“You know, if I’d been born into it, it might not be as big a deal. Or as noticeable.”

“What do you mean—if you were born into it? You were born into it.”

“Right, but it was my family’s money, not mine. Not that my parents didn’t take care of me, but I didn’t want this life. I went out and explored, started earning my own money. Ha!” He grins, smoothing his hands over the tablecloth in front of him. “I don’t know whether I should be offended that you look so surprised right now.”

“I just…I didn’t know that about you. I thought you’d been a part of this world forever.”

“Hardly.” He looks away, his gaze growing distant, like he’s remembering something. It seems to make him equally briefly sad and happy at the same time. “Anyway, it didn’t really matter what I wanted when it came down to it. I still ended up back here, head of this company, with a net worth and employees to support. Contracts and acquisitions and a whole bunch of other shit to worry about. The corporate life isn’t one I naturally came to, nor is it one I feel totally comfortable in. And then you’ve got people coming out of the woodwork once they realize you’ve come into money and they could use a loan or a vacation to Ibiza. The first year or so I was back in Chicago, I had more old friends look me up than I even remember having. It was crazy. I’m sure some of them genuinely wanted to get back in touch, but a lot of it was just people wanting money. They wanted something and suddenly I had it. Simple.”

“Seems like a rather small trade off, if that means you’re financially secure for the rest of your life.”

He shrugs. “It is what it is. I don’t really hold it against them. I mean, I actually like to help people out when I can. I’m really interested in living as simple a life as possible.”

He seems so earnest about this detachment he claims to have from his money. I find myself believing he really couldn’t give a shit if he had none at all. But then he goes and says that thing about helping people, and I remember having to accept his offer to pay for Vaughn’s funeral. Bile rises up in the back of my throat. Time to dig the knife in deep. Time to twist it real fucking hard.

“Tell me about your family,” I say. “I don’t really know anything about them. I mean, of course I know you’re the last remaining Callahan. I’d have to have been dead and buried to miss that. But what’s that like? The Callahan name is a prestigious one. There must be a lot of pressure on you to continue your family’s legacy, right?”

Maybe the dead and buried comment was a little too much. Aidan stares at me with those pale blue eyes of his, his hands still on the table either side of his cutlery. His whole body is still, in fact, like he just suddenly turned to marble. Eventually, he says, “Yeah. I was under a lot of pressure for a very long time. And then my brother and my parents died and the pressure grew even further. That’s basically all that needs to be said about that.”

“The swordfish for you, Mr. Callahan.” I look up and the waiter standing at the table beside us is carrying two large plates in his hands. Aidan leans back so the guy can place his meal in front of him, but his eyes never leave me. I can feel them burning into my skin.

Once my meal is put down in front of me and the waiter has left, I poke and prod a little more. “So you had a brother. What was he like?” My stomach feels like it’s boiling, filled with acid as I ask this question. But I need to hear it. I need to hear Aidan defend that motherfucker. I need to hear him say how much he loved him, and how much he misses him still. Then, when I’ve heard that, I’ll truly be able to hate him. This softening I’ve felt since I sat down at the table has got to go. I can’t afford any sympathy toward him. It’s a weakness.

“My brother was an asshole,” Aidan says softly. “He was a bully. He loved the idea of me playing second fiddle to him for the rest of our lives. In our work, in our relationships with our parents. With girls. He hated me because I could never understand him. He hated me, because, unlike all of his high school and college friends, I didn’t want to be him.”

I’d wanted to cause him hurt, to make him feel like shit because he misses his brother, but instead I’m the one who’s in pain. My mouth feels like it’s filled with sawdust and ash. This wasn’t what was meant to happen. He was meant to fall apart when I asked him about Alex. That question was my ace in the hole.

“So…you didn’t see eye to eye?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Aidan picks up his martini glass and drinks deep from it. “Anyway. Maybe we should find another topic of conversation. What do you say, Ms. Floyd? Unless, of course, you’d like to tell me about your family?” There’s a strange gleam in his eye when he asks this. I know without a doubt all of a sudden that he knows exactly who I am and what I’m doing here. This is not what I was expecting at all.

“No,” I whisper. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps work and family should be left for other times.” I finish my second martini, my hand shaking slightly as I pinch the stem of the glass between my fingers.

You’re an idiot, I chide myself. A complete fucking moron. Should have just stuck with the plan. Should have shown him the files, shown him what that bastard of a brother of his was up to. Witnessed the look on his face when he realized that it’s all about to end. No more highlife. No more ridiculously priced, fancy meals. No more drivers, or house cleaners, or waitresses ready to drop to their knees and blow you at a moment’s notice. But instead you’re…you’re listening to him. You’re believing him. This is not right.

“If you could be anywhere, doing anything right now, Essie, where would you be?” Aidan’s question comes out of nowhere. It has me on the back foot, my heart trying to skip out of my damn chest.

“I’d be with…” I pause, holding my tongue. I can’t tell him the truth. If I do, then the whole ruse, pathetic though it is, will be up. I think perhaps he knows everything, but at the same time it feels as though I can just ignore that fact so long as neither of us bring up the past that haunts me. And, if I’m not greatly mistaken, haunts him, too. “I’d be with my best friend Julie, hiking in the Matthiessen National Park. It’s beautiful there. We went last summer and spent a week exploring. It’s one of my favorite places on earth.” This is a lie. Julie and I were meant to go to the Matthiessen National Park last summer, but I’d dropped out at the last minute because I wanted to sneak into the office after hours when everybody had left for the day, in my mission to find the incriminating piece of information that would destroy the man sitting across the table from me.

Aidan smiles, his eyes warm, despite the cool, sharp coloring of his irises. “That sounds great,” he says. “I love Matthiessen.”

“You went there with your family?”

“No.” He places a forkful of swordfish in his mouth and chews slowly. When he’s done, he tells me, “I went with an ex.”

“Ah.”

“Mmm.” He laughs, but there’s no humor to it. There’s obviously some sort of story there. A painful one by the looks of things.

“And what about you?” I ask. “Where would you be if you could be anywhere in the world right now?”

A shiver runs through me when he smiles at me. “I’d be here with you, having this conversation, Essie.”

What the actual fuck? How can he be so damn charming? How can he look at me like that and, for the tiniest of split seconds, make me not hate him?

“I don’t believe it,” I say. “There are so many far more exciting places than here with me. Come on. Tell the truth.” To my horror, I find myself nudging him with my foot under the table like some flirting school girl. Aidan ducks his head briefly, eyes on his plate in front of him.