No Returns (The Blankenships Book 6) by Evelyn Glass Page A

word.”
     
    Sophia nodded and then pulled her brusque manner back over her shoulders like a shroud. “Coffee, then. Anything else? Eggs?”
     
    “If you don’t mind,” he said.
     
    “Not at all.”
     
    He found his phone and flipped through his much neglected social media channels. He had PR people who took care of his public accounts and AEGIS’s interactions, but he liked to follow them anyway, to make sure that things were being handled well. And then there were his private channels flooded with good wishes from people who’d been at the funeral, people who hadn’t, and people who started their messages with “I’m so sorry for your loss,” but then worked their way around to asking for a job, a contract, or some other sort of favor. Yesterday, he would have smashed his phone in frustration at the implicit disrespect in the action. Today, he just deleted the messages and moved on.
     
    Sophia brought him waffles and coffee, and he found that he was quite right about the state of his stomach. He ate until he ached, and then took a second cup of coffee into his office.
     
    It was a strange experience, walking into that room. He’d known that he was letting it be turned into his walking casket and known he was letting the work swallow him whole, but he hadn’t had any idea what to do with the pain and brutal rushes of emotion that had been threatening to subsume him. What had shocked him so much last night was how Leo and Zoey together had managed to pull him out of that place together in a way that neither of them would have ever been able to alone. He wasn’t polyamorous in the sense of wanting to build romantic relationships with more than one person at a time, and last night’s episode felt like an especially kinky and delightful sexual episode, but he’d never felt more loved by two of the people he cared about most in the world. And that was something. It was quite a lot, in fact.
     
    He picked up his phone and called Brianna. She answered on the second ring. “How’s it going, boss?” Her voice was trepidatious. “I heard about your sister.”
     
    The gut punch of agony passed after a moment. “Thank you,” he said to the apology in her tone. “The thing that frightened you?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “It’s settled.”
     
    “Will you forgive me if I say it’s too late? I don’t—” There was a big swallow of air, and then a quiet sigh. “If it were just you, I’d come back. But my son—”
     
    “I understand,” he said. “I’ll make sure your salary is paid through the end of the month, and give my personal cell to anyone who needs a reference, all right?”
     
    They exchanged pleasantries for a few moments more, but it was the winding down of a professional relationship, not a personal loss. He let himself check out of the moment and didn’t let it dig into his heart.
     
    After the call, he sat at that big desk, spinning slightly back and forth in the big leather chair, thinking about the man who should have been a father to him. Philip had been a shockingly astute businessman, but he’d been a horrible person. Alex had planned to take a middle road between those two positions, but he couldn’t help but feel that he was being shoved into Philip’s path again and again. If that were true, if that was really the only choice he had, he knew in his heart that he’d rather walk away from the whole thing.
     
    He pulled open a drawer to his desk, pulling out the old man’s desk planner. Flipping through it, every meeting was detailed, and every meeting was work related. Every evening function had something to do with AEGIS. Even his various mistresses had been about building better relationships for his company, giving his company an edge. Making AEGIS more competitive, helping it stand above its competition, and building more divisions, more departments. Expanding its reach.
     
    In some ways, Alex wondered how much of it was about making sure that Philip never again