Chapter 20: Stay Another Day

The conversation over dinner gradually moved away from Dominic.

Alejandro was the first to change the subject.

"So..."

Alex immediately became suspicious.

"I heard Mercer Group reached out."

"News travels fast."

"It usually does when two companies spend a decade pretending they’ll never work together."

A faint smile appeared on Alex’s face.

"It was Giovanni."

Alejandro paused.

"Our Giovanni?"

Alex laughed softly.

"Yes, your future son-in-law."

Alejandro choked on his own saliva.

"What did you say?"

"I asked him to marry me."

"You did not just do that."

"We’re engaged."

Alejandro ignored that admission.

"I still remember the two of you riding bicycles around the neighborhood."

"And Dominic."

"The three of you," Alejandro corrected.

Alex nodded.

"The three of us."

Alejandro leaned back in his chair.

"The Mercers always had ambition. When Giovanni’s father sold their house, everyone thought he’d lost his mind."

"They invested everything."

"And look what became of it."

Mercer Group.

What had begun as one family’s enormous gamble had grown into one of the country’s strongest business groups.

Alejandro’s expression softened.

"His father would’ve been proud of what Giovanni accomplished."

Alex nodded quietly.

"I’m sure he would’ve."

Alejandro studied his son for a moment.

"How is he?"

"The same as ever."

"Meaning?"

Alex smiled.

"Quiet. Observant. Still says only what matters."

Alejandro laughed.

"So... completely different from you."

"Dad."

"I’m serious. You used to come home talking enough for both of you."

Alex couldn’t help laughing.

The sound surprised even him.

Alejandro noticed.

He said nothing about it, but somewhere in the privacy of his own thoughts, he found himself grateful to Giovanni Mercer.

Whatever kind of man the boy from their old neighborhood had grown into, he’d somehow managed to support Alex in the worst time of his life.

"Bring him with you next time."

Alex looked up.

"Of course, after we tie the knot."

"You’re serious."

"I am."

The grandfather clock chimed later that evening.

The Vance ancestral home had always possessed a strange way of slowing time.

Unlike the city, where every minute seemed to demand something from him, life here unfolded at its own pace.

Alexander ended up staying for the entire weekend.

Nobody questioned it, and no one asked when he intended to return to the office.

For once, being the CEO of Vance Holdings wasn’t his only identity.

He was simply a son who had come home.

Later that night, he wandered into the music room, where so many of the family’s happier memories had been made.

The grand piano stood exactly where it always had.

Alex ran his fingertips lightly across the familiar keys before taking a seat.

The first few notes came hesitantly.

Then another followed.

And another.

Soon, a familiar melody drifted through the old house.

It wasn’t a performance. No audience waited beyond the doorway, and no one worried about whether he missed a note.

It was simply music.

Something he’d neglected ever since taking over the company.

Several rooms away, Alejandro lowered the book in his hands when the melody reached the study.

He didn’t interrupt.

He merely smiled and continued listening.

The following morning began with a slight hiccup.

Alejandro reached for the milk without thinking and poured some into Alex’s coffee.

Alex stared at the cup.

Then at his father.

Alejandro followed his gaze.

"...I forgot. You always drink it black."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

"No worries. I’ll survive."

Breakfast was served on the veranda overlooking the cornfields and barns.

Fresh bread, eggs, bacon, and apples picked from the orchard behind the house filled the table.

Simple food somehow tasted better there.

As a boy, Alex used to race across those same fields before breakfast.

Sometimes Dominic won.

More often...

Giovanni did.

Not because he was faster.

The bastard simply knew every shortcut.

Alex smiled faintly into his coffee.

Even back then, Giovanni had approached everything differently.

After breakfast, father and son saddled two horses and rode toward the river bordering the estate.

The trail remained almost unchanged despite the passing years.

There had once been three horses.

Three boys.

The same destination every summer, where they’d compete over who could throw a stone the farthest, who could catch a fish with their bare hands, and who dared to jump naked into the river first.

Dominic usually complained that the water was too cold.

Giovanni never complained.

He simply jumped.

Alex inevitably followed.

The memory made him laugh under his breath.

"What?" Alejandro asked from the horse beside him.

"Nothing."

His father gave him a look that clearly said he didn’t believe him.

Alex only urged his horse forward.

Looking back now, perhaps adulthood hadn’t changed the three of them as much as he’d once believed.

It had merely given the same boys much bigger things to win and lose.

On his last evening, a small campfire crackled near the porch.

The Vance estate sat far enough from the city that the stars still seemed endless.

Alejandro poured two cups of black coffee.

This time, he remembered.

"No phone tonight?"

Alex looked at the device resting beside him.

The screen was crowded with unread notifications.

Media requests.

Business updates.

Messages he could answer tomorrow.

Without another word, he switched it off.

Alejandro nodded approvingly.

"There you are."

Alex looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"The boy who used to insist the full moon was following him everywhere."

For the first time in what felt like forever, Alexander laughed without restraint.

"True."

"And the same boy who believed that if he swallowed an apple seed, an apple tree would grow inside him."

Alex pointed accusingly at his father.

"Because someone told me it would."

"I never said it."

"You didn’t correct it either."

"You stopped swallowing apple seeds."

"So your solution to bad information was to let me live in fear?"

"It worked."

Alex stared at him for all of two seconds before both men started laughing again.

The fire crackled between them as the night grew cooler.

Eventually, Alejandro leaned back in his chair and looked toward the old house.

"Stay another day."

Alex smiled.

"I have work Monday."

"You’re the CEO."

"Which is exactly why I have work Monday."

His father grumbled something under his breath.

Alex pretended not to hear it.

For a while longer, they simply sat there beneath the open sky.

Tomorrow, he would return to the city.

The contracts would still be waiting.

So would the lawyers, the Board, Mercer Group’s proposals, and whatever Andrei Sebastian intended to do next.

But those belonged to tomorrow.

Tonight, Alexander finished his coffee beside his father while the fire slowly burned down.

Then Alejandro casually asked,

"So, when are you bringing Giovanni?"

Alex nearly choked on his last sip.