Hate to Love You (Strong Brothers 4)
Page 59
She smiled, and it almost looked smug or triumphant. She hid it by standing and going to her minifridge for water. I declined her offer of a bottle.
“I know Andi well enough to suspect she shared her concerns about you to you,” she said, pouring the water in a glass.
The pain of that stabbed again. “She did.”
“Did she tell you that she called me about it?”
“Yes.” I decided not to mention that because Andi hadn’t been fired and I thought Gran might have agreed with her assessment.
“You’re not curious about what I said?”
I shrugged. “She and I are still here so I guess all is okay.”
My grandmother frowned. “Do you think I considered that you’d betrayed me.”
I looked down and only then realized my mistake. When I looked up, I saw pain in my grandmother’s eyes.
“You thought I did. That hurts me.”
“I’m sorry, I just—”
“You don’t hurt me, Noah. The situation does. The idea that you felt like I didn’t believe in you. I do, you know.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do. Your father was pleased when I told him I’d made the agreement to stop asking you to work for the company. He said you needed to go make your way. Prove to yourself all that you’re capable of.”
My father could have been a shrink with how well he seemed to read people.
“Is he right?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been handed everything all my life. People don’t take me seriously when they don’t think I earned it.”
“You don’t think I take you seriously?”
“Not you.”
“Your brothers?”
I didn’t respond.
“Andi?”
I scoffed. “She thinks I’m a spoiled brat.”
“She’s right about being spoiled. All of you are spoiled. But you’re good men. Smart. Loyal. And if you think I’d hand my company over to you boys simply because you’re my grandsons, you’re underestimating the importance this company has to me.”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“Just as I hadn’t considered that you felt the need to earn your way.”
For a moment we just sat with our new understanding.
“You and Andi need a day to adjust to the time change and recover from the flight—”
“I need to work on the—”
“I’ll have IT get started on it. Your brothers are dealing with Mr. Chen. I think it can wait until tomorrow, don’t you?”