“Oh, I am definitely telling Dirk about this.”
Her mouth fell open. “You wouldn't.”
“If you don't calm down, I will.”
She pursed her lips and walked back to the rack of clothes she had been savaging previously.
“Well? What did I ask you to come here for? Help me,” she said. I laughed silently and looked over her rejected picks, glad that I was no longer the target of her teasing. Maybe tonight would be fun after all.
7
Niall
“Niall, how are you, man?”
I looked at the man who had just addressed me. His hand was held out for me to shake so I did. This was his house after all and being here I was technically representing the Bridges family. Didn’t want to embarrass the clan more than I already did. The bare minimum, Niall, I thought. It’s the least you can do, literally. It wasn’t his fault you’re here.
“Dirk. You look terrible,” I said over the live music playing. Dirk laughed.
“Another year under the belt, what can I say?” he said. I nodded, forming my mouth into my best estimation of a smile. He was a grown man. We were the same age, him maybe a little older and here he was having a birthday party like a seven-year-old. That was what it was though, wasn’t it, with this crowd? Any excuse to celebrate. Any excuse to get all their rich friends in one place to blow their money and rub shoulders. We were in Dirk’s modern townhouse, the entire lower floor filled with people milling about, socializing, snacking on the food that uniformed waiters were handing around. Getting steadily drunker courtesy of the open bar. I knew a number of the people in attendance but few had come to say hi, not that I had offered the same courtesy. I could think of one hundred places off the top of my head where I would rather be.
“Well watch out, they're catching up to you,” I said.
“I could say the same
about you. New York putting you through the wringer?” he asked. If I was looking a little worse for wear, it was because I was here. In New York, I was a veritable beacon of good health and vitality. My spirits were perennially high when I was Stateside. Here, my mood matched the weather. It was never anything particularly good that brought me home so my mood matched.
One night, man. Turn the fake charm on for one night. It’s almost over.
“I don’t know why I ever come back, to be honest,” I said.
“I was shocked when your father told me to expect you here,” he said. I was too. It wasn’t my idea. Coming to London hadn’t been my idea. I had tried to think what the family obligation my father wanted me for actually was, but hadn’t been able to come up with anything. I had seen my father earlier that day which was partly why my mood was so dark. Taking a cab to the family mansion was something I hadn’t done in so long, it made me physically sick. He was waiting for me in his grand old study when I showed up.
He pretended to care about what I was doing over in New York and didn’t bother to hide his disappointment when I told him that it was nothing but my usual. Then the lecture began. He started with his grandfather, my great grandfather and all the sacrifices that he had made for the family, and then went to his father, then himself, and then he started on me.
“I figured if you wanted to talk about that we could have done it over the phone,” I said.
“How long will it take you to learn? This is a matter of legacy, Niall.”
“Oh, here we go.” I got myself ready for the usual the usual lecture. The one I had been hearing since I was a child about how my life was not mine to live. It belonged to an old, outdated tradition that I wanted no part of.
“It’s past time that you were married,” he said. That was a new one. The marriage question had come up in passing in the past, but this was the first time it had come up as the express reason we were meeting.
“I can't believe you called me across the Atlantic Ocean to tell me that. This could have easily been an email.”
“Marriage for someone like you is not simply a partnership. It's strategic. It is done with family and reputation in mind.”
“Yeah, Charlie's mother just put him through this whole song and dance and he didn’t marry her pick. If you think you’re getting me.”
“I don’t think anything, Niall. You don’t have a choice. The arrangements are already made. I called you here to meet Lisbeth Lane. She’s been selected to become your wife. You’re meeting her tonight at a party.”
“I’ll do fuck all,” I said. My father just looked at me, his expression cool as ever. He was ever the gentleman, skewering with his words and power because they were so great that he never really had to raise his voice. Patrick Bridges used to scare the life out of me when I was a kid. Nothing about him was paternal. We had maintained a business relationship since I was a child. He wasn’t sixty yet, so he was still in good health and great shape. His blond hair was only just starting to grey and his stature was ramrod straight, showcasing every one of his six feet and four inches of height.
“We owe the Lane family a debt.”
“No, you owe them a debt.”
“The debt is as much yours as it is mine. You belong to this family, no matter how much you try and defy that.”