Evan Sterling's POV
Present Time
“I already said I would be there, Jacob, could you please stop hounding me!” I snapped as soon as I pressed the ‘accept-call’ on my dashboard.
“I will stop calling as soon as I can see you onboard your jet!”
“Christ, do you think so little of my integrity?”I said in exasperation.
“It’s not your integrity that I am worried about, but your apt ability to freeze everyone out without notice. It’s already getting late, are you sure you are coming?”
I let out a sigh because he was not wrong, but I have never broken any of my promises to my friends before. I am just very good at being evasive. I used to love social gatherings, but that ended exactly a few months before I got married. My heart constricted at my line of thought and I quickly shook my head to dispel it as if it was that easy.
“I will give you a video call in about two hours. I need to meet up with Father for a brief meeting before heading out,” I said in my bid to reach a compromise.
“Christ, how many meetings do you have in a day, man?! It’s Friday, I thought people have less workload on Fridays!”
“Not everyone is a tech tycoon, Jacob.”
“You don’t say,” he replied. I chuckled. “I’m going to call you back in an hour, Evan, and you had better be on the plane then.”
“I said, I would call you—”
“Good. We are both in agreement,” Jacob said determinedly.
“Jacob—” I started to object, and he ended the call. “Son of a—-” I let out a few expletives, pressing hard on the accelerator.
Jacob was one of my college friends, and even though we kept in touch over the years, I recently reconnected with him when we met in a fundraising event in New York two years ago. He has since been trying to get me to attend a few social events with him, but I have been as slippery as a catfish. I suppose I can understand his stubbornness to make sure I attended his wedding since he had cleverly made me one of his groomsmen. Me, Evan, a groom’s man? Only Jacob would think of making me do such. I suppose he still thinks of me as the Evan he knew back in college.
Most of my friends in Charlestown would think twice before approaching me with such. I was no longer the ‘Evan Sterling’ Jacob knew. I’m afraid he will find out soon enough.
I drove inside the Sterling Estate and I found myself automatically tensing up. This place used to be my haven. And now the very thought of gracing the gates makes me almost physically sick. I forced myself to face the front, not wanting to glance left or right with the fear of what it might trigger in me. I wondered why the old man asked me to come here. He must know I hate the place.
Parking in front of the English-style stately mansion, I killed the engine and pushed the door open jerkily. Marching up the front porch to the front double door. A footman at the door, upon sighting me, pulled the door open.
“Welcome, Mr. Sterling,” he greeted.
“Evan,” I corrected automatically, and patted the older man on the shoulders before walking through the door, and emerging into the double-floor grand foyer.
I balled my fist by my side and marched stiffly towards the twin stairs flanking another flight of stairs that descended to my father's study and the visitors’ receiving room.
Framing the stairs' landing was a floor-to-ceiling French window, showing the view of a portion of the expansive mansion grounds with its endless green lawns and flower beds. The sky was already darkening and the garden lights illuminated the well-tended grounds, exhuming some deep memories from me.
I quickly jerked my eyes away from the view as memory began to form and shook my head again. Exhaling hard, I knocked on the door to the right, waited for my father’s familiar voice to ask me to enter before pushing the door open.
“There he is! My boy!” Edward Sterling said, getting up from the sitting area to the left of the room. At a glance, I couldn’t help but notice he had gained weight since the last time I saw him. Which was a while. I make it a point to avoid him like the plague. If there was anything I hated more than visiting my childhood home, seeing him would be top of the list. We used to have similar frames but I was a head taller than him. And thankfully that was all I got from him. Otherwise, I would seriously hate looking in the mirror and having the same bloody gray eyes staring back at me.
He walked towards me and I knew he would want to touch or hug me and I would rather keel over and die before I let that happen. Before he could get to my spot, I slipped my hands in my pocket and nodded a greeting to the other man in the room and walked away to stand by my father’s bookshelf pretending to be interested in the collection that I could recite in my dream, completely ignoring my father.
“Why am I here?” I said, turning around to look pointedly at the other man. He was one of my father’s friends and his property was down the road from ours. I could use the same description for almost all the Charlestown elites. They were almost like a community of cultists run by ten major families and if you are not a direct descendant of any of them, choosing to live in the area would be near impossible. I could say I was the only Sterling who chose to break the status quo to my father’s dismay.
“Straight to business, I see,” the man said, flashing a smile, and I just stared, steely, back at him until the smile disappeared from his face and he began to squirm on his feet. Compared to my father, the man was short, his height couldn’t be more than 5 feet 7 inches. I suppose his full, ginger-colored mustache was supposed to make up for the lack of hair on his scalp, otherwise, I have no idea why someone would choose to keep such bushy upper lip hair in this century.
“Mr. Anderson here is the head of—-” My father started to say.
“I know who he is, I only asked why I am here?” I said again, cutting the introduction. In the corner of my eye, I could see my father bristling at the tone of my voice and my rude question, but I really didn’t care.
“Alright then… he showed me an interesting estate development proposal that he would like us to invest in. A fully serviced condominium would be quite remarkable in Charlestown. Especially with the community college planning to take on executive programs for company CEOs both local and international. Perhaps it would be the move we need to lure more investors to Charlestown…but I’m surprised to see you strike it out as not viable. I told him that must be a mistake—”
“I saw the proposal, and I already gave Mr. Anderson my reply,” I said and pointedly checked my time. “Would that be all I have a plane to catch?” I added, impatiently.
