“YOUR management of the London entertainment conglomerate is going well. The KPI statistics for the second quarter’s sales are very good.” Alexander De Vere stood behind his desk in his fourteenth-floor office in the center of London, perusing the management reports. He turned away from the spectacular view out of his window to face the younger man sitting in a chair opposite.
Red raised an eyebrow. “Better than the first quarter. Better than last year.”
Alexander nodded. “And yes, as you imply, that’s more than many of my executives can achieve. Even if I’d expect nothing less from your intelligence and acumen, Richard, I do appreciate what you do for the family business.”
Here it comes, Red thought glumly.
“For God’s sake, don’t pull that face, son. You look all of twelve years old again.”
Red looked up at his father, startled. “I’m sorry?”
“Ah, but that’s where the problem arises, isn’t it? Every time.” His father sighed. He had the same handsome features as Red, the strong jaw and straight nose, the same bright gray eyes. Most people saw the family resemblance when the two men were together. Otherwise, Alexander De Vere’s figure was stockier, befitting his age, and Red had inherited high, sharp cheekbones from his mother. Alexander’s hair had darkened and thinned over the years, where Red’s hair followed the golden thickness of his mother’s. Of course, Red knew she discreetly enhanced the color of hers nowadays, even though she had left her high-profile modeling career many years ago to marry into and support the De Vere family.
“Join me in a drink, Richard.” Alexander walked around the desk and gestured to a couple of armchairs in the far corner of his office. There was a small drinks cabinet there, a coffee machine, and a vase of fresh flowers. Red waited a moment, then stood up and followed him. He accepted a glass of cognac without any further comment—his father knew his preferences well—and then settled in one of the chairs. Alexander took the other.
“So.” Red broke the silence at last. “Let’s get this over with.”
Alexander slowly rocked his own glass of spirit. “You knew I’d need to talk to you about it.”
“The embassy event? Yes, of course. And you know the public furor was neither my intention nor my fault.”
Alexander gazed at his son for a moment. “Like the coronation robes party-wear fiasco? Like the spoof you ran of the De Vere boardroom at last year’s Comic Relief event?”
Red tried to hide his shock. He didn’t think his father had watched the “You’re Fired!” sketch. Alexander rarely watched any TV apart from world financial news. Good God, had his father finally ventured into the satanic depths of YouTube?
“It’s all just a joke, Father. I need to let off steam once in a while. The sketch was intended to be amusin’, not disrespectful. I think most people can tell the difference.”
“I know you can,” Alexander said. “I know you need entertainment, to give and receive it. I also know you’re far more mature and sensible than your populist fan club give you credit for.”
For the first time, Red felt truly uncomfortable. His relationship with his father had always been warm, but distant. Red had spent more time with his mother, and formed a closer bond with her. And since they’d begun working together, Alexander had pressed and challenged him as an authority figure more fiercely than ever before. But every now and then, his father’s strict hand seemed to slip into something more compassionate. How weird, Red thought wryly, that he was more disturbed by his father’s understanding than his scorn. “What did you mean by, ‘that’s where the problem arises’?” he said.
“The problem,” Alexander replied slowly, “is not that you need to apologize for your entertainment when it backfires, but that you genuinely mean it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“That you know better.” Alexander’s tone sharpened. “You play around, Richard, just for the hell of it. You know you’re capable of better, you know you don’t really need the attention, you know you’re wasting your talents. You party harder than you work—”
“You think I should devote more time to work than leisure, like you?”
“I’m talking about balance!” Alexander snapped back. It was a familiar topic for their disagreements. “You think I didn’t play in my own youth? That I didn’t attract bad press, that I didn’t take things to excess—that my own father didn’t thrash me many times for stepping out of line?”
Red was silenced. He’d never known his grandfather, who died several years before he was born. The old man’s bloodline was narrowly but incontrovertibly linked to the English royal family. Alexander now held the title, though he never used it, and Red would inherit it from him. And there, Red thought rather soberly, it would probably lapse. He definitely had no plans to have children. Red didn’t consider himself one of those young people who think their parents sprang fully formed and mature from the womb—his mother had told him enough about her unruly days as a glamour model in the early 1980s for him to know that wasn’t true—but it was difficult to think of his straitlaced father as a rabble-rouser.
