Page 89 of Double or Nothing

Oh God! What the fuck have I done?

The words came out before I could stop them.

Bill sits back slowly.

I have never spoken to him like that. Never. Not once in all the years he has guided me, promoted me, trusted me. I’ve disagreed respectfully. I’ve offered statistical alternatives. I’ve queried projections and adjusted risk models, but never once, during my entire lifetime have I ever, ever challenged him about Alice.

His face remains calm, but the temperature in the room drops.

“Should it?” he asks.

My heart thrashes in my ribcage. Out of control.

“Yes,” I say, losing grip of my fucking mind entirely. “She’s not a merger, Bill, she’s your daughter.”

A flicker crosses his face. Not anger. Worse.

Disappointment.

“That is an oddly emotional response from you, Bryce. I’m taken aback.”

I swallow, because so am I. I’m so taken aback by my own actions, it’s absurd.

It’s far too late to retreat cleanly and brush it off with a I’m sure she’ll be very happy with Christopher. That wouldn’t do shit now.

“I’ve known Alice a long time,” I say. “That’s all.”

“Yes. You have.”

The way he says it makes my stomach flip over itself. I want to retch up its empty contents.

He knows something. Not everything. But something.

Bill closes the folder very slowly.

“I value you, Bryce. Immensely. You know that.”

My skin prickles.

“Thank you.”

“You’re one of the few people I trust without reservation. But trust,” he says, “depends on clarity. Do you understand me?”

The guilt is immediate and brutal. His silent fist swung with full force.

I can’t breathe properly. The panic is rising. It takes my everything to stay calm.

“I’m clear,” I say, like a weak puppy dog at his feet.

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

He taps one finger on the folder. Once. Twice. Three times steady.

“Alice is emotional. Creative. Prone to romanticising rebellion. She has been allowed to drift along with a paintbrush in her hand because I love her, and because I believed this drifting nonsense of hers would exhaust itself eventually. But the charity event was a strong refresher that the wrong influences can encourage the wrong instincts. I’m sure you get my meaning.”

“Influences. I see.”