I knew I was being a bastard, but I seriously can’t be in the same room with my father for more than ten minutes without wanting to kill him. I need to get this over and leave.
“I was hoping your father could influence your decision—” the other man said, looking a tad taken aback. I supposed his planned intervention wasn’t going his way. If only he knew he had just severed himself from every future opportunity with my institution.
“Edward Sterling doesn't run or own Evan Sterling Banks and Industries. And if you have done your homework very well, you will know that I don’t allow sentiments to impact my business decisions. I refused to fund your business proposal because there are lapses and consequences I could not afford. I assure you if I had thought it a perfect fit with Evan Sterling Bank's Vision, I would have signed it immediately.”
“Um… Anderson, could you please give me and my son a moment, please,” my father said. Ringing for a maid to take the other man to the visitors’ waiting room. The man looked a little lost. I’m certain he knows he could have approached another investment bank other than mine, but mine has the resources he needed with the expertise to undertake such a heavy project in no time, and take it on in full force. But I haven’t driven myself like a mad man these past years to attain the level the company was at the moment to let some sentiment and greed put me and my team in a bad light.
Once the door closed behind them, leaving me alone with my father, he said, “You know it is rather rude to pointedly ignore me in front of a visitor.”
“My apologies, I thought it unnecessary for forced sentiments,” I said, looking him straight in the eye, something I knew he hated and considered an act of disregard.
“Did you really refuse him for all that nonsense you just spewed or did you do it just to spite me?”
“Don't flatter yourself, Edward Sterling,” I said, noting how calling him by his real name made him grow red in the face with anger. “I don’t do business like you. I make sure I never do business like you. The land he is planning to use for his proposed estate is already occupied by low-income earners. Partnering up in such a project will bring a lot of headlights on the company, and angry people, a lot of angry people—”
“And since when has that been a problem?”
“Since a particular Sterling decided to do an under the table business with a drug lord, and got himself involved in money laundry which I had spent the last years burying, and making sure it stays buried to keep my mother’s family legacy and your fucking family name clean with my very own blood!” I snapped.
I saw him blanch for about a minute, looking away, and then he reverted his gaze to meet mine and said, “Is that really the problem, Evan? Or you just hate me for making you lose her?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. And if you are done wasting my time, I will take my leave,” I said, walking briskly to the door as if I couldn’t wait to escape him and the memory he was trying to provoke inside me.
“I am sorry, Evan, I thought I was doing the right thing—”
“Goodbye, Edward,” I said, pulling the door open. And if not for the fact that I knew the house was swimming with servants, I would have run. But I forced myself to hold my head high and strode out of my childhood house of nightmares. I even stopped to exchange pleasantries with the footman before slipping behind the wheel of my car.
I didn’t know I was holding my breath until I drove out of the estate. I gripped the steering so hard my knuckles turned white. Letting out a shaky breath, I felt my eyes blur with tears. I shook my head sharply like a bloody junkie and took calming breaths. ‘I will not let him drag me back to that memory lane. I have survived thus far and I will continue to do so till I draw my last fucking breath,’ I thought with determination.
A few minutes later, I was already on the tarmac. I checked my time as soon as I settled inside my Jet, and let out a sigh of relief, then groaned when my phone rang with an incoming video call.
“Yes?” I said, arching a highbrow at the idiot.
“Good, you made it. Do I need to put a tracker on your phone?” Jacob said and I couldn’t help laughing. He was relentless. I gave him that.
“See you soon, fool,” I said fondly as he laughed. I ended the call. The smile wiped off my face immediately. Pressing a button on my armrest to summon one of the waitresses, I sat back and powered my tablet to find some pending work to occupy myself with.
“Yes, Mr. Sterling?”
“Evan!” I snapped, raising a stony gaze at the brunette, she grew red in the face and mumbled an apology. “Get me a bottle of brandy,” I said dismissively, returning my attention to the tablet screen. In no time, I got lost with work and managed to eat what the waitress served without being cognizant of where I was.
My work tends to do that for me. I love working with numbers. It has the ability to make me shut out everything and immerse myself in it for hours. So, when the pilot announced we had reached New York hours later, I was a bit taken aback. Checking my time again, I saw it was already 12 midnight. I sat back, feeling a bit tired. It’s been quite a day. I rubbed my eyes as the plane made its descent.
I chuckled to myself when I exited the jet and found two drivers waiting for me. One was the one I arranged from my New York office, the other was from Jacob. And as soon as my feet touched the asphalt floor, his call came in again.
“You are beginning to worry me, Jacob,” I said in exasperation, and he roared in laughter.
“Let my driver take you to the hotel and send yours home. I told you I'd got you covered!”
“Alright, see you in a bit,” I said in resignation. My driver was already packing my stuff in the boot of the Jeep he came with, and I signaled to him to follow the Bentley Jacob sent. I thought it best to have my own driver at my disposal in case I needed to get away earlier than planned.
“Welcome to New York, sir,” the chauffeur greeted me, and I nodded politely, slipping into the car. I chuckled when I saw an unopened bottle of brandy tucked on my side of the seat with the tag, ‘for Even’ dangling on its neck. I felt a tad bad that he had to try so hard to make me attend his wedding. I decided then I was going to try and enjoy whatever he had planned. Even though it's been a while since I found anything enjoyable. A pang of profound sadness filled me inside.
