Vows Written in whiskey

Chapter5:The nameonthe list

Chapter Five: The Name on the List

(Xander's point of view)

I don't drink to blackout. Ever.

I have watched what too much of it does to men in my family. My uncle drank a fortune into the ground. My grandfather drank his kindness away years before his body followed. So I keep two glasses of whiskey, maybe three, and then I leave with whoever caught my eye, and I never, ever lose control.

Which is how I knew, the moment I woke in Sun City with a wedding band on my finger and a girl I could not remember curled into my side, that something was very wrong.

"Franklin," I said into the phone, pacing my study three days later, "tell me again. Slowly. Like I'm a child."

"The marriage is legally binding," my lawyer said. "Signed by both parties, filed, stamped. To annul it, we file on the grounds that you were both intoxicated and unable to consent."

"Then file it."

"I can. But Nicholas, there is a problem." Franklin paused, and I have known him twenty years, and I know his pauses. "The annulment will not be quiet. It creates a record. A public one. And with your grandfather's condition being what it is, and the board meeting in three weeks..."

I stopped pacing. "Say it."

"Your grandfather's will," Franklin said quietly, "has a clause. To take full control of Halcyon, you must be married by your thirty-third birthday. That is in five weeks. If you are not, control passes to the next heir in line."

The next heir. My cousin. A man who would sell the company for parts before the year was out.

"So let me understand," I said slowly, sinking into my chair. "I got drunk, married a stranger, and by pure accident, I am now exactly as married as my grandfather demanded."

"By pure accident," Franklin agreed. "Yes."

"That is either the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me," I said, "or a trap so clever I cannot see the wire."

"Which do you think it is?"

I looked at the framed photo on my desk. My grandfather, sharp and strong, ten years ago. The man who built everything, and who now barely knew my name.

"I don't know," I said. "But hold the annulment. Do nothing. Do not file. And find out everything you can about the night at that club. Who was there. Who bought what. All of it."

"You suspect someone set this up."

"I don't believe in luck, Franklin," I said. "Not the good kind."

---

My father called that afternoon.

"I hired your new assistant," Richard said, without hello. "Sharp girl. Honest. You will like her, or you will hate her, but you will not be bored."

"You could have waited for me to interview her," I said.

"You were in the mountains getting into whatever trouble you got into," he said dryly. "The office does not stop because my son wants to disappear. She starts Monday. Her file is on your desk."

"Fine," I said, not caring at all.

"Nicholas." My father's voice softened, which he does about once a year. "Your grandfather asked for you again this morning. He thought you were seven. He wanted to know if you'd learned to swim yet."

Something in my chest pulled tight. "I'll come this week."

"Come before the board meeting," he said. "Come before there is nothing left of him to visit."

He hung up. I sat in the dark for a long time.

Then, because I could not sleep, I picked up the file my father had left.

I did not open it that night. That was my mistake. If I had, I might have been ready.

---

Monday came grey and cold.

Andy called me on my way in, loud as ever.

"So," my best friend said. "Two days off the grid, no answer, and Simon tells me he drove you to Sun City. Sun City. You hate Sun City. Who is she?"

"There is no she," I said.

"Liar. Simon said there was a girl in a red dress."

"Simon talks too much."

"Simon is the only interesting thing about you," Andy said. "Come on. Give me a name."

I thought of her. Of the way she'd laughed at me, really laughed, like I was just a man and not a bank account with a jaw. Of the Gatsby and the plastic chairs and the blue light. Of how she gave the ring back without asking for a single cent, when women had tried to trap me with far less.

"Her name," I said, "does not matter. She's already gone."

I believed that when I said it.

---

I was in a meeting until half past nine, arguing with three regional managers about a resort in Mauritius that was bleeding money. When I came back to my office, my father's file still sat on my desk where I had dropped it.

Mirabel knocked and put her head in.

"Mr Mitchell? Your new assistant is settled at her desk. Would you like me to bring her in for introductions?"

"In a minute," I said, dropping into my chair. "What's her name again?"

Mirabel glanced at the file in front of me. "It's right there, sir. Khloe. Khloe Vincent."

My hand stopped halfway to my coffee.

The room went very quiet, the kind of quiet that rings in your ears.

"Say that again," I said.

Mirabel blinked. "Khloe Vincent, sir. Is something wrong?"

I opened the file at last, and there, clipped to the top corner, was a photograph.

Dark hair. Warm eyes. The exact face that had been asleep on my shoulder somewhere over the mountains three days before.

My wife.

My wife was sitting twenty steps from my office door.

"Sir?" Mirabel said. "You've gone white. Should I get you some water? Sir?"

I stood so fast my chair rolled back and hit the window.

"Don't bring her in," I said. "Not yet. Give me a minute. Just... give me one minute."

But Mirabel had already stepped back into the hall, and I heard her cheerful voice float through the open door, saying, "Khloe? He's ready for you now. Come and meet Mr Mitchell."

And I stood frozen behind my desk, staring at that photograph, as footsteps came closer.