46: Mr Hugo
**Tristan**
“I thought we didn’t keep secrets in the family?” Damon said after he’d heard me tell Lucien that the two of us would talk later.
Lucien gave a scoff and his hand moved from my shoulder, gently to my hand. I gazed down at it for a moment, blushed, and then looked forward.
“Are you kidding me? Our family was built on secrets. Besides, our relationship is none of our business.” Lucien said.
Damon gave a sarcastic chuckle. “Oh, so now it’s ‘our relationship is none of your business?’ after you begged me to help you to get Tristan to speak to you. For shame brother, for fucking shame.”
Lucien’s eyes widened and he turned to look out of the window in embarrassment. Of course, I already knew this, but I wanted to tease him a little. I’d gotten comfortable with him again and, I wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it was this carefree and light air between not only Lucien and I, but Damon as well.
“Is that true?” I asked softly.
Lucien took a breath before turning his head back towards me. His blush had faded, but he still looked quite embarrassed. “I… I just wanted to hear your voice again.” He paused a moment and then said a few words I’d never expected to hear from his lips. “I missed you.”
I gasped in astonishment, and, in the rear-view mirror, I caught sight of Damon’s shocked expression too. Clearly it was new to all of us.
I looked away from him and bit at my lip as I replayed his words over and over in my head again. The rest of the car ride to our morning meeting was silent and slightly awkward. How could it not be with this sexual tension between Lucien and I and the general awkwardness emitting from Damon.
“By the way,” Damon began, shattering the brief silence the car had fallen into, “you never did give a straight answer to Jasmine’s request of having you over sometime.”
*Was Damon an errand boy or something?*
“I… I”
“I’ll take you. You and I can go together. It could be like a family dinner or something like that.” Lucien said, once again, startling us all.
“I don’t recall inviting *you*. But… if it will convince Tristan, then I suppose it’s fine.” Damon said teasingly.
Lucien scoffed and kicked at the back of Damon’s chair. “What, so you prefer her company over mine? ‘I suppose it’s fine’. Is my company a *burden* to you, big brother, huh? What makes her company more tolerable than mine-”
“Well for starters, she doesn’t whine like you do. She actually does her work- when you’re not busy distracting her- and she doesn’t act like a five-year-old. I’m starting to understand why you began to ignore him, Tristan.” He said.
Perhaps I could have laughed at this point. Perhaps I could have given a little smirk. But I couldn’t find it in me just yet. It had been years since I’d last expressed something as quaint and subtle as a feeling of being humoured.
“Do you agree with him, Tristan? Is that why you ignored me? Do you think I’m annoying?” He asked. The expression on his face was somewhere between angered and concerned. Luckily for me, the car stopped before I even had a chance to try to muster up an answer which I didn’t have.
“Right, game faces on people. Mr Hugo is a very important client of mine and so this meeting is very important. Lucien… don’t fuck it up, please.” Damon said.
Lucien rolled his eyes as he immediately clutched my hand as I exited the car. “I might fuck, but I don’t ‘fuck things up’.”
Damon let out an unconvinced scoff and continued to walk in front of us. I found it rather endearing how the two brothers acted and began to notice how Damon’s guard was down around Lucien too. Despite them having their fair share of “differences” in the past, they still seemed really close.
“Morning. I’m here to see Mr Hugo.” Damon said by the time we got to the front desk.
The woman, brunette, curly-haired and curvy, smiled and nodded. “Of course, Mr Michaels… and you’ve brought company with you. Could I have the names of your guests please?”
“Certainly,” he turned towards me, shot me a reassuring smile which, in all honesty caught me off-guard and then said, “this is my personal assistant, Miss Tristan Creed.” He then turned towards his brother and gave a sarcastic wink before saying, “And this is my… other.”
“Other, sir?”
“Yes,” Lucien repeated in a tone of absolute shock, “other?”
Damon nodded before saying, “Yes. Other.”
“Um… alright, sir. You three can come through, Mr Hugo will see all three of you.”
“Thank you, Jaqueline.” Damon said curtly and then began walking towards the elevators of the building with Lucien and I trailing behind him.
“Keep your mind links open.” He said as soon as we entered into the elevator.
“Why sir?” I asked, slightly confused.
Damon chuckled softly, catching me off guard for a moment. “Again, just call me Damon.”
“Even in front of other people?” I asked.
Damon nodded. “Yes. You’re my future wife’s sister. You’re family. The only thing I ask is to keep in mind that aside from being your… brother-in-law of sorts, I am still your boss. And regarding our mind links, I think it would be easier for us to communicate, should anything go wrong during this meeting.”
Lucien shrugged and said, “Fair enough. So, what are we here for? Another boring merger discussion?”
Damon shook his head. “Mr Hugo is in the business of alcoholic drinks. Now he has a new product which he’d like to advertise. Morningstar Advertising is his first choice and so I decided to meet with him on the matter in the hopes of securing a contract with him so that we can advertise his new alcoholic beverage. So don’t look so bored brother, you love alcohol.”
“Yeah, I like *drinking* alcohol, not advertising it.” Lucien muttered as the elevator door opened. When we arrived outside the door of Mr Hugo, Damon knocked twice, waited, and then immediately walked in as though he belonged in the office himself. I’d come to notice that Damon had a very intense sense of arrogance to him which contrasted starkly to my sister’s humbleness. In fact, the two seemed worlds apart from one another yet, when I saw them together, it was almost as though they melted into one another. What he lacked, she made up for and what she lacked, he made up for. I wondered, for a moment if that could ever be a possibility for Lucien and me.
“Ah, Damon Michaels, it’s been a while old friend.” Mr Hugo was a young man who, alone would have been quite tall, but now that he stood in front of Damon and Lucien, he was an average height. His hair was long enough to be tied at the back of his head and it was silky and a deep shade of black. His eyes, perhaps my least favourite feature of his to look at, were a pale grey colour and they darted all over the room until they settled on me. I could feel myself shiver under his prying gaze and by the time he made that nasty smirk, I began to realise that no part of me liked Mr Hugo.
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