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toward the table.
    Christian had been hoping his father would say that. They had a long-running score he wanted to settle. “Sure.”
    As they got up, there was a knock on the door. “Yes?” Clayton called, clearly irritated at the interruption. “Come in.”
    The door burst open and Nikki rushed in. Nikki was Christian’s younger half sister. She was a pretty brunette with a bubbly personality. They’d always been close.
    She went to Clayton first and threw her arms around his neck. “Sorry to interrupt, Daddy,” she said breathlessly, “but I wanted to say good-bye. I’m going to Kim’s house, then a bunch of us are going out.”
    “On Christmas Eve?”
Clayton asked, winking at Christian over her shoulder, feigning anger.
    “Thanks for the bracelet, Daddy,” she said, moving quickly to Christian and hugging him. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”
    “There’ll be more tomorrow.”
    “I can’t wait to spend more time with you while you’re home, Chris,” she said, kissing his cheek.
    Christian leaned back and smiled. “Ah, you’ll be out with your friends all the time.”
    “No way.” She shook her head hard, then headed for the door. “Bye, you two. Have fun.”
    When she was gone and the door was closed, they moved to the table.
    “Eight ball?” Clayton suggested, putting his smoldering pipe in a large ashtray, then picking out his favorite cue stick from the wall rack. “Best of three, you break?”
    “Okay, but I don’t want any charity. You break.”
    Clayton nodded. “Fine, I’ll take all the charity I can get,” he said, leaning down and lining up the cue ball with the top of the triangle at the far end of the table. Then he hesitated, smiling serenely and straightening up. Looking at the ceiling as if he were deep in thought. “You’ve never taken a match from me, have you?”
    They both knew Christian hadn’t.
And
they both knew that such a victory was Christian’s white whale. Reminding him of the streak was his father’s way of playing with his mind, but he wasn’t going to let himself be manipulated tonight. “This’ll be interesting, Dad. I played a lot last semester.”
    “Is that all you guys at Princeton do?” Clayton wanted to know, breaking up the balls with a loud crack. “Play pool?”
    “I’m keeping my grades up,” Christian said quickly, sizing up the way the balls had come to rest. None in for his father on the break. A good way to start. “I’m fine.”
    Clayton chuckled. “I know you are. Four A’s and a B plus in advanced calculus last semester. You’re still on track to graduate with honors this May.”
    Christian had been about to take his first shot, but he stopped. “How do you know?” The semester had just ended last week. Final grades hadn’t been released yet.
    “I called my friend John Gray. He’s one of the—”
    “One of the assistant deans,” Christian broke in, setting up for the shot again. “Yeah, I know.” He made it easily. “Checking up, huh?”
    “It’s what I do, son.
Which reminds me.
While you’re home I want you to have lunch with my friend Ted Stovall. He’s a Stanford trustee. He’ll be very helpful getting you into business school.”
    Stanford University had one of the nation’s elite business schools. “I’ll take care of that on my own, Dad,” Christian said. “I appreciate it, but I don’t need your help. Damn it!” He’d missed a shot he shouldn’t have because he’d been distracted by the conversation.
    “You mean you don’t
want
my help,” Clayton corrected, inhaling, then clenching the pipe between his teeth as he prepared to shoot. “Just have lunch with Ted,” he pushed gently. “Okay?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And when you graduate from Stanford, we’re going to get you that job at Goldman Sachs. Mergers and acquisitions. That’s the one you want, right?”
    It was exactly the job Christian wanted after business school. The
only
job he wanted. “Yes, sir,” he said, spying a