Chapter 18: A Small Inconvenience

Ugh...

The city went dark.

Really, the timing couldn’t have been better.

He needed a few days away from the city.

More importantly, he needed some time away from all the prying eyes.

Alex’s condominium building sat right in the middle of the commercial district, close enough to Vance Holdings that on a good day, getting to the office barely counted as a commute. The building had backup generators, of course, but Alex had never particularly enjoyed relying on an elevator whenever the city’s power supply became uncertain.

Then again, he liked the alternative of climbing several flights of stairs to reach the penthouse even less.

It was one of the few drawbacks of living there.

For most of the year, the condo suited Alex perfectly. It was comfortable, secure, ridiculously convenient for work, and required very little attention from someone who spent more waking hours at the office than he probably should.

The villa had been meant for something else entirely.

Larger, quieter, and recently renovated with married life in mind, it was the sort of place meant to be properly lived in rather than somewhere Alex returned to after work simply because he needed a bed.

And then there was the ancestral home.

Fortunately, Alex had already planned to spend the weekend there.

It sat far enough beyond the densest parts of the city that nights actually became dark when the sun went down. The air stayed cooler, the roads were quieter, and instead of music occasionally finding its way through neighboring buildings, there were mostly the sounds of insects, rustling trees, and whatever else had apparently decided nighttime was the perfect opportunity to become unbearably loud.

For someone accustomed to the city, it could almost feel too quiet.

His father seemed to like it that way.

Alex supposed retirement did strange things to people.

Although, if he were being fair, he could understand some of the appeal.

There was a different kind of privacy here.

The Vances had longtime household staff who’d been around long enough that Alex barely thought of them as strangers, and the property itself was large enough that he could walk outside without immediately wondering who might recognize him.

He could wander through the garden. Sit beneath one of the old trees. Take a walk without security subtly reminding him that someone nearby had been staring for too long.

No alarm told him it was time to get up, no traffic dictated when he needed to leave, and no office building several blocks away reminded him he could technically start working whenever he wanted.

His condo had never really been a home designed for entertaining anyway.

He rarely drank outside business functions.

He didn’t throw parties.

It was a bachelor’s pad in almost every sense, complete with a man cave Alex had initially thought sounded like a fantastic idea until he discovered he wasn’t particularly interested in doing most of the things people apparently did in one.

He’d learned that lesson fairly early.

Not long after Alex began taking on greater responsibilities at Vance Holdings, his team won a particularly difficult bid. The employees involved had immediately decided this deserved a celebration and, somehow, someone suggested holding it in Alex’s man cave.

Alex, still learning the ropes and wanting to be a reasonably approachable boss, had agreed.

There would be food, a few cocktails, and maybe some music.

Simple enough.

Several hours later, the music could probably be heard three floors down, someone had broken a lamp, and two employees who’d apparently been carrying a grudge against each other decided that Alex’s living room was the perfect place to settle it finally.

Building security eventually had to come upstairs to separate them.

Alex never volunteered his man cave again.

Unfortunately, he’d apparently needed a second lesson.

The condominium also had a private swimming pool available to residents, and another successful project eventually led to a request for an afternoon pool party.

Alex agreed.

Again.

That one ended with an employee being pulled unconscious from the water.

Thankfully, another team member had undergone lifesaving training and knew exactly what to do until medical assistance arrived.

The employee recovered.

Lucky bastard.

Alex considered himself educated after that.

He rarely drank outside business functions. He didn’t throw parties, and he’d discovered that allowing employees access to anything involving alcohol or large bodies of water was apparently asking the universe to test Vance Holdings’ insurance coverage.

Most nights, his idea of enjoying all that expensive space involved putting on a movie, finding his favorite snack, and occupying as much of the couch as humanly possible.

Very sophisticated.

There were times when Alex even missed something as mundane as walking through a grocery store and deciding what he wanted for himself. These days, doing that without someone recognizing him, taking a picture, or wondering why Alexander Vance was standing in front of a shelf comparing two brands of chips had become increasingly difficult.

Which was ridiculous.

He had enough money to have practically anything delivered to his door. Yet, apparently, one of the things money couldn’t conveniently buy was the ability to go somewhere ordinary and remain ordinary while doing it.

Here, at least, he could walk outside without feeling like Alexander Vance, CEO of Vance Holdings, had come along with him.

Sometimes he could simply be Alex.

Maybe his father wasn’t so strange after all.

Another distant section of the city went dark.

Alex glanced toward the window.

Then, almost involuntarily, his gaze shifted toward the elevator.

There was one other thing he’d never particularly liked about living this high up.

Alex was afraid of the dark.

Not the childish sort where he imagined something waiting beneath the bed. Complete darkness simply made him uneasy, and the thought of being trapped inside a stalled elevator during a power interruption was considerably worse.

No one knew that.

Not his father.

Not Dominic.

Certainly not the employees who watched their CEO step into that elevator nearly every morning without a second thought.

And Alex intended to keep it that way.

Still, he’d lived in the condo for years despite it.

Because for every ridiculous party, inconvenient blackout, and elevator ride he’d rather not think too deeply about, the place gave him something he’d valued even more throughout most of his career.

Time.

Vance Holdings was minutes away. Security was excellent. Everything he needed could be delivered, maintained, repaired, or handled without Alex having to think about it.

For a CEO who routinely worked too late and returned home mostly to shower, eat, and sleep, practicality had always won.

The ancestral home was where Alex could slow down.

The condo was where his life worked.

And until recently, Alex hadn’t really questioned whether those two things should be the same.