Dalton pursed his lips in a hard line. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I’m your brother. I know you. You’ve probably pissed somebody off. A jealous husband, perhaps?”
Dalton glowered. “I don’t do wives, so there shouldn’t be any husbands out for blood.” He paused a moment and said. “Unless...”
Caden lifted a brow. “Unless what?”
“Nothing.”
The single word was spoken too quickly, and Caden eyed his brother speculatively. “Well, if you’re not worried about jealous husbands, then maybe Jules Bradford has put a hit out on you.”
The edge of a wry smile appeared on Dalton’s lips. “If I haven’t put one out on her first.”
Caden rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”
Dalton nodded. “Seriously.”
“I meant that as a joke.”
Dalton shrugged broad shoulders. “Can’t say the same.”
“Then you have issues. And, from the sound of it, they are rejection issues.”
The smile dropped from Dalton’s face. “I can handle rejection, Caden. What I can’t and won’t tolerate is a woman who tries to play me.”
“Play you?”
“Yes. Play games with me.”
“Is that what she did?”
“Hell, yes. That night she brushed me off, but then told me to find her. So I did. I hired a private investigator to find her, and when I did, she acted all shitty, like my finding her was no big deal, and she didn’t want to be bothered when she knew the score. I found her for a reason.”
“And that reason?”
Now it was Dalton who rolled his eyes. “Damn it, you know the reason, and she did, too. I found her, and she didn’t deliver. Her entire attitude sucked. And then she showed up at that club a second time just to remind me about what I wasn’t getting.”
Caden didn’t say anything for a long moment. He knew his brother. He was still hot behind the collar about an incident that happened a few months ago. Dalton took holding a grudge to a whole other level. Unfortunately, the woman he loathed was Shana’s sister.
He drew in a deep breath, glad that Jace was back from his honeymoon and would be coming into the office tomorrow. There was only so much of Dalton that Caden could handle at times. When he, Jace and Dalton had left Charlottesville years ago for college, all three had sworn never to return permanently, only for visits. Having their father charged with their mother’s death years earlier had left deep scars. After college, Jace had settled in LA and worked for the state of California as an attorney; Caden had pursued his dream of making it big in the music industry. His love for his saxophone had earned him his first Grammy at twenty-seven. He’d spent most of his time touring the country and playing his sax to sold-out crowds. And as for Dalton, after a stint in the NFL, he left the US for Europe and made a name for himself as a playboy and boy toy. Because of good investment decisions, Dalton was the one who’d become the billionaire. The one who believed a person should work smarter, not harder. And the one who liked to whine about practically anything. Like he was doing right now.
The three of them had returned to Charlottesville when their grandfather, Richard Granger, had suffered a fatal heart attack. What they hadn’t counted on was making a deathbed promise to him to take over the family business, Granger Aeronautics. They hadn’t expected a failing company, one deep in the red. But they had made the promise and rolled up their sleeves. Hiring Shana’s crisis management firm had been the smartest decision they could have made. She’d discovered employees divulging trade secrets and helped expose someone they thought was a family friend as a killer.