But not anymore.
Smooth as could be, the car made the turn onto Sixth Avenue, and he worked his jaw, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. Closing his eyes, he ran through his talking points in his mind.
It was his first time entering the lion’s den on his own, and that alone made his pulse beat faster. If his father were here, he’d be drilling Rylan, checking with him over and over that he understood the plan. Rylan would’ve stared out the window as he nodded, silently stewing all the while.
He’d put in the time. Earned the degree his father had demanded of him, worked the long hours and sacrificed everything else. The least he could ask was to be trusted to know how to do his job.
There was no one telling him he had to be here now. Well. There’d been Lexie’s entreaties and the board’s demands, but at the end of the day, this was Rylan’s decision.
The first one he’d made about his life in so long.
At last, the car slowed, and he took a deep breath, opening his eyes. There it was. Bellamy International. His goddamn name in big red letters on the side of a hundred-story building, and it made something squeeze in his chest.
No matter how much his father had ruined, this remained. It bore his name, so it was his.
It was well past time he acted like it.
As the driver came around to get the door, Rylan checked his watch. Five minutes to spare. Exactly as he’d planned.
Grabbing Lexie’s briefcase, he adjusted his tie and his cuff links. Did up the button on the jacket of his suit.
Showtime. The door swung open. And he stepped out onto the sidewalk not just Rylan, but Theodore R. Bellamy III. And like it or not, he was home.
The whispers started before he’d made it halfway across the lobby. Tightening his grip on Lexie’s briefcase, he ate up the marble-tiled space with long, measured strides, gaze forward. He recognized one of the girls at the visitors’ desk and gave her a nod, holding a finger to his lips when she did a double take and reached for the phone. He didn’t need to be greeted, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be announced. She narrowed her eyes at him but moved her hand away from the receiver. Good girl.
At the executive elevator, he got a whole different sort of a look from the operator. “Mr. Bellamy. We weren’t expecting you today.”
He raised a brow and stepped into the waiting elevator car. “Good to see you, too, Marcus.”
“Didn’t say it wasn’t good to see you, sir.” Marcus pressed the button to close the doors. His reflection in the mirror smiled. “Just didn’t know I’d get the pleasure.”
“Ninety-fifth floor, if you would.”
“Sure thing.”
Rylan’s ears finally popped around floor eighty-two. When the doors slid open, he gave Marcus a salute. He waited until the elevator was gone before turning around to face the hall.
Because if he hadn’t, he might’ve stepped right back into that car.
Jesus, but it was his dad’s tastes personified. Red carpet and dark wood and all the little tricks he swore reminded your visitors that they were on your turf now.
It was the furthest thing from home Rylan could imagine. But considering the closest he’d gotten to having one in the last ten years had been a tiny hotel room on a bread-scented rue in Paris, maybe that wasn’t saying much.
Squaring his shoulders, he took the first step forward.
By the time he reached the conference room, it was two p.m. on the dot. The door stood all but closed, just a crack of space revealing the room within. Silently, he nudged it wider and peeked inside.
The scene was familiar enough. Spread out around the giant oak table were men old enough to be his father. There, at the head, was that bastard McConnell. Meanwhile, Thomas had been relegated to a seat maybe two-thirds of the way down. Rylan noted a half dozen other friendly faces and a couple of new ones. More than a couple of unfriendly ones, too. He cast his gaze wider, taking in the rest of the room. Behind the board members, in chairs pulled up to but not quite at the table, were their bevy of secretaries and PAs, and—
And Rylan had always known it looked bad. But in the past, he’d been at the table himself, not looking in.
Not seeing his crazy, fierce-as-hell sister sitting all alone in the corner of the room, lacking even an old white guy of her own to justify her presence there.
A nonvoting member. That was the status Lexie had been relegated to. The shortsighted assholes. The day she came of age or Rylan figured out a way to work around the charter to get her a spot on the board, they were going to be wishing they’d never pissed her off. Because she was going to own them.
Literally.
Only . . . only, she didn’t look entirely her imperious self right now. Rylan tilted his head to the side, watching. Her gaze went from her notes to the head of the table, then to the clock and back again. Her chin was lifted high, her posture straight, because she wasn’t giving an inch of ground, oh no. But there was something resigned about her. Not even disappointed, but like disappointment were a foregone conclusion. Like she’d already been disappointed so many times before.
But today, she wouldn’t be. At least not by him.
Up at the front of the room, McConnell cleared his throat. “What do you say, gentlemen? Time we got started?”
That was probably Rylan’s cue to make his presence known, but he smirked as he leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. Biding his time. Never let it be said he didn’t know how to make an entrance.
“Let’s come to order then. Let the record show that this meeting of the board of directors of Bellamy International began at 2:02. Members in attendance include . . .” McConnell rattled off the names of all the gray-haireds at the table. He swept his gaze around the room, purposely passing Lexie over. “Is there a representative of the Bellamy family?”
And there it was. He paused to the count of three, just long enough for Lex to grit her teeth and open her mouth. But before she could get the first word out, Rylan pushed the door open.
“Why yes, there is.” He projected his voice across the room as he swept into it. A dozen heads swung around to gawk at him, and he took them all in at once. Caught the split-second of surprise on McConnell’s face before he schooled his expression. Caught Lexie’s grimace turning into what was, for her, in this room, the closest thing to a shit-eating grin Rylan had ever seen. “Two of them, actually,” he said, raising a hand in greeting to her. “Hey, sis.”
She nodded back, eyes triumphant but smile restrained. “Theodore.”
Ugh. He’d get her back for that later.
Putting a little extra swagger in his step, he headed straight for the front of the room, lifting an eyebrow at the guy who’d been presumptive enough to sit in his seat. The dude went red in the face, a battle clearly going on inside him about whether or not to budge. Thomas added the weight of his stare, and the chair-stealer finally caved. Leaving his PA to pick up his stuff, he scooted a few feet down, and Rylan dropped himself into the open spot.
Opening the briefcase, he pulled out a folder and set it on the table.
Ever since the day his father’d been led away in handcuffs, Rylan had been fighting who he was and where he came from, afraid he’d gone too far in becoming the man his father had wanted him to be. Into a copy of himself. But in that moment, there at that table, he remembered. The rush of it washed over him. He was good at this. He’d trained at it all his life.
He let the energy of confrontation fill him up, and then he banked it. With his posture that of a man completely at his leisure, he leaned back in his chair, twirling his pen and nodding along as McConnell fought to recover his balance and start working his way through the agenda. One by one, the other board members got over his unexpected appearance in their midst.