Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“You are thinking something, young Master.”
Ash pulled from his thoughts and glanced at Brand in the rear view mirror. He offered a small smile. “You’ve known me a week and you can read me that well?”
“I tend to pay close attention.”
Ash shrugged, looking away and out the window. “The answer’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I wanted to do something, and I…” He creased his lips. “Even though I tried, I was useless.”
“You cannot control your genetics,” Brand pointed out. “Even if he is your father, there was always a fifty percent chance that you would not match. That’s not your fault, Ashton.”
Isn’t it?
“It’s like I was born to be useless.”
“No,” Brand said firmly. “Not at all. I know many expectations have been placed on you at a very young age, but not one of those expectations was to play God.”
“I just want to do something,” Ash threw back, clenching his fists in frustration. “He’s back now, but for how long?”
That steady green gaze in the mirror faltered, sliding back to the road. “I don’t know, Ashton.”
“…Brand?”
“Yes?”
“Who am I, other than the son of Calvin Harrington?” Ash pleaded. It felt selfish, to wonder that—but that, too, was part of what was frightening him, twisting up inside him in confused and tangled knots. “I feel like I don’t know that, and once he’s gone…I won’t even be that anymore. It’s like I never got the chance to find out. I couldn’t want anything that would make me someone else, because I had to leave room to be the next in line. So I made myself a blank state. A carbon copy of a reckless college student. I even majored in business instead of something I might really want, because…” He struggled for words, staring down at his knees. At the crisp starched suit that was better suited for his father than for himself. “Because I knew who I had to be. So I didn’t bother trying to be anyone else.”
“…young Master.” A touch of soft understanding in Brand’s voice. “Do you resent your father, for shaping you in this image and then leaving you behind?”
“Yes!” It came out of him in a frustrated cry, before he pulled himself back, rubbing at the ache in his chest. “Is that awful? That I’m mad at him for putting me in this position and then leaving me like it’s nothing? Am I being selfish?”
“Grief is inherently selfish, when those we grieve aren’t here to benefit from it. That doesn’t make that selfishness wrong, my young Master.”
Ash didn’t realize they were home until the car was stopping. Brand got out without giving him a chance to answer, rounding the car to open Ash’s door—but rather than guide him out, he slid in with Ash, crowding him over just enough to make room…and then pulling him into his arms. Pulling him exactly where he needed to be, without making Ash ask for it. Ash went to him willingly, burrowing himself into that solid, reassuring warmth.
“If you need to be selfish to make this easier to deal with,” Brand murmured, the rumble of his voice rolling through Ash, “then be selfish. If that means seeking something for yourself, do so. Is there nothing you’ve ever been curious about? Anything you like, that you could see yourself loving?”
Ash slipped his arms around Brand’s shoulders, clinging, and buried his face against his chest. “…what does it matter, when I only have time to be CEO of Harrington Steel?”
“It will not always be that way,” Brand promised. “The current period of instability will not last forever. Once that is settled…” He rested his chin to the top of Ash’s head, a comforting weight that made him feel enclosed, enveloped. “You don’t have to be your father, young Master. Estranged from all but the company. You can find room to find yourself.”
“I don’t even know what that means. Finding myself.”
“It means trying everything until you find the thing that suits.”
Ash didn’t even know where to start. With the life he’d lived before this, jet-setting around, he’d done everything from cliff-diving in the Yucatan to drunken shots off a supermodel’s abs in Milan…but it was all just part of the party scene, ridiculous things people did when they were drunk and obscenely rich and giving in to peer pressure. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d done something just because it had caught his interest, and he was curious about pursuing it.
“Horseback riding,” he realized, remembering a vague thought so old it likely belonged to childhood. “I’ve always wanted to try horseback riding. Maybe having my own stables. Breeding horses.”
“Then we shall begin lessons next weekend,” Brand said promptly.
“You know how to ride?”
“I am a man of many talents, young Master Ashton.”
Despite himself, Ash laughed helplessly, the tightness inside him easing enough to let him breathe. “I think I’m figuring that out.”