He knew everyone. Or at least he acted like he did.
When the deputy mayor introduced us, she said, “Brandon, this is Victoria. She’s the genius who made all this possible.”
I smiled politely as Brandon took my hand, his grip warm, his eyes a shade of blue that most women’s magazines would call “arresting.”
“Genius?” he said, flashing a grin. “Now I really have to buy you a drink.”
It was such a small, stupid line. But I’d been living in server rooms and boardrooms and construction trailers, wearing hard hats and steel-toed boots, and it had been a long time since anyone’s attention felt uncomplicated.
He didn’t talk about load calculations or debt-to-equity ratios. He talked about music and travel and the absurdity of modern art. He made me laugh. He made me feel… visible.
Brandon’s mother, Lisa, did not share his enthusiasm when he brought me to Thanksgiving that year.
She greeted me with a smile that never reached her eyes, air-kissing my cheeks while her gaze flicked over my outfit like an appraising scanner. I’d worn a simple black dress and the one pair of diamond studs I owned—gifts from myself after closing my first big deal.
“Victoria,” she said, holding my hand just a fraction too long. “And what does your family do?”
“My parents are teachers,” I said. “They’re retired now. I—”
“Teachers.” Her brows lifted a millimeter. “How… noble.”
Later, Brandon would insist I was imagining it. “She’s old-fashioned,” he’d say, laughing it off. “She cares about things like pedigrees and family trees. It’s ridiculous. Don’t pay attention.”
But I did pay attention. I always did.
Because while Lisa pretended to forget what I did for a living—“something with buildings, wasn’t it?”—she never forgot to cash the checks for the country club membership I quietly paid when she complained about “the burden” of maintaining their status.
While she told her friends that Brandon had married down, she let me pick up the tab for restaurant dinners, spa packages, surprise trips.
“We’ll pay you back,” she said once, when I put the deposit down on a villa they “couldn’t quite swing just yet.”
I smiled and said it was fine. It always was. That was my role.
I told myself it was temporary. I told myself he just needed time to establish his own career, to build something of his own. In the meantime, I could be his foundation. I could support him like I supported my buildings: invisible, essential.
So when my board suggested a public face for Grayline—a charismatic brand ambassador for our growing portfolio—I thought of Brandon.
