Not Born To Inherit

The Wrong Conclusion

Chapter Six

Zuri had not asked Marcus to walk her home. He had offered, unprompted, after a late site meeting ran past nine, and she was too tired to argue about it. He was a friend. Her business partner of four years, someone who had never once made her feel like anything more than that, and she had never had a reason to think twice about it.

Roman happened to be driving past her building when he saw them.

Marcus had a hand on her shoulder, laughing at something she had said, walking her right up to her door the way any decent friend might. To Roman, sitting in the back of a car he had told his driver to slow down without really thinking about why, it looked like something else entirely.

He did not call her that night. He told himself it was not his business, that he had no claim on her, that whatever he was feeling with his jaw locked tight was not jealousy — because jealousy would mean admitting he wanted something he had no right to want from a woman who had made it clear, more than once, that this was supposed to stay professional.

He believed that for about six hours. Then he stopped believing it and just felt miserable instead.

He did not bring it up right away. That was not like him — Roman had never bitten his tongue about anything in his life — but this felt too big to just spit out, so he let it sit for three days, turning into something worse than jealousy. By the time he finally said something, it came out wrong.

“Who is the guy?” he asked, standing in her studio doorway, arms crossed, none of his usual ease in his voice.

Zuri looked up from her desk, confused. “What guy?”

“The one who walked you home Tuesday. Hand on your shoulder. Very cozy.”

Understanding dawned slowly, followed almost immediately by irritation. “That is Marcus. My business partner. Are you having me followed?”

“I am not having you followed. I happened to see it.”

“You happened to be driving past my apartment at nine at night.”

“That is not the point.”

“It is absolutely the point.” She stood, pushing her chair back hard enough that it scraped the floor. “Marcus walked me home because the meeting ran late and it was dark out. That is the whole story.”

“You never mentioned him. Not once, in all these weeks.”

“Why would I? He is my business partner. I do not report every person I talk to.”

“You have been distant for weeks. Avoiding calls, giving one-word answers, leaving site walks early. And now there is some guy walking you home at night and it did not seem worth mentioning?”

Something in Zuri’s face went cold and hard, the kind of look that told him he had crossed further than he realized. “You do not get to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Interrogate me. Act jealous. Act like you have some claim on where I go and who walks me home, when you are the one who got photographed on the steps of your father’s building with another woman on your arm.”

“That was staged. I told you that.”

“Convenient, that everything inconvenient about you turns out to be staged.”

“That is not fair.”

“None of this is fair!” Her voice cracked, louder than she meant it, and something raw broke through the anger — something closer to exhaustion than rage. She caught herself, pulled it back, steadied her voice into something flat and cold. “You do not get to ask questions about a life you made clear you did not want.”

Roman went still. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“Zuri. What does that mean?”

She turned away, busying her hands with papers she was not actually reading. He watched her shoulders rise and fall with a breath that looked like it cost her something. “It means we agreed on terms. One night, no promises, no expectations. I am not the one who broke those terms by showing up here jealous over a man who walked me home from work.”

“I am not trying to break any terms. I am trying to understand why you have been pulling away from me for a month.”

“Maybe I have not been pulling away. Maybe this is just what it looks like when something that was never supposed to be anything runs its course.”

The words landed harder than she probably meant them to. Something in Roman’s chest went tight, and for once in his life he did not have a clever answer ready. He just stood there, watching her avoid his eyes, feeling the ground under this whole thing shift without him noticing exactly when.

“Is that what you actually want?” he asked, quiet now. “For this to run its course?”

She did not answer right away. When she finally looked at him, there was something in her face he could not quite read — grief, maybe, or fear, or both tangled together so tightly she could not separate them if she had wanted to.

“I do not know what I want,” she said, and it was the most honest thing she had said to him in weeks. “I do not know what any of this is anymore.”

He wanted to close the distance between them. He wanted to ask her, plainly, what was actually going on — because something clearly was, something bigger than a jealous misunderstanding about Marcus, something she had been carrying alone longer than he had realized.

His phone rang before he could ask.

He looked at the screen — Julian’s assistant, marked urgent, three missed calls already stacked above it. His stomach dropped before he even answered.

“Mr. Brooks.” The assistant’s voice was tight, rushed. “Your father collapsed at the office. They are taking him to Mercy General. You need to come now.”

Roman’s whole body went cold. He looked up at Zuri, the argument evaporating instantly, replaced by something closer to panic.

“I have to go,” he said. “It is Julian.”

She was already grabbing her coat. “I am coming with you.”

He did not argue. He did not have it in him to argue about anything right now, and some small, exhausted part of him was grateful he did not have to walk into that hospital alone.

Neither of them noticed, in the rush out the door, that Zuri had left her phone behind on the desk — screen lit up with a reminder neither of them saw.

Ultrasound appointment. Tomorrow, 10 AM.