Warren York had a binding employment contract with his son, but I hadn’t imagined it was because Warren had forced his son into some upper-class version of indentured servitude. He was an even bigger ass than I’d thought.
“What kind of conditions?”
His long fingers idly drew lines through the condensation on the side of his beer bottle. “My sister and I started an education program for… it doesn’t matter. Suffice to say, it is a charity project that needed, and continues to need, significant funding. My father agreed to create the York Foundation in order to fund our school but only if I agreed to get my law degree the way he’d always planned and join the company for a twenty-year term.”
“You didn’t want to go to law school?” I asked, completely abandoning the point of the conversation.
“Definitely not. I don’t enjoy the law. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy law school itself. I studied under some of the best legal minds of our time, and I love to learn. But practicing corporate law is… not at all what I wanted to do with my life.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what he did want to do with his life, but I held back. It was none of my business.
“So why did you leave after… what, twelve years?”
“A little over eleven. I negotiated him successfully down to a ten-year commitment. He most likely assumed I’d be entrenched by that time and unwilling to give up my lifestyle in the city for a no-name school in rural Vermont. He was wrong. I counted down the days, weeks, months, and years until it was finally time for me to leave. According to our agreement, he would continue to fund the school for five more years after my departure. That would hopefully give me enough time to find alternate funding sources for the charitable arm of the program.”
He took another sip of beer. Finally, I learned the reason for his move to Vermont.
Ellison let out a bitter laugh. “At the ten-year mark, he threatened to fire Nessa and dismantle the foundation. He claimed he’d continue the donations for the five years to honor the letter of our agreement, but that would be the extent of York’s corporate giving. All of our other charity recipients would be screwed, and Nessa would be out of a job. She was four months pregnant with her second child. I agreed to one more year to give her time to find another job—which of course was impossible while she was pregnant and then on maternity leave—and notify the charities that York’s donations would only be single donations from here on out rather than repeating commitments.”
“That was awfully generous of you,” I said. “You must still have strong feelings for her.”
Ellison shot me a look. “Strong feelings of friendship and respect. And on the practical side, I didn’t want York to be hit with a lawsuit—which I would have secretly encouraged her to pursue—accusing York of firing her for her pregnancy status.”
“Your dad is a horrible person,” I said dryly.
“Oh, yeah. And the worst part is? I don’t know if he actually would have fired her. I have no idea whether he was bluffing, because he lies and threatens and manipulates so much, I swear he convinces himself. But he also has no sense of decency, especially regarding people he thinks are beneath him—which is to say, pretty much everyone—so I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“You really dislike him.”
He snorted. “What gave it away? My point is, Ian and Binnie know all of these details. So here’s my idea. I tell them that you and I have been dating in secret for years. Once you and I were dating long enough, I confided my fears in you, and you decided to take over the company to secure my pet project, the York Foundation.”
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
Ellison frowned at me. “Because you love me. And you want to make me happy.”
He was so fucking beautiful, even when frowning. My fingers itched to touch his late-day stubble, run through his messy, overgrown locks. Kiss his soft lips and tell him… yes. There was a part of me—as horribly ill-informed and stupid as it may have been—that wanted nothing more than his happiness.
But that was stuff better left in my dream world. In my dream world, Ellison York wasn’t the selfish prick who’d set me up in that closet.
“I meant,” I said carefully, “why wouldn’t I simply take over York’s commitment to your charity with the Blackwood Giving Program?”
Pink suffused Ellison’s cheeks, and I marveled at how his fair skin was so good at betraying his emotions.