Just a Bit Wrecked (Straight Guys 11)

He was being stupid. The Rutledges might not like him much, but they weren’t senseless or cruel.

Andrew forced himself to move.

Every step made the ball of anxiety in his chest tighten and harden until he felt nearly sick with it. His heart beat hard against his ribcage, so fast that he felt nearly dizzy. Was he having a panic attack?

At last, after what felt like forever, he reached the front door.

It opened.

It was a butler. Andrew didn’t recognize him. He must have been new, but it seemed he had been warned about Andrew.

He followed the butler to the living room. Andrew wanted to tell him that he knew the way, but then he thought better of it. It wasn’t like it was his home anymore.

As soon as he entered the room, Derek Rutledge’s dark eyes met his.

Andrew swallowed, acutely aware of the empty space beside him where Vivian would have been. Should have been.

“Welcome back,” Derek said curtly before turning and walking out of the room.

Shawn, Derek’s husband, winced a little. “Don’t take it personally,” he said. “We’re glad you’re alive. Derek…Vivian’s death hit him hard. When we got the news that a few people survived the crash after all and you were one of the survivors…” He shrugged, an uncomfortable look crossing his face. “Derek didn’t really talk about it, but I think he got his hopes up that Vivian might be alive. And now he has to grieve her again, in a way.”

Andrew gave a clipped nod. “It’s fine. I understand.”

A strained silence descended upon the room.

He and Shawn had never really gotten along. They’d gotten off to a bad start—Andrew hadn’t managed to hold his tongue and had publicly insulted him—and it always seemed to taint their interactions, no matter how many years had passed since then. Andrew didn’t know what to do about it. Vivian had always urged him to talk to Shawn and clear the air between them, but Andrew didn’t want to. He’d always been bad at talking about his mistakes, and it wasn’t as though he’d been entirely wrong about Shawn—the guy had clearly been sleeping with Derek because of his money at the time. It didn’t matter that they were in love with each other now—Andrew had been right, dammit.

“Anyway,” Shawn said, finally breaking the awkward silence. “You’re probably tired after the flight. Take a nap if you want. We’ll have dinner later.”

Andrew looked away. “I’m not staying,” he said. “I’ll pack my things and will be out of your hair in a few hours.”

Silence.

“Oh,” Shawn said. “Okay, then.”

Andrew pursed his lips, hating that a part of him wanted the Rutledges—someone, anyone—to say that they wanted him to stay. Or stay for him.

Stupid. Fucking pathetic.

He turned to head upstairs when a thought stopped him. “Who’s been doing my job while I was presumed dead?” He hoped it wasn’t his brother-in-law. Derek might be highly intelligent—he was a professor at Harvard—but he had no idea how to run a company like Rutledge Enterprises.

“Um,” Shawn said, sounding even more uncomfortable. “We kind of had a revolving door of people who had the CEO position. In the end, we gave up and signed a partnership deal with the Caldwell Group. Ian Caldwell has been the CEO the last couple of months until—”

“Ian Caldwell,” Andrew said before whirling around and staring at Shawn incredulously. “The man whose baby sister sliced her wrists when Derek humiliated her by publicly breaking off their engagement? That Ian Caldwell?”

Shawn winced, looking sheepish and pained. “To be fair to us, we had no idea he was her brother. They have different surnames.”

Unbelievable.

Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose. “Does the company even exist anymore?” Ian Caldwell was a shark. A few months would be enough for him to do major damage to the company of the man he had every reason to dislike.

Shawn’s grimace wasn’t exactly encouraging. “It does. The problem is, he sneaked in some seemingly harmless clauses in the contract we signed, so now he basically has unlimited power over the company.”

Great. Just fantastic.

“And now it’s gotten even more complicated,” Shawn said, running a hand over his face. “Caldwell had an accident recently and is still in a coma. It doesn’t look good for him.”

Andrew frowned, struggling to keep up. He’d always had a sharp mind, but he was seriously out of practice after months of barely using it. The nine months of mind-numbing routine would do that to anyone.

“But the thing is,” Shawn said, raking a hand through his blond hair. “All our agreements with the Caldwell Group still stand, and Caldwell’s people are still in charge of the company now.”

“Didn’t you have a lawyer look over the contract before you signed it?” Andrew gritted out. That sounded like a fuck-up of gigantic proportions.

“We did,” Shawn said, rather defensively. “But it looks like Caldwell bought his silence. You know Derek and I aren’t used to all the business language, and reading through the fifty pages of that contract was like reading something in another language. We trusted the lawyer, and he let us down. That’s all.” He sighed. “And you know Derek wanted nothing to do with his father’s company. He didn’t want to waste his time on it, so he was eager to get rid of the responsibility.”