Page 118 of Succumbed

In tandem, their grins stutter. They glance at each other, then back to me.

“Don’t think of that now.” I flap my hands at them. “We’re still in Paris for two days! Keep basking, keep basking.”

Declan tosses me a wry grin. “I don’t know whether to be excited or scared.”

“Both,” I answer sagely. “Definitely both.”

Chapter 35

Nate

“Ifail to see the issue, Nathaniel.”

My father sits in his suite, a tumbler of bourbon in hand. His salt-and-pepper hair, short on the sides and smoothed back along the top, is perfectly styled. He attended exactly two sessions of the Summit that day–Greenstar’s and Solum’s–before busying himself with other Paris-based clients.

“You can’t be serious.”

He gives me a hard look, straightening the lapel of his red and black smoking jacket. “I saw you sitting with your sister. Is she the one filling your head with ridiculous notions?”

“This has nothing to do with Lex.”

His gaze narrows. “Alexandra chose this distance between us. She chose to leave the family, and she’s eager to tear us down. You’re a fool if you listen to a word she says.”

Two years ago, I would have agreed with him. I’d never understood why Lex ran away from our family, from everything our father offered her. She’d seemed like a spoiled little princess who threw a fit when she didn’t get what she wanted. At least, that was how our dear father referred to her. And I lapped it right up.

“Again, she’s immaterial to this conversation.”

Reginald huffs. “Oh, she’s immaterial alright.”

Frustration flares. For years, I’d gone along with his critical narrative. When I moved to the Bay to open P&L, I relished the opportunity to put ‘Alexandra’ in her place. I wanted to flaunt my knowledge, my professional success. But my sister, with her thriving business and immaculate reputation, thwarted me at every turn.

She never once displayed any of the negative traits my father so vehemently extolled, no matter how intently I watched for them. The Lex I’d met at galas, during business dinners, and through industry happy hours was poised. She was elegant, smart, and so well-respected it almost felt like a personal joke. As though her meteoric rise to the upper echelon of Bay society was something she’d accomplished solely to fuck with me.

“What are you so worried about, Nathaniel?” Reginald’s shrewd gaze assesses me, measures me, and–no doubt–finds me wanting. He always does. “Are you going soft on me?”

“We can’t move forward with the contract with the State. If there’s anything the Solum Technologies presentation proved, it’s that Greenstar’s product is flawed.”

“So theirs was a bit more sophisticated. What of it? We got to the State first. The contract is signed. It would be more than foolhardy to renege now. It would be ruinous.”

“Were you listening?” I press, incredulous.

“To what?”

“Declan Wilde, the CEO of Solum.”

He takes a long drink of his bourbon. “I heard enough.”

“Father, their product failed extreme condition tests as recently as three months ago. That’s after Greenstar Labs acquired Anne-Marie’s technology.”

“How are these things related?” he sighs, as though the conversation is beneath him.

I yell in frustration. “Because they’re the same! Anne-Marie’s tech and their tech are the same!”

“Calm yourself, boy,” he snarls. “Don’t you raise your voice at me.”

Scoffing, I grab a tumbler and aggressively splash bourbon into it. His hypocrisy is rich. He’d ripped into me far more severely too many times to count.

“Anne-Marie stole the tech from the team at Solum before Greenstar bought it. It’s flawed.”

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