Brother to the Boss (Managing the Bosses 8)

“I have to admit I wasn’t sure the response would be quite that enthusiastic.”

Alex tipped his head back to look at her. “Really? You were wandering around the kitchen naked under my shirt and you didn’t think I’d be enthusiastic about that?” He laughed. “I think maybe you’ve failed to understand my priorities.”

The shift was sudden. One minute she was pliant and happy against him, and the next she was lifting up on her elbows, forcing him to move so that he could meet her eyes. She’d been smiling before, but now it was gone.

“Have I?” she asked quietly.

“Are we really going to do this right now?” Alex asked. “Just let it be, Jamie. We’ll work it out later.”

“Later when? Next time that you come home from work an hour late? Next time you take a phone call while we’re on a family outing and I have to watch the twins by myself and one of them almost drowns?” She pulled away from him, sitting up with her knees drawn to her chest and the shirt still loose against her sides.

Alex straightened up to a sitting position, looking across the space that had suddenly become a gulf between them. “Lilli didn’t almost drown,” he said gently. “She didn’t get anywhere near the water, because you caught her. Because you’re a good mother, Jamie.”

Jamie shook her head. “I let her walk away in the first place. I knew that just a second was all that it took, but I still forgot to watch her, because I was looking for you. Trying to see if you were done with the phone call and on your way back.”

“Jamie,” Alex said gently.

She shook her head. “No. Listen, Alex. I know that things have been difficult at work lately. But, honestly, I feel like I’m doing this on my own. And I can't do that. We can take care of Nicholas, but not if you spend all your time at the office. You're shutting me out.”

“So what do you want me to do then, Jamie? I'm supposed to just stand by and let Nicholas ruin my company?”

“Of course you aren't. I know how much Reid Enterprises means to you, Alex. but that's what you have people like Zander for. So that you don't have to handle it all on your own. That's what you have me for. I'm your wife, Alex. I'm here to support you.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of the baby monitor crackling to life in the kitchen interrupted him.

Jamie sighed. Shaking her head, she stood and buttoned the shirt. “I've got to go take care of the kids,” she said, looking down at him. “You do whatever it is you need to do.”

When she was gone, Alex sat for a long minute on the couch, his elbows against his knees and his face resting in his hands. He had never meant for it to come to this. Before the trouble with Nicholas had started, he had been prepared to start giving his business over to his advisors and spend more time at home with his wife and his newborn twins, but then everything had gone to hell, and now his family was paying the price.

It was obvious that he couldn’t keep doing this to them. But he didn’t know what he was going to do. Letting Reid Enterprises fall into Nicholas’ clutches so that he could tear it apart out of petty revenge for some slight that Alex didn’t even remember causing—or because he’d married Jamie and Nicholas had wanted her—wasn’t something that he could do either. Not after how long he’d spent creating his company. After he’d raised it up from nothing. He’d done it. On his own. Without a lick of support from anyone. Couldn’t Jamie see that he couldn’t just let it fall? It was a successful, thriving enterprise. Damn Nicholas or anyone else who thought they had the right to try to stop him!

He ran a hand through his hair and wondered what he’d done to deserve these kinds of complications. He’d always had a problem with family, and he was beginning to think that maybe it had been his fault all along.

Like he’d warned Jamie before they ever got married, he wasn’t very good at love.

In the time since then he’d thought that maybe he was learning to do better, but lately it had been obvious that he’d overestimated his abilities. Maybe she was better off without him.

What the hell was he going to do?

Chapter 8

The problem with running a country club was that Mark didn't get weekends off. Actually, so far he hadn't had any days off at all, which was probably why he was starting to feel like if he didn't get an actual break soon he was going to lose it.

It was always one thing after another. If it wasn't the golf course, it was the kitchen. And if it wasn't that then the wait staff had something they needed help with, or the instructors needed time off, or were having issues with a golfer, the golf carts were ripping up the lawn, or the grass wasn’t cut to the correct height. The list went on and on. He may have had a dream of wanting to run a country club, but that didn’t make the reality any easier.

It also didn't help that he and Erica were fighting. She tried to help, but she thought he was doing too much. Mark disagreed. He couldn't give up any of it. How was he supposed to keep up with Alex’s legacy if he couldn't even deal with a little overtime? He wasn’t going to be the lesser brother, not now that he had his dream at his fingertips and people were flocking to his business.

So he just tried to grin and bear it.

Mark didn't hate Mondays. What was there to hate when he didn't have a weekend that he wasn’t giving up? He did, however, kind of hate Wednesdays. For some reason, they always seemed to take the longest. Maybe it was the fact that they were in the middle of the week and by then he felt like time took forever. It probably didn't make sense, considering that work had dragged on endlessly for weeks by then, but it was the way he felt. Wednesdays sucked. Royally.