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“I merely started the conversation,” Toby said, gripping the arms of his chair to keep himself steady. “One of the family members will likely continue with it.”

“Well, they don’t need to continue with it,” Johnson said. “They have an offer, and they’d do well to take it.”

Toby frowned, confused, but also suspicious. “They have an offer from Willoughby Entertainment Group, yes,” he said. “But the entire reason they hired me was because they aren’t inclined to sell off hundreds of years of their family’s legacy and the life’s work of most of them who are still alive.”

“Bullshit,” Johnson snapped. “Who do they think they are to turn down an offer like that? The aristocracy is, if not dead, then a bunch of tottering old corpses walking around thinking they’re better than the rest of us, just because they wear silly hats at Ascot.”

“The Hawthorne family isn’t that kind of aristocracy,” Toby said, speaking slower as his understanding of what was really going on started to come into focus. “They run an arts center out of the house, and they’re looking for ways to expand the estate’s use in a way that supports their community.”

“An amusement park will make use of the grounds and support the community,” Johnson argued. “It’ll create jobs.”

Toby’s chest started to hurt with the band of tension that felt like it was wrapped around him. “Sorry, sir, but isn’t it my job as the assessor they hired to explore every option for reaching the outcome that the client desires?”

“Your job,” Johnson said, leaning forward and bracing himself against his desk, “is to do what’s best for this company and its interests. Charles Duckworth is a close ally of the company and a personal friend of mine. Without him, you wouldn’t be here.”

Cold sweat broke out on Toby’s back. “It is my understanding that Mr. Duckworth is not an employee of this company, so his interests shouldn’t?—”

“Do you think I wanted to hire you?” Johnson cut him off. “Hell no! Why would I want to hire a trouble-making hooligan from the slums with a…a lip ring?” He gestured sharply to Toby’s mouth.

Toby tongued the edge of his ring without opening his mouth, indignation battling with soreness at having everything he’d fought so hard to overcome thrown right back at him.

“With all due respect, sir,” he said, gripping the arms of his chair harder, “you hired me because I’m intelligent, quick-thinking, and efficient. I’ve worked here for three years and done everything you’ve set for me?—”

“I hired you because Charles Duckworth asked me to,” Johnson cut him off again. “You owe more than you know to him. And now you’re spitting in his eye by working against the biggest deal of his career?”

Toby pressed his lips shut. He was well aware of the circumstances surrounding him, and he’d been conflicted about it from the start. The way Johnson sneered at him, like he’d stolen a bike to take it on a joy ride, was a bitter insult.

“I have been nothing but professional through this entire job,” he said as calmly as he could manage. It was a lie, of course. His involvement with Robbie was anything but professional. But that issue wasn’t on the table at the moment. “I’ve done exactly what the family asked me to do. I haven’t advised them one way or another about the Willoughby Entertainment deal, I’ve only given them alternatives.”

“Those alternatives could very well cost my friend millions of dollars and you your job,” Johnson threw back, eyes narrowed. “You’re going to go back to Hawthorne House and tell the family that Willoughby Entertainment’s deal is the best offer they’re going to get, and you’re going to tell them to take it, sooner rather than later.”

Toby didn’t know what to say. He’d been aware from the start that all was not fair in the financial world, but he’d had no idea that would extend to him being urged to advise a family to accept a catastrophic deal that would break everything that was special and beautiful about them. The threat to his job felt minor when he imagined the stress and disappointment Mr. Hawthorne would feel if Toby said what Johnson wanted him to say.

And that didn’t begin to cover how Robbie would feel about the whole thing. Just when the wall between them was starting to come down and something new was growing in its place.

“Are you ordering me to go to Hawthorne House right now?” he asked, careful about how he worded things.

“Yes!” Johnson snapped. “Get out of here and go fix the mess you’ve made.”

Toby pushed himself up from his chair, outwardly calm, but inwardly reeling. “Yes, sir,” he said, then turned to go.

He’d hoped Johnson would stop him and tell him it was all a misunderstanding, or at least reassure him that he still had his job as he left. Then again, he wasn’t certain he wanted to work for a company that would stab its own clients in the back, no matter how prestigious it would look on his resume.

He headed to his cube to set things in order there, then grabbed his phone and wallet as he prepared to go. He glanced back at his cube as he left, wondering if he should take his photos of Mum, Gerry, and the kids with him or if they would all be packed up and sent to him if his mission went as badly as he had a feeling it might.

He was tense the whole way to Hawthorne House, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles and debating what to do. He firmly believed that the Hawthornes didn’t need to accept Willoughby Entertainment’s offer. They could get on well with everything he’d been working on and with a filming contract with Silver Productions. He’d accomplished the task he’d been hired to do and had found a way to avoid selling the estate.

But was it worth it for the Hawthornes to get what they wanted and needed when it might very well cost him his job? Johnson and Duckie were both powerful in London’s financial world. Crossing them might mean there wouldn’t be a single, high-powered financial company left in London that would hire him. Helping the Hawthornes might just torpedo his career and any chance he had to prove to the people who had called him worthless as a kid that he was more than they had ever dreamed of.

Johnson had called him worthless, too, more or less. Could he really stay on with a company that viewed him that way?

He hadn’t come up with any answers by the time he made it to Hawthorne House, parking in the family lot. He still didn’t know what he was going to say as he let himself in through the back entrance, then strode down one of the family halls to the buzzing front hall.

Classes were apparently switching over for the day. The front hall was busy with a school group gathering to head out and several grey-haired men and women carrying art cases or drawing tubes slung over their shoulders coming in. The two groups smiled and waved at each other, adoring each other’s company, if only in passing.

One of the uniformed school kids called out, “Nana, look!” and showed off their paint-stained hands.

“Oh, Georgie,” one of the grey-haired women said, laughing and shaking her head as she slipped over to steal a kiss from the boy before the line of his school mates moved to the front door.

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