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“He didn’t want me to be self-centered like my dad”

She winced and pushed away her plate, and he realized she hadn’t taken a single bite

“My great-great-great…” He frowned “Maybe one or two rated from Norway in search of a better life He understood the value of hard work, and each generation has tried to instill that in the next My dad, you may or may not knoas not the family heir”

“No?” She pulled the glass toward herself again, then sat back and crossed her legs

The feet the past and think about the immediate future

“You were saying?”

Rafe prided himself on his ability to focus, yet Hope distracted him “My uncle—my dad’s brother—was killed in a car accident Since the terms of the family trust are clear—a woman can’t inherit, and a male must be married to become the heir—my father married my mother”

“And if you’re to succeed…”

“My cousin, Noah, is married” To a woman as as much of a social climber as he was “They have a couple of kids” That they had packed off to boarding school Rafe suspected neither of the parents “He’d like my father to step down from the CEO position And since Noah’s married with children, he thinks he deserves to fill the role He would begin to sell off most of our brands”

“Would that be bad?”

He’d considered that question “My great-grandfather was forced to do that around the time of the Great Depression in order to forestall bankruptcy As the extended faet out of debt and buy back the properties That was in the 1940s and early 50s He swore it wouldn’t happen again It wasn’t until thirty years ago that randfather was able to repurchase the Le Noble in New York” One of the chain’s croels, a five-diamond property near Grand Central Station

“I had high tea there once”