Chapter 167
Xander and Zia had every reason to feel proud. Lucas squeezed my shoulder gently.
I watched Lila laugh at something Alexander whispered to her, their bond still strong despite the adult responsibilities now shaping their lives.
Pride settled warmly in my chest, steady and deep, mixed with the quiet understanding that parenting never truly ended. It simply evolved, shifting from guidance to support, from protection to trust. Our children weren’t children anymore. They were leaders.
And somehow, watching them step forward felt like witnessing the continuation of everything we had built, everything we believed in, and everything we hoped would outlive us long after we stepped aside.
Alexander
Thriving wasn’t a word I threw around . I hated exaggeration and hated the fake motivational nonsense companies loved using when they wanted productivity to sound inspirational. But if I had to describe the past year at Thorne Group honestly, it was a thriving fit, whether I liked admitting it or not.
I built my routine around control. Early mornings before most employees even finished their first coffee. Reviewing reports, scanning numbers, looking for cracks before they turned into problems. Dad believed leadership meant predicting disasters before they existed. I took that seriously. Probably too seriously sometimes.
Most days blurred into meetings, contracts, strategy sessions, and corporate politics disguised as collaboration. I enjoyed it more than I expected. There was something addictive about solving problems no one else saw coming. There's something satisfying about knowing I earned every ounce of respect instead of inheriting it. I needed breaks from it. Those breaks usually involved Lila.
We lived in the same house, technically. Massive property, divided into separate wings so everyone had privacy. On paper, it sounded like we saw each other constantly. Reality was the opposite. Our schedules barely lined up anymore. She spent most mornings buried in Quantum cybersecurity projects. I stayed trapped in Thorne Group strategy meetings. By the time we both got home, one of us usually passed out before midnight while the other worked late.
So lunches became our reset button.
They weren’t planned. Just understood. If we both had space in our schedules, we met halfway between Thorne headquarters and Quantum offices, grabbed food, and acted like normal twenty-somethings instead of future corporate leaders carrying family empires on our backs.
That afternoon started like any other.
I reached the restaurant first. Small place, quiet enough to hold conversations without executives hovering or employees staring. The hostess already recognized me at this point, guiding me to our usual booth without asking.
I checked emails while waiting, deleting half of them before even opening attachments. If someone couldn’t summarize information in three sentences, it usually meant they didn’t understand it themselves.
Five minutes later, Lila slid into the booth across from me, dropping her bag beside her chair like she’d been personally attacked by spreadsheets all morning.
“I swear Quantum tried to ruin my life today,” she announced.
I closed my laptop slowly. “Financially or emotionally?”
“Emotionally,” she groaned, grabbing the menu. “Mom and Aunt Zia decided to run an unannounced breach simulation through my department.”
I smirked. “And?”
“And I spent forty minutes thinking someone hacked our internal system before they casually admitted it was a test,” she said. “I nearly launched a defensive counterattack that would’ve locked our own network out.”
“That would’ve been impressive,” I said.
She kicked my shoe under the table. “You’re supposed to support me, not encourage my workplace humiliation.”
“I support growth,” I replied calmly.
She rolled her eyes, but her smile crept through anyway.
Lunch arrived fast. Burgers, fries, and drinks neither of us really needed but ordered out of habit. Conversation drifted easily between work stress, family gossip, and Uncle Lucas apparently trying to teach himself cybersecurity coding through online tutorials, which was honestly terrifying.
“Dad almost shut down his own office Wi-Fi trying to ‘practice firewall defense,’” Lila said, biting into her fries.
“That sounds accurate,” I muttered.
She laughed, reaching across the table without asking and stealing fries straight off my plate.
“You have your own,” I pointed out.
“Yours tastes better,” she shrugged.
“That makes zero sense.”
She ignored me completely.
We talked longer than usual. Work updates turned into random childhood memories, then future plans neither of us admitted scared us more than we let on. Sometimes sitting with her reminded me how fast everything changed. One minute we were causing chaos around the house. The next minute we were being trusted with entire companies.
At one point, she leaned across the table and brushed a crumb off my sleeve mid-conversation like it was second nature. It didn’t even register as weird. We grew up more like siblings than cousins. Physical familiarity came automatically. That was when I noticed her.
Her name was Camila.
She worked in internal corporate support. Organized. Efficient. Quiet personality. I recognized her face from passing interactions around the office but never paid much attention beyond professional acknowledgment.
She stood near the restaurant entrance, frozen mid-step, staring directly at our table. Her expression shifted too fast to fully read. Surprise. Confusion. Something tighter flickering underneath before she forced a polite smile and approached.
“Mr. Thorne,” she said, stopping beside the booth.
I nodded. “Camila.”
Her gaze flicked toward Lila briefly, studying her like she was trying to solve a puzzle before looking back at me.
“I didn’t realize you came here often,” she said.
“Sometimes,” I replied.
She hesitated like she expected something else, so I gestured toward Lila.
“This is Lila. She works with Quantum cybersecurity. We collaborate on joint projects.”
Lila smiled politely. “Nice meeting you.”
Camila nodded, but her smile felt strained around the edges.
“You too,” she said quietly.
There was a pause. Just long enough to feel awkward before she excused herself and walked toward another table across the restaurant.
I barely thought about it. Lila, however, watched her for a second before looking back at me.
“She seemed intense,” she said casually.
“Probably work pressure,” I shrugged.
“Maybe,” she said slowly, though her tone carried mild suspicion.
Lunch continued normally. We finished eating while arguing about whether Dad secretly enjoyed intimidating board members or just pretended to hate it. Conversation drifted easily, laughter coming naturally in a way neither of us got to experience often anymore.
By the time we stood to leave, the restaurant had started filling with the usual afternoon crowd. Lila grabbed her bag while I paid the bill quickly, ignoring her half-hearted protest about splitting it.
Outside, sunlight hit harder than expected, a warm breeze cutting through the business district noise around us.
“Well,” she said, adjusting her bag strap. “Back to corporate prison.”
“Speak for yourself,” I replied. “I run mine.”
“Ego,” she muttered.
“Confidence,” I corrected.
She snorted. For a moment, we just stood there. That quiet pause that always hit right before we split off into separate responsibilities, separate buildings, and separate lives pretending adulthood felt manageable.
Then Lila stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me in a quick hug.
It wasn’t dramatic. Just familiar. Comfortable. The kind of hug that carried years of shared childhood, family chaos, and silent support neither of us needed to explain.