Page 10 of Our Radiant Embers

Adam’s forehead creased, pretty hazel eyes clouding over. Aesthetically, I couldn’t fault my drunken choices. “I wasn’t raised by wolves,” he said.

“Obviously.” I waved at our general surroundings before I stepped around him to look more closely at the Harrington model which sat on the desk. A week ago, I hadn’t studied its details because I’d been too focused on my own pitch. But now, miraculously, my family was in on this adventure—Christ, I still couldn’t quite believe it. The Green Horizon Initiative was sixteen sizes too big for us. I could only imagine the feathers it had ruffled in this house.

Golden feathers. The kind that would make peacocks look like mere peasants, each quill so meticulously groomed it could set up its own trust fund. Those kinds of feathers.

To exactly no one’s surprise, the Harrington model was far more elaborate than ours. At the centre, an exquisitely crafted replica of St Paul’s Cathedral stood, encircled by the three pilot areas that were artfully arranged in an equilateral triangle—apparently, geometry equated harmony and environmental wisdom. To be fair, the symbolism had been part of the Green Horizon Initiative brief. The Harringtons had done a far better job scaling things in a way that maintained the balance, though, while our triangle had taken a rather casual approach to symmetry.

Their park area was a miniature Eden, so lush and idyllic it qualified for the cover of a fantasy novel. Then there was the residential area, generous greenery interwoven with a clever collection of glass-centric modern homes. By contrast, it made our residential concept look like slightly improved Lego houses—I was an engineer, not an architect. Their business district was more glass, more greenery, all designed by people with a keen eye for detail and a knack for pleasing aesthetics.

“Taking notes on how the pros do it?” Adam asked acidly, drawing up beside me.

“Hardly.” I levelled him with a sidelong stare. “I mean, yes, your family has a flair for style—I’ll give you that. But your main energy source?” I indicated a distinctly phallic glass tower, part water sculpture and part vertical garden, meant to harness power from wind and rain. “Makes one wonder if you’re trying to compensate for something.”

A split second too late, I realised my mistake.

Adam’s brow smoothed out, his expression tipping from irritation into smugness. “You know better than that.”

I fought the distant curl of heat in my stomach and held his gaze. “In the dark, even dwarves can seem like giants.”

He leaned forward, the corners of his mouth hitching up—and then a knock on the door interrupted any further escalation as the butler returned with a tray and the same air of polite indifference as before. Good. Because that was how it had started last time, wasn’t it? Me pushing, Adam pushing back, until he’d dragged me away from the counter and into the narrow corridor that led to the loos, kissing me like he had something to prove. Which he did, maybe. Or maybe it had been a one-time experiment, a minor act of rebellion against the shiny path laid out for him since he’d been old enough to toddle in a straight line.

Not my fucking problem.

We waited until we were alone again, the butler closing the door as he left, before Adam sat down behind the desk. I didn’t wait for his invitation as I parked my bum in the chair that faced him. Brief silence hung between us.

He was the one to end it. Lacing his hands on the desk, he leaned forward. “Listen, I studied your proposal. Some of your ideas have merit, all right? But we both know this is too big for you.” His voice was serious and understanding in a way that raised my hackles.

“Do we.” Crossing my arms, I made it a flat statement rather than a question.

He studied me for a moment before he sent me a calculating smile. “What’s the biggest contract you fulfilled?”

Ah, right for the jugular.

“You know better than to expect an answer.” I smiled back. “So I’m going to assume you just really like the sound of your own voice.”

“Well, easy. It would have been overhauling the Kellys’ security.” He pursed his mouth. “Let me guess—worth around two hundred thousand?”

It had been two hundred and ten. According to the Kellys, our initial price tag had been slightly higher than the Harrington offer, but we’d included a five-year warranty for any devices we installed, and our service fee was far lower since we’d need to refresh the magical enhancements only once a year.

“Again,” I said, “you know better than to expect an answer.”

Adam sighed, shoving his hair away with one hand. It promptly fell over his forehead again. “Look, what I’m trying to get at is this: we can do this efficiently, in a way that lets you save face.”

Wow, the condescension was strong in this one.

I aimed for polite curiosity. “Do enlighten me.”

“We use our model as a basis.” He felt an unnecessary need to nod at said model, sitting between us in all its smug perfection. “Here and there, we add a few of your ideas, like those waste recycling units. We present it to the cabinet as our aligned plan, get their buy-in, and then you can focus on those isolated aspects while we take care of the rest.”

Objectively, I could maybe, possibly, see that he had about one-third of a point. I didn’t feel very objective. “No.”

Adam’s smile drained away like water. “No?”

I leaned back in my chair, studying him. My dad had asked me to tread lightly while I was here—‘they’re ruthless, Liam’—and I didn’t intend to poke a disgruntled dragon. But Adam was…Oh, he was a Harrington in how he carried himself, yes. Entitlement flowed through his veins, and he was impressively powerful. But I’d never been afraid of him.

“No is that word,” I began, “that people use when they don’t agree with you. I expect there’s a dictionary somewhere on that shelf over there, in case you want to look it up. I don’t mind waiting.”

Instead of a response, Adam took a calm sip of his coffee, watching me over the rim. It made me realise that the silence in this house bothered me. It was striking, almost physical in its intensity and vastly different from my family’s home where it was never truly quiet, people talking over each other, music playing somewhere, and the distant hum of the North Circular filtering in when the wind was right.

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