Rough Edges

PROLOGUE

It was around the time when Nick was settling into a comfortable routine with Lyana. They had, together, stormed difficult weather in the last year. A health crisis that was a near death experience and taking over single handed responsibility of a business empire not the least of them. They had to move their kids across the globe to foreign surroundings, a new house and a new family. It has been a crazy year - to put it mildly.

Lyana often wondered how Nick did it all. But he did. He was a lean, mean machine. The last one year had put him in the driving seat of their life and he never lost control of anything.

It was 11 PM and he was seated at Waterside, one of the premium restaurants in the city entertaining these french business people, who wanted to invest in his new specialty private hospital chain. It was his pet project. Maybe it was because of what he went through with Lyana, maybe it was because he finally wanted to give back to the society, but these days he started looking at these social entrepreneur ventures - projects where he could make money, but at the same time, they would bring something useful, something helpful to the society - healthcare.

He looks at his phone at Lyana calling him. He knew she would be waiting for him. He silences it with a message that he was in a meeting. He looks up and smiles at his clients, this middle aged father who had brought his rather beautiful daughter along. He had been talking about everything other than business since the last two hours. Nick just wanted to close the deal and go home to his wife.

"Your wife?" the girl asks  looking at Nick silencing his phone.

Nick looks at her curiously.

"I see your wedding band." she answers his stare.

"Oh?" he looks at his hand and smiles. "Yes. Kids must be finally asleep - otherwise she hardly remembers me during the day." he jokes.

"You have kids?" the man asks surprised.

"Two boys and a girl." He smiles. He got that a lot. He was just 31 years old. He had had Druv when he was 18.

"Really?"

"Really." he shrugs.

"How old?"

"My oldest is 12. The twins are eight."

"My goodness! Did you listen to that Sara? And you refuse to even get married." he stands up looking at his daughter disapprovingly. "I will be right back." he leaves.

Sara rolls her eyes and looks at Nick embarrassed. "Sorry about that. Marriage is like my Dad's trigger."

"What about you?" he politely maintains the conversation.

"I should find an eligible bachelor right? All the good ones are taken." she points at his ring again.

Nick raises his brows amused. But, he could steer any given conversation with finesse. "One more reason for you to invest in this project then. You could move to New York and as they say, it is the land of opportunity...and eligible bachelors." he offers.

"Don't you have a brother?" she asks casually.

"I do."

"Does he look anything like you?" she smiles.

"Not really." he quips with a straight face.

She laughs, more than usual, looking at him through her lashes.

"Alright...lets close this deal, shall we?" her father comes back and they resume their talks. Nick sighs relieved. Nick didn't have time to flirt with random girls. If anything, he just wanted to sleep in one morning and have some alone time with his wife.