“Who found them?” Pops asked, picking his cutlery back up.
“The least likely source,” Dad drawled, glancing my way.
I chewed my mouthful of lamb without talking. He didn’t really want me to talk. I knew that. I was still in his shithouse for The Thing.
Pops looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “You found them?”
I shrugged a shoulder, swallowed, and then said, “Ask Dad. He’s the one who emailed me a spreadsheet, slapped his folder into my chest, and told me to check it. The mistakes were there to be found.”
“I don’t know why you don’t give the job to Brett.” Mom delicately sliced into her lamb. “He cleans up the mess every time. Why not eliminate the mess?”
Silence rang out through the room.
Thanks, Mom.
“Because,” Dad ground out. “He’s as reliable as a two-year-old driving a car.”
“Yet every month, I’m the one who cleans up the accounts,” I said in a low voice. My jaw tightened, and I looked down at my plate.
Nobody talked for a minute. In fact, nobody did a damn thing for a minute.
“One chance,” Pops said, finally breaking through the silence. “Give the boy one chance to prove himself.”
“He had that.” Dad picked up his wine glass and raised it in front of his mouth. “And look where it’s gotten us.”
“We are not discussing The Thing,” Mom said sharply. “We are discussing the immediate issue and that is you can’t hire an assistant with mathematical skills to save your life, William. Just as well, because your son has more than enough of them, and they’re not being used.”
Camille scooted her chair back. “Excuse me. I need to—”
“Sit down, Camille.” Mom didn’t even look at her.
She did as she was told, slowly lowering herself back to the chair and sliding it forward. Nan reached over Pops and patted her hand with a smile.
“He’s unreliable, Mae, and you know it,” Dad finally replied to Mom. “We’ll be having this conversation in a month.”
“He might prove you wrong.”
“He is sitting between you,” I snapped.
Pops banged his knife handle against the table. Everybody turned toward him at the head of a table without a word. He surveyed us all with his cool gaze, its harshness not impacted by his older age in the slightest.
His gaze was as chilling as I remembered it being as a child.
“This is the most ridiculous conversation I’ve ever heard,” Pops started. “William, son. We all know Brett isn’t perfect, but he is the heir to the business alongside Camille. You don’t know if he’ll be reliable because you’ve never trusted him enough—with good reason, of course, I know,” he added quickly.
“Still sitting here,” I said.
“Brett, you have one chance.” Pops turned the full force of his gaze onto me. “But we’re going to make a deal.”
I hesitated. “A deal?”
“A deal?” Dad echoed, much more warily than I had.
“Oh god,” Camille muttered into her wine glass.
“You have one chance to you clean up your act.” The way Pops said it left no room for argument. “You’ll stop the partying. No more parties, no more womanizing, and certainly no more stepping out of line. We’ll also work to publicly clean up your image, but you must be a fully willing participant in whatever means we decide to use to do this.”
Fuck me...he didn’t want much, did he?
“What happens if I break the deal?” I asked, putting my knife and fork together on the plate.
Pops looked me dead in the eye and said quite simply, “You’ll find your inheritance drastically cut and your sister will stand to take ninety-eight percent of the entire business when it gets passed on.”
What the fuck? Was that for real?
Camille gasped. “Pops. You can’t do that!”
“It’s still my business, Camille. I can do what I want with it.”
“Henrick,” Nan said. “Think this through. That’s very drastic.”
“He needs drastic, Mother.” Dad gripped his glass tightly. “He’s had it easy for far too long. Camille works for her money—Brett doesn’t. First the lifestyle and now The Thing. I side with Dad. He absolutely needs this to happen.”
And this was why I hated family dinner. It always came back to me and how much I’d fucked up in my life. I don’t know why they didn’t record the damn conversation and put it on replay whenever we got together. It’d save us all some time and I wouldn’t even have to show up for it.
“Brett?” Pops’ voice broke through my thoughts.
I dragged my gaze toward him.
“Your choice, boy,” he continued. “Clean up or be cut off. Which one is it?”
I clenched my jaw as annoyance slammed into me. “Clean up,” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Camille’s eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline. “You’re going to clean up? Really?”
“I can do it.” I didn’t want to sound like a petulant child so I left it at that. I also didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by telling her fuck off.
I’d do that later when nobody else was around.
“We’ll see,” Dad simply said. “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER THREE
LANI
I stared at the pink, fluffy bear sitting on the shelf. I didn’t have a clue what to buy a baby. All I wanted to do was buy something for Connie’s bump that would hopefully apologize for the fact I was a little bit of a bitch when I arrived back in Whiskey Key.
Except I really, really didn’t know what to buy.
Would it use a bear? The baby? Damn it, the baby. She already told me off three times yesterday for calling the baby ‘it.’ Something that is easier than you’d think.
Would the baby use a bear? I didn’t know what babies did. Didn’t they just cry, poop, vomit, and drink milk? Why on earth would she need a light pink bear?
She wouldn’t. Right. She wouldn’t.
I shuffled down the aisle toward the other baby toys. Rattles. More soft toys.
Good god, what is a Lamaze?
Oh. Oh. It was a brand. Never mind. I liked those.
I reached out toward the toys, hesitated, and then pulled my hand back. Which one did I pick? Dear god, why was it so freaking hard? It shouldn’t have been this hard to pick a gift for a baby. It—she, damn it, she—wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about it until she was older.
“Having trouble?”
I looked over my shoulder and smiled at Camille. “Trouble is probably a very nice word for how I feel right now.”
She laughed lightly and stepped up next to me. “Trying to find something for Connie?”
“Again, trying is a nice word. I have no idea what I’m doing.” I joined her in laughing and blew out a breath as I looked up and down the aisle. “Who knew there were so many toys for such tiny people?”
“I know, right? When Melly had her baby—”
“Melly had a baby?” I asked, referring to her cousin. “That’s awesome.”