Page 42 of Love Not Qualified

On that first day, I could see she was hardworking—I only needed her CV to find that out—but I didn’t see a bright future for her as an employee at my company.

Yesterday she proved me wrong. Apart from those sinful round lips and her tempting body, her brilliant brain did uswonders. Thanks to her, after years of trying, we finally got a meeting with Gorig where we could show him who we really were and what we could do.

I didn’t think she even realized the sudden turn Graves Company could take from a partnership with Gorig. And now that I was thinking it through, I didn’t make myself clear about what her help meant to me and the company.

“Tristan,” I heard Esmeray’s voice, and when I lifted my eyes to look at her, heavy eyelashes fell on my cheeks.

Fuck, I was drunk already.

Everyone was still talking—from what I saw through the blurred vision—but she leaned toward me, her voice a whisper. “Is something wrong?” she asked, her brows furrowed as she patted the purple bow in her hair.

I hiccuped, gluing my back on the chair. “No, no.” I shook my head. “Everything is amazing.”

Amazing. Really.

Except that my father died.

Except I had a mother who I hadn’t spoken with or seen in years.

Except that I was turning into an alcoholic, if I wasn’t already one.

Except my mind wouldn’t stop creating scenarios about a specific curly-haired girl on her knees, taking me deep with tears in her eyes.

So yeah. Everything was amazing.

“Are you sure?” Her eyes squinted at me. “You don’t seem fine.”

I gave her a smile and I was ready to assure her there was nothing she should be worried about, but then my eyes flew to Kai and the care-free smile on his lips. The blood in my veins boiled.

It wasn’t the smile that bothered me—he was allowed to smile. I was bothered by the way he looked so relaxed as if he had no care in the world while I was breaking to pieces at the mere thought of standing at the table where Dad once was. The walls were closing in on me, each memory of him becoming more and more suffocating by the minute.

When I was sitting in this very chair with my head pointed at the ground because I had a bad grade at school and he patted me on the back.

When he called me to his office so we could talk about my future.

When we ran in the garden and ripped mom’s flowers and he helped us put them back so she wouldn’t notice.

When we’d have dinner together every month even if each one of us was in another corner of the world.

Everything came back with full force.

I rose to my feet, unable to control myself. I had to get out of here as fast as possible. But just when I was about to do that, Kai’s head moved in my direction and I couldn’t help it. I was fucking jealous of how easy this was for him.

“I don’t understand how you do it,” I said between hiccups, balancing on my feet.

Even drunk, I could feel the mood turning dark. His eyebrows furrowed.

“How I do what?”

Esmeray let go of her fork, glancing at us. She placed a comforting hand on Kai. “He’s drunk, Kai. Let him sleep it off and you can talk about this tomorrow.”

She was right, but I had fuel in me that I couldn’t stop from coursing through my veins. “I don’t need to be sober to know he didn’t give a shit about Dad.”

At that, he pushed to his feet, looking calm unlike me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t? Because all I’m seeing is that you’ve moved on with your life as if he never existed. It’s only been fucking six months, but you don’t seem to remember.” I didn’t know if that was what I said, but that was what I wanted to say.

He sighed, twitching his jaw. “Go to sleep, you’re talking nonsense.”

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