“My father was successful too, though I never had the money and opportunities that you have had. I never traveled, like you’ve done with your mother. The many social doors were never as open to me as they are to you. But I was also never in the public eye as much as the whole family is now.”
“Good and bad,” Red said. His voice sounded quieter than he’d expected.
His father nodded slowly. “Yes, there’s good and bad in all.” He turned his shrewd gaze on Red. “Can you honestly say that life’s always good for you?”
Red felt the defiant “yes” rise to the surface, but at the last minute he bit it back. “No,” he said, with a burst of honesty that he’d have rather kept hidden. But there’d been times recently when he’d asked himself the same question: when he was alone at the end of an evening with no interest in any of the men who’d been fawning over him; when his taste for parties and champagne left a sour taste in his mouth; when he was more worried about a young girl throwing up on him at a banquet than he was about appearing in candid shots in the press.
“You have talent and charisma, but it seems to me that you waste so much of it through your games and extravagance.” Alexander’s voice wavered, though he recovered quickly. “It’s hard to watch. It’s… Richard, it’s painful.”
“I never meant… that’s not why I do what I do.” Why was it suddenly so difficult to express himself? He was humorous and quick-witted and never at a loss for the right words. Usually. Red watched the way his father’s head tilted to the side as he took a deep breath. It was a gesture Red knew he made himself.
“I know, believe me.” Alexander sighed. “And you’re approaching thirty, you don’t need to answer to us any longer, at least not for your social life. Your mother and I just worry….” He paused, and shook his head as if discarding the thought.
Red felt his gut tighten with anticipation. “About what?”
“It’s not important at the moment.”
“It may be to me.” Red clipped his words in imitation of his father’s tone. “Please continue.”
“We want you to find some comfort and support. Some peace. We’d like to see you settle down someday with your own business, with a partner. Maybe children.”
Red stared at him. “You do remember I’m gay?”
“You do remember I’m an intelligent adult?” Alexander snapped back.
Red flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anythin’ else. You’ve always accepted me, I appreciate that. It just sounded….” But he knew the defensiveness came from inside him, not from anything his father had said. “Is this to do with inheritin’ the title? Carryin’ on the family line?”
Alexander gave a brief, wry smile. “No, it’s not. I’m not a staunch supporter of hereditary privilege, as you may have guessed over the years. I’ll protect and maintain the name while I have it, but there’s no obligation on you. You may find it useful, and I’ll uphold your rights to that. But I realize….”
“I live in a different world now?”
Alexander nodded and sipped his cognac. “I know you will choose your own partners, Richard, in your own way. You always have. But surely that doesn’t preclude a more settled future? There is equal legal status for same-sex marriages now. And even if you choose not to follow social convention, you may still have the desire for monogamous company. For parenthood.”
Red smiled ruefully. His father always grew more pompous when he was avoiding emotional words. “For love, you really mean?”
Alexander flushed, but to Red’s surprise, he held his son’s gaze. “Yes. That is what I mean. Your mother and I may not seem to spend much time together, but the years have been rewarding for us as a partnership. It’s brought us what we both wanted. Everyone seeks love, surely? But in your case, I’m not sure you’re looking in the right places. You and I may not have agreed on parenting over the years, but I still….” He paused again. “You deserve that too.”
Red bit his lip to hold back the grin. “Love you too, Dad.”
Alexander scowled and shook his head.
“I’ve always enjoyed datin’,” Red said. It was true, even if he had slowed down considerably recently. “It’s a challenge.” He wondered if it were one of the few real ones he had. His work was entertaining and diverting, but it was only when he was with other people that he felt the thrill of the unknown. At least, that’s how it was with some people….
“You date as if it’s an Olympic sport,” Alexander said drily. “Even with the number of medals you must have to your name by now, it’s fairly obvious the day hasn’t yet arrived for you to cut back on training.”
Red laughed, and his father smiled back. They both took a comforting sip of their drinks.
“I gather you’re due at the Soho Business Achievement Awards tomorrow night?” Alexander said.
“Yes, as Miles’s guest. His company is sponsorin’ the artistic design category.”
“Miles Winter is a good man, like his father was. He’s always been a steadying influence.” He obviously saw Red stir in his seat because he hurried on, “You take offense too easily, son. I didn’t mean that as a criticism. The two of you have been good friends for years, and I’ve been glad of that. The business ventures you’ve entered into with him have done well, you have complementary skills. Maybe he doesn’t spend as much time with you now—”
“Because of his settlin’ down?” Red interrupted mischievously.
It was Alexander’s turn to laugh. “With Zeke Roswell as his lover, I doubt that will ever be the case.”
Red was startled again, this time at his father’s frankness. “Miles and I have only ever been friends,” he said quickly. Why did he feel the need to share that with his father? Alexander had never wanted details of Red’s sex life, even if he accepted its overall enthusiasm. “We’ve never been lovers.” Even though Red had wanted that once, a long time ago.
“I never imagined you had,” Alexander said calmly. “And you’ve never looked to settle for someone like him, have you? No, your real needs are deeper, richer. Darker.”
Red was beyond trying to explain his father’s behavior today. It was unfamiliar, uncharacteristic, and plain weird. Even if he was right. Red put his glass on the small side table and placed his hands on the arms of the chair, ready to stand up and leave.
“I think you should take some time off,” his father said abruptly.
“What?”
“Look on it as a sabbatical.”
Red leaped to his feet. “You’re firin’ me?”
Alexander gave a strange snort in the back of his throat. “Of course not, don’t be so melodramatic. But the conglomerate can cope for six months or so under Paul Sherwood’s direction, until you’re back.”
Red felt as if he’d been punched in the gut and smacked in the head, both at the same time. “Back from where? And… six months? Is this about the embassy thing? For God’s sake, I apologized to the ambassador, and—”
“Be quiet, Richard. It’s not about that at all. Well, not directly. I just think you need some time to rethink your life. And you need to step outside your current rollercoaster ways to consider what else should change.” He must have caught sight of Red’s stricken expression, because he frowned. “I have no intention of letting you spend six months in a state of pure partying, either. I want you to find other employment in the meantime. Some other project.”
“You mean like buildin’ a hospital-type project? Trackin’ the world with nothin’ but a backpack? Nursin’ sick animals?”
“Don’t be cheap.” Alexander stood as well and put a hand out to Red. “Look on this as an opportunity, not a punishment. A chance to look a little more deeply into what kind of man you are. Maybe you don’t want to work for the family all your life—maybe you have other ambitions. Other desires.”
“This is bizarre.” Red didn’t want to sound like a spoiled child, but he felt strangely abandoned. “Things are fine as they are.”
Alexander sighed. “Prove it. Use whatever resources you need from the company, but I don’t want you reporting for work until the six months is up. Speak to Fiona, speak to Miles. Ask how others see you.” He paused again and looked askance at his son. “I believe there are other people in your life now who also matter to you. Ask them too.”
“Other people?”
“Something your mother said. That recently, you seemed different to her—both calmer and wilder. She had no explanation except to suggest you’d found a new man.” Alexander waved a hand as if dismissing the idea. “That’s too simple an explanation, I told her.”
“Yes,” Red said sharply. “Indeed. Well, the decision appears to have been made already. By you both.” He took a few strides toward the door. His legs felt slightly unsteady.
“Red?”
Red stopped still in his tracks. Had his father just called him…?
“Keep in touch, son,” Alexander said. Red gave a curt nod and continued on to the exit. As he pushed out into the corridor, his father’s voice floated after him. “Remember, it’s an opportunity, not a punishment.”
Red shook his head as he called the lift to go back down to the lobby. He was still bemused as he emerged onto the street lit by the bright, busy sight of a morning in the city. He was far from convinced.