The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback (Astra and Zayne) novel Chapter 223

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

ASTRA

ZANE

The Ashton estate looked exactly the same, and I hadn’t decided whether that made coming back better or

worse.

The gates opened before my car reached them, revealing the long drive and sprawling stone house beyond 1 hadn’t been through them in nearly five years, although there had been a time when I returned often enough that coming home required no thought at all.

That had ended gradually, University gave me an excuse to stay away, business school made the distance easier, and by the time I worked my way through Ashton Global to the position my father had once occupied, there was little reason to come back at all.

My driver stopped beneath the front portico at 6:57, where an unfamiliar member of staff waited near the entrance. Most of the people who had worked here when I was eighteen were long gone, so I handed him my coat without asking his name and went inside.

The foyer had changed even less than the exterior. The staircase still curved above the same marble floor, and enormous windows overlooked the grounds I’d spent half my childhood trying to escape,

I’d made it several steps inside when my mother appeared at the opposite end of the hall and stopped at the sight of me.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then her face softened. “You came.”

“You’ve been making it difficult not to.”

A smile appeared as she crossed the remaining distance. “Persistence works.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I’ll take tonight.”

She hugged me before I could answer. I stiffened from instinct before wrapping an arm around her, and when she held on longer than she needed to, I knew better than to pretend I hadn’t given her reason to.

Her eyes searched my face when she finally stepped back. “You look tired.”

“Hello to you too.”

“You always hated when I said that.”

“I still do.”

Her smile returned, although seeing her here felt different from meeting her anywhere else. Lunches in the city allowed me to separate my mother from everything attached to this house.

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

Standing in its foyer didn’t.

“Where are Lucas and Mason?”

“In the living room. They promised not to make your arrival unbearable.”

“They’ve already failed if a promise was necessary.”

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Mom slipped her arm through mine and led me toward the living room, but we hadn’t reached it before Lucas appeared in the doorway.

“You actually came.”

Mason emerged behind him. “I said he would.”

Lucas looked over his shoulder. “You gave him twenty percent.”

“Twenty is still a percentage.”

Lucas crossed the remaining distance and pulled me into a brief hug. “Good to see you.”

Something in his voice killed the response waiting on my tongue, so I returned the embrace before he stepped away.

Mason greeted me next with a handshake that ended with us briefly pulling each other shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes it was still strange seeing them like this. The eight-year-old boys who had once filled every room with noise were eighteen now and finishing their last year of high school.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Mom said.

Lucas glanced toward the hall. “Dad’s in his study.”

Whatever ease I’d found since walking through the door disappeared.

We went into the living room, where Mason handed me a whiskey while Mom asked about work. Vantage gave everyone a safe subject, although Mason had followed enough of the acquisition to develop opinions of his own.

“You overpaid,” he said.

I took a drink. “Based on?”

“The market reaction.”

“The market doesn’t know what I bought.”

“It knows what you paid.”

“And in twelve months, it’ll know why.”

Mason considered that before giving a slow nod. “Fair.”

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

Lucas looked between us. “That was disappointingly quick.”

“He has access to information I don’t,” Mason said.

“I thought being annoyingly smart was supposed to compensate for that.”

Mason glanced at him. “You wouldn’t know.”

“Fuck off.”

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Mom sighed, and I almost smiled before movement near the entrance took my attention from them.

My father had entered the room.

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