“That’s true. I’d still be in Europe living the life you forced me to create there. But now I’m back at your insistence to take over the business.”
“I’m not dead yet, Devin.”
“No, but you asked…actually, you ordered me back home to start running the business. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m not here to take orders though. You give me the reins, or keep them for yourself. I don’t care. Just make a choice.”
“Devin!” My mother’s scolding voice echoed across my father’s study.
“You think you can do better than me?” my father asked.
“A better question is if you don’t trust me, why am I here?”
“Roarke’s has been doing business the same way successfully for a century, and all of a sudden you think you know better?” my father demanded.
“Roarke’s clientele is dying, Dad.” I winced at my own insensitive words. My mother gaped, but my father’s eyes sharpened. “You also seem to be missing the fact that many people today that can afford to eat at Roarke’s are under the age of forty. The truth is, in the next ten years or less, Roarke’s will be dead too if we don’t pay attention to the market.”
“So, what, you want to turn it into fast food?”
I rolled my eyes. “It can still appeal to the rich, but it should appeal to the young rich. But for now, I’m not touching the restaurant. Right now I’m looking for a club, which, if you read the financial reports I’ve sent back, are not only profitable but often are the first step to getting people into the restaurant.”
“I read the reports,” my father grumbled.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“This isn’t easy for your father, Devin,” my mother snapped. “He’s spent his life dedicated to and sacrificing for Roarke’s.”
“Me too, Mom. Because neither of us had a choice. Thank God I’m not having kids.”
My mother flinched, and she quickly turned away, which was a weird reaction. I’d more expected her to say something like I was overreacting.
“I can’t do what I did before, but I’m not ready to let go,” my father said, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I saw genuine emotion in him. “I know you’re good at business. And when the time comes for you to run the company, I know you’ll continue the legacy—”
“If that time isn’t now, Dad, why am I here?” I hated to be a dick about it, but I wasn’t coming home to have my parents boss me around.
“Let’s call it a transition,” he said.
“I don’t want to work for you.”
“Then call it a partnership. Don’t push me aside. I’ve got a few good ideas left in me yet, and I can be an asset to you.”
I inhaled a breath because he was probably right. I was still young enough that many of the old guard like him wouldn’t take me seriously.
I nodded. “Partnership then.”
“Pour us a drink, Katherine,” my father said to my mother.
“It’s not good for—”
“I’m not going to live the rest of my life without having a drink now and then.”
“Yes, fine.” She poured us both a finger of my father’s favorite whiskey from his ancestors’ homeland of Ireland.
“To partnership,” my father said holding up his glass.
I clinked my glass against his. “Partnership.”
“Well now that’s done, perhaps we can talk about something more fun.”
I couldn’t imagine what my mother was thinking.