Page 83 of Fifth Avenue Flirt

“Do you blame me for not following in Dad’s footsteps?”

Silence echoes between us.

We don’t mention Dad.

I can’t remember the last time he came up. We always swap our latest encounters with Mum, but we don’t talk about the past. Nothing about the restaurant closing, about being homeless, about leaving New York for England and never seeing our dad gain. A single, one-syllable word that’s like a cork on our past, keeping it all bottled up.

“Not at all,” he says. “I never expected you to do the same as him. I just thought that you might own restaurants or something. Now.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say, before I realize how much I’m revealing about myself. “I’m definitely feeling like I’m at a turning point in my career.”

“You’ve achieved so much,” he says with a warm smile, like he’s proud of me, and it lifts something in me. I never wanted to be successful to make anyone proud. I know that motivates some people, but not me. I was motivated by fear. Fear of what can happen when you’re poor. Fear of that knock on the car window at two in the morning and a drunken face pressed against the glass. Fear of not knowing what’s going to happen next.

“Thanks,” I say and then I realize I should repay the compliment, but I want it to be authentic, and I’m not sure I know what he’s achieved. I know he works in tech. I settle on asking him how his job is going. “Where are you working again?”

He laughs. “I work for myself. Set up a few years ago.”

“Really?” I ask him. “I didn’t know that.”

He holds my gaze. “No. I never told you.”

“Deliberately?”

He pulls in a breath. “I think so.”

His comment hits me in the stomach like a fist. “Oh,” I say.

He shrugs. “You’re the rich, successful, older brother. I didn’t want to…feel I was competing.”

“You know I’m always happy to help.”

“I know. You always tell me that. Every time we meet.”

Do I? I don’t remember, but I’m pleased he knows I’d help him.

“You never take me up on it,” I say. “I might be able to introduce you to people. Investors, maybe.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But also, it’s good to feel you’ve done it on your own.”

I let out a knowing half laugh. I understand why he feels like that, but only first-generation wealth has that attitude. People with generational money will take all the help they can get. When you start with nothing, there’s so much pride mixed in with everything. “I get that.”

“But you don’t agree.”

“I think it’s complicated, but no, I don’t agree. I think business is about people. People do business with people they like. People who are successful in business are generally well connected, well respected and well liked. There are exceptions, and of course it’s all relative. What one person is respected for, might not be what you or I would respect them for. And we all know plenty of very successful people who seem morally corrupt. But dealing with them isn’t terrible. In my experience.”

“Hence your schmoozing, and I know you don’t think so, but I mean that as a compliment. You’re easy to like, Ben. You always have been.”

“Thanks. But my job is more than shmoozing.”

“I know. I know you’ve made yourself indispensable to New York business.”

There’s no doubt that there’s more written online about me than Bray. But it isn’t until now that I realize he must have read that stuff about me online. He must have looked me up, because I’ve never talked to him about what I do and why I do it.

“So tell me about the Upper West Side,” I say, wanting to know more about him.

“Not much to say. It was close to the office and I like being close to the park. I run there every morning.”

“You still run?” Bray used to do long distance at school. I’d forgotten that until just now. He was excellent at it.