She sighed at herself in the mirror as Tyler disappeared into the bathroom, then set about removing her make-up, ready to start over.
Apparently impressing the parents was harder than she’d remembered.
‘Martini or a champagne cocktail?’ Patrick barely looked up from the drinks cabinet as he asked.
‘Beer?’ Lucas figured it was worth a try.
‘Not before dinner, Lucas,’ his mother said from the doorway. ‘Mix him a martini, Patrick.’
That, Lucas reflected, was one of the many things he had been positively joyous to leave behind him when he called time on his career as the Alexander Dynasty Heir. On his farm, away from his family, there was no one else to make better choices for him, regardless of what he actually wanted himself.
Lucas decided, there and then, that he was ditching the martini for a beer at the first possible opportunity. A minor rebellion, but it felt important. If a man couldn’t pick his own drink at the age of thirty-three, what was the point of it all anyway?
‘Tyler and… Dory, was it? All settled in, are they?’ Patrick handed Lucas his unwanted martini. Lucas glared at it.
Felicia sighed, that sad, disappointed sigh that Lucas remembered too well from his childhood. The one that said, ‘I’ve done all that I can, and still the world lets me down.’ He hated that sigh.
‘I hope so. I think Dory is, perhaps, a little… overwhelmed. Not used to… well, you know.’ The Alexanders’ ridiculous standard in opulence, Lucas assumed she meant.
‘What?’ Patrick asked, obviously less able to make the mental leap. ‘Beds? Indoor plumbing?’
‘Patrick,’ Felicia said, censoriously, although Lucas was sure she’d been thinking exactly the same thing.
‘She’s a long way from home at Christmas,’ Lucas said, thinking of Dory’s homesick Christmas playlist. ‘And presumably giving up the holidays with her family to be here, because you insisted that Tyler bring her. I don’t think you can blame her for feeling a bit out of place.’
Felicia’s eyebrows raised, more in surprise than anything else. ‘Why, Lucas, I hadn’t realised you’d grown so close to your brother’s girlfriend.’
‘We just spent two hours in a car together, Mother.’
‘And she said she didn’t want to be here?’ Patrick asked. ‘A little rude, don’t you think?’
‘She didn’t say anything of the sort,’ Lucas said, wondering how he’d ended up defending her. Except, perhaps, that having escaped the general Alexander effect, he was loathe to let anyone else suffer. ‘But she’s in a new country, for heaven’s sake. It’s fairly obvious.’
‘To you, maybe,’ Felicia said. ‘Personally, I expect her plans for the holidays are going exactly as she’d hoped.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Darling, really. You know what these girls are like.’
So that was it. Felicia had assigned Dory the role of gold-digger, and she’d twist every single thing that happened over the next three days to fit that assumption. Poor Dory.
‘I think you’re wrong about Dory,’ he said. ‘And about my drink. I’m going to go see if there’s any beer in the kitchen fridge.’
‘Not so fast, Lucas.’ Patrick, standing in the doorway, gave him a steady look. ‘First off, I’m not happy about you talking to your mother that way.’
‘What way?’ God, it was as if he were sixteen again, getting in trouble for the tone of his voice.
Patrick continued without answering the question. ‘And secondly, I have some other things I want to talk to you about before your brother joins us.’
‘In that case, I’m definitely going to need that beer.’
‘Duncan!’ Felicia snapped and, as if by magic, the butler appeared.
‘Yes, Mrs Alexander?’
‘Could you please fetch Lucas a beer. In a glass.’
‘Of course.’ Duncan disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived.
Lucas considered. On the one hand, he’d got his beer. On the other… whatever his father wanted to talk to him about must be more important than drinks decorum. Not a great sign.
Dropping into one of the leather armchairs beside the fire, Lucas placed his still-full martini glass on the nearest side table. Apprehension twisted in his gut. Why couldn’t he have just insisted on spending Christmas alone on the farm? He could even have skipped the God-awful Alexander Christmas Eve Party. Next year…
‘Regardless of Dory’s… suitability,’ Patrick started, looking as awkward at the conversation as Lucas felt. ‘At least Tyler has brought someone home to meet us. Someone serious. Whereas, as far as we can tell, you haven’t dated anyone since…’
‘Since Cheryl,’ Lucas finished for him, a little confused. This wasn’t at all the way he’d expected this conversation to go. ‘Well, you know, divorce…’ he trailed off, unable to explain to his parents that after what happened with Cheryl it was hard to trust that any woman wouldn’t behave exactly as she had, when they realised that this really was who he was these days. He wasn’t playing at opting out until he decided it was time to take his rightful place in the Alexander dynasty again. He was done.
It had taken Cheryl six months after the accident to realise that. And when she had… she’d packed and left the next day. And then she’d taken him for everything she could get in the divorce.
His mother came and perched on the arm of his chair, looking suddenly intent and almost frighteningly maternal. Lucas tried not to flinch as she leant in to pat his shoulder. ‘You can’t let it knock you back like this, Lucas. It’s time for you to get back in the game.’
‘The… dating game?’ Lucas’s voice squeaked a little as he spoke the words. Duncan, who’d finally reappeared with his beer, raised his eyebrows a little at the sound. Lucas suspected he was going to get mocked later, when he got together with the butler and Freya, the maid, for poker, as per their private tradition.
‘The game of life, if you will.’ Patrick took the glass and handed the drink to Lucas, who took a quick, desperate gulp.
Then his father’s words registered. Suddenly, everything made a lot more sense. ‘This isn’t just an intervention in my love life, is it?’
‘Of course not.’ Felicia slipped off the arm of the chair and stood by her husband. ‘There are far more important things at stake than who you bring home to meet the family.’
‘Like the family business,’ Patrick said.
Lucas shook his head. ‘I’ve told you before. I’m happy where I am, doing what I’m doing. And Tyler wants to be CEO. We’re both happy with how things are.’
‘It’s not all about being happy, though, is it,’ Felicia said, and Lucas felt a sudden pang of sadness for his parents.
It didn’t last long, though.
‘You need to think about your legacy,’ Patrick said. ‘About your contribution to the family, and its place in this world. In society, in business. You are part of something important. You were born into privilege, and that has its obligations.’
Lucas thought about Henry, dead at thirty-one because of his obligations to family and legacy. Because he thought it meant living up to the illusion of having everything, doing everything better, being everything