CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Xavier’s POV

Ivanna had been unusually witty these past two weeks. That was the first warning sign and I had missed it completely.

Ivanna suddenly stopped pushing for dinner dates. She stopped nagging at every little thing like she always did. She stopped doing a lot that actually cross-referenced the real her, and I stupidly missed it.

She became warm, accommodating, and occasionally funny in a dry way, which clearly says… that wasn’t the real her.

I had interpreted this new version of her as the natural settling of a tension that had peaked and was now finding a ground level.

I should have known better.

Ivanna Sinclair did not find her own level. She recalibrated. And recalibration, in her own kind of vocabulary, always preceded a move.

I was in my office on Thursday afternoon, midway through a call with the company’s legal team about the property acquisition, when my EA knocked and entered with the expression that goes with information she wasn’t sure how to deliver.

I held up a finger to the phone. “What is it?”

She placed a printed email on my desk and stepped back.

I looked at it.

It was a guest list. Two hundred and fourteen names, formatted with the meticulous attention to social hierarchy that only Ivanna and her events coordinator could produce. The kind of list where the order of names communicated more than the names themselves, where being in the first column meant a significant difference from being in the third and everyone on it would know exactly where they had been placed.

At the top, in the subject line of the forwarded email: Beaumont-Sinclair Engagement Celebration — Confirmed Venue and Guest List for Final Review.

I stared at it for a moment.

“Sir?” my EA said carefully.

“Get me Ivanna,” I said.

“She’s currently,”

“Get me Ivanna,” I repeated, in a final tone that means end of discussion.

***

She lets the phone ring twice, I know her to well to know that act was deliberate. She answered on the third ring, her voice calm and soothing… like she doesn’t know the exact thing she had done.

“Darling,” she said. “I was going to tell you this evening.”

“What is this guest list of two hundred and fourteen people about, Ivanna?”

“Two hundred and twelve,” she corrected, pleasantly. “Two declined this morning and I’ve already filled the spots.”

“Okay… two hundred and fourteen… two hundred and twelve. What is it all about?” I asked again.

“Come on baby, don’t do that,” her voice carried the feminine warmth, “that is our engagement guest list. I know you were too busy with running the company, so I thought it will be a good idea not to bother you.”

I leaned back in my chair and cupped my face in my spare hand.

If I object publicly to this engagement, it will become a story overnight, one the bloggers and my business competitors will feed on. Beaumont heir distances himself from engagement.

If I said nothing, over two hundred people will show up to a party that announced a future I hadn’t fully agreed to. If I cancelled it, that is another great problem on its own, considering Ivanna’s father, Kingsley Sinclair’s relationship to the family, as the family’s respected adviser.

“When?” I asked. The question felt ridiculous the moment it escaped my mouth. Imagine wanting to get engaged and you don’t even know your own engagement venue and time… haha… that was the joke of the year.

“It’s happening in three weeks Saturday,” she said. “At the Alderton Hall. I picked that venue because I know how you’ve always liked there. Remember the Christmas board dinner two years ago was being held there, and you kept on praising the ambiance, especially the acoustics, you said they were exceptional.”

I rolled my eyes in distraught. I know what I said woman, and those were not my actual choice of words.

“I said the acoustics were acceptable for a speech,” I corrected.

“Tomato, tomato,” she replied, maybe cheerfully for her, but it doesn’t sit well with me… if anything, it irked me.

I picked up the guest list and read through the first column. It was full of board members, family associates and Kingsley’s network. Several names I recognized from different business and gala events. Family members from the dinner at Grandview I had driven away from five years ago the one that had sent me to the hotel bar bed with a woman I barely knew.

I dropped the list back on my desk and sighed deeply.

“Tell me, Ivanna,” I said. “Why did you take such a huge step without discussing it with me first .”

“I’ve been discussing it with you for two years,” she replied, her voice still tried to be warm but was sharper. “I’ve been patient, Xavier. I have been extraordinarily patient and I have asked for very little. But it seems I had been patient for too long. I’m not asking for the wedding yet if that’s what you’re thinking about. I just need a solid assurance… not verbal alone this time, but action-wise, something to solidify this relationship and tell the public, most of whom had been waiting all these while that this relationship is real, solid and heading toward something real.”

Silence fell in the office around me.

I looked at the guest list again.

“I’ll need to review the venue arrangements,” I said finally, looking for a genuine reason to end the call already.

She paused for a second or so before answering. The initial warmth in her tone when she first answered the call was restored.

“Of course. I’ll send every necessary detail to your EA.”

Then, she ended the call. I dropped the phone and stared ahead into the blank space, my mind running through a thousand thoughts on how I could possibly escape this impromptu engagement arrangement. She has waited for more than five years, what’s with the sudden rush now?

I picked up my phone back. I need to talk to grandfather.