I was staring at her, at who I’d been fucking obsessed with over the entire week, and I’d just resolved to shut everything down. But here she was, staring back at me, every bit as surprised as I was, and then her eyes cooled and she flinched, turning away.
Fuck.
That was me. All me.
I gave her that look, and I couldn’t blame her. I was livid. Cody ran this club for us. He was supposed to be discreet in getting word to whoever was supposed to know that I did not want to cross paths with her, not yet.
And today of all days.
I needed one minute, one fucking minute, because I couldn’t unhear what my uncle had said to me three hours earlier.
“How you handled your father’s indiscretions was your test, and you aced it, my nephew. My son. Now, I need you to do more for this family.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to run the family business.”
Ashton’s question came back to me. “You ever actually consider not going into the family business?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes, if it comes.”
“And if it comes sooner than you think?”
“Then we decide then.”
Hearing those words from Stephano, I couldn’t ignore the gut check I was enduring right now. I had not wanted to hear those words, at least not yet. I wanted time.
Helping out was one thing. Running the entire empire was a whole different thing.
I’d stared long and hard at my uncle. He placed a hand over his chest. “I’m sick, Tristian. There’s another family trying to push in, from up in Maine. They want to come down into the city, and my health . . . it’s bad. I don’t trust anyone else to step into my shoes.” He then said the last three words that were my kryptonite with him. I could never not do what he needed.
He’d said, “I need you.”
Staring at her now, knowing who she was related to, knowing the first problem my uncle needed me to handle . . . I was torn, right here, right now.
My family or—no. That was crazy, but for a moment, one moment, I considered it. I had to, and I had to admit that I wanted her. It was still there, still buried deep inside, and the longer I stared at her, the more I knew what my uncle needed me to do, the more that need for her was burrowing deep inside of me.
God-fucking-dammit!
I growled, snapping, “Get out!”
