Chapter 9: The help

Everette’s pov

Six o'clock arrives before I notice the office has emptied around me.

The glow from my monitors paints my office in pale blue, and beyond the glass walls, the cleaning crew has already begun their nightly routine. I stare at the latest projections for another minute before closing my laptop with a quiet sigh. There comes a point where working late stops being productive and starts becoming avoidance, and judging by the knot between my shoulders, I crossed that line hours ago.

The Carrington estate comes into view just as the sun disappears beneath the horizon. Every light inside the mansion burns warmly against the evening sky, making the place look less like a home and more like a museum. I straighten my tie before stepping through the front doors, slipping back into the version of myself everyone expects to see.

"Welcome home, sir."

Adam waits in the foyer exactly as he has for longer than I've been alive, his hands folded neatly behind his back.

Some people become part of a house. Adam became its heartbeat long before I was born. "Evening, Adam."

"You look tired, Sir."

"That bad?"

He shrugs, snapping his finger and a servant appears to collect my bag. I loosen my tie as we begin walking toward the grand staircase.

"Actually..." I stop and turn to him. "I've been meaning to get your opinion about something."

Adam's expression never changes. "I'm listening, sir."

"This situation with... Raze. Do you think I made the right decision?"

He grows quiet for a moment. "Well, sir, I have always said that the past has a funny way of wearing a mask, but a clever man knows whether to take it off or just enjoy the theater," he answers smoothly, a subtle, dry glint in his eyes. "You made a strategic choice to protect your legacy, Mr. Everette, and while your heart might be throwing a slight error at the moment, your brain is doing precisely what it was built to do. Though, if I may offer one small observation, seeing you flustered by that young man certainly brings a bit of lively energy back into these overly quiet hallways, even if it keeps the kitchen staff constantly blushing."

I let out a laugh, the tension leaving my shoulders for a brief second. Trust the man to turn a simple question into a riddle of life lesson.

You will think I have gotten used to the way he talks by now having served in the Carrington’s for three generations.

He clears his throat to return to his official duties. "Your father requested to see you in his private office the moment you returned, sir. I shall be overseeing the final preparations for dinner in the meantime."

"Save me whatever Serena asks to be thrown out."

"I'll do my very best, sir."

I smile warmly after his retreating figure, feeling a familiar ache of gratitude for the elderly man who has been far more of a parent to me than my biological ones ever managed to be. Ever since our mother abandoned us and high-tailed it away without so much as a backward glance, and with my father consumed by his precious dynasty, Adam was the one who picked up every single abandoned slack.

He was the one I sat with when I had nervous questions about my very first middle-school girlfriend, and he was the one who retrieved me from my first foolish teenage DUI, hiding the incident from my father—though, I always suspected Theodore Carrington knew and simply didn't care enough to address it unless it hit the press.

I knock once before entering my father’s office, to find him sitting on his massive desk reviewing several maps covering his desk with a glass of scotch resting on his hand.

"Good, you're here," he says without looking up.

"You wanted to see me?" I ask, stepping inside and pulling my shoulders back to project that rigid, formidable executive demeanor he always demands.

He gestures toward the maps. "The Calderman oil fields."

I recognized the name immediately. One of the largest privately owned reserves still available on the market.

"The owner has spent three months wasting my time," he says. "Every meeting ends with another delay. Every agreement somehow needs another conversation."

"You think he's stalling?"

"I know he is."

He finally looks up to me. "Unfortunately, tonight’s board meeting overlaps with the only time he's willing to meet and I need you to represent me. I've already primed him on the phone, blabbing about my genius tech-prodigy son and explaining how integrating your division's data-analytics platform can optimize his yield and make him billions more if he invests his land into our portfolio... so, what do you say, son?"

I frown slightly, tugging at my collar as I digest the sudden, unwanted assignment. "Dad, you know I don't know much about the raw mechanics of the oil sector, so why aren't you asking Serena to handle this? She thrives in these types of aggressive, traditional corporate negotiations."