Page 77 of Wild Promise

I stood with my hands in my pockets out of habit, then pulled them out and let them hang at my sides. Then shoved them back in. Nowhere felt right.

Fuck, nothing about any of this felt right.

“Sit down, Zane.” It was his no-nonsense voice, with a hint of boredom, and topped with disdain. Only now it filled an actual room, bouncing off the glass and the polished wood and the framed awards lining the walls.

I sat in one of the cold leather chairs across from his desk.

Finally, he turned, looking me over like he was appraising an asset. And was completely unimpressed. “You look uncomfortable.”

“I am.”

The corners of his mouth pulled up as he settled into his chair. But it wasn’t a real smile. There was nothing warm or welcoming about it. “So. You called me.”

“I did.”

“After years of hanging up on me, ignoring my calls, and acting like an insolent teenager. Now you’re sitting in my office, in a suit you clearly bought this morning, asking me for a job.”

Asking me for a job.

He’d spent years pushing me to come here. Calling, pressuring, guilting. And now that I was actually sitting in front of him, the prick was going to make me grovel for it.

“I’m not asking for a handout,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I’m offering to come work for you. Like you’ve been wanting.”

“No. What I wanted was for you to come to me when you’d grown up enough to see the opportunity I was offering. Not because you’ve run out of options.”

The words landed like a backhand. He didn’t know why I was here. Not the real reason. But he’d already framed it as my failure.

My surrender.

“I haven’t run out of options.”

“Haven’t you?” He raised an eyebrow, and fuck, it was the same expression I saw in my own mirror every day. The resemblance made my skin crawl. “You quit your job, Zane. Your uncle called me. Said you left your resignation letter in someone’s inbox like a fucking coward. So either something’s gone very wrong in that little life of yours, or you’ve finally realized it wasn’t much of a life to begin with.”

My stomach sank. Uncle Glenn had called him. Because, apparently, the Alexanders couldn’t sneeze without the whole family hearing about it.

“I had my reasons for leaving.” I shifted in my seat, trying and failing to keep my discomfort to myself.

“I’m sure you did.” He dismissed it with a wave, like my reasons were irrelevant. “The question is whether you’re serious about this, or whether you’ll change your mind in a week and run back to your bartending.”

“I’m serious.”

“Are you?” He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, and fixed me with a look that had probably intimidated boardrooms full of executives. “Because I don’t have time to babysit a twenty-eight-year-old who’s having a quarter-life crisis. If you come to work for me, you work. You show up, you learn the business, and you commit. I’m not running a rehabilitation program for my wayward son.”

Every word was designed to diminish me. To remind me that in his world, I was nothing. Not the fun guy everyone loved, not the neighbor who helped, and not the man Melina had believed in. Just a disappointment who’d finally come crawling.

And I sat there and took it. “I understand.”

He studied me for a long moment, his fingers drumming against the desk. “I’ll need some time to think about where to place you. We’d have to create a role that makes sense. I’m not just going to invent a position because my son decided to show up.”

“I have conditions.”

He barked a laugh. “You think you’re in a position to make demands?”

“I keep my life in Copper Ridge,” I said, ignoring him. “I commute, work remotely, whatever we need to figure out. But I’m not moving to New York full-time. And I want nothing to do with the other side of your business. Legitimate shit only.”

His jaw tightened, and for a second, I thought he’d shut the whole thing down. “I’ll consider it. But don’t mistake my flexibility for weakness, Zane. I’m not weak, and I never lose.”

Fucking hell. “Yeah, Dad. I’m well aware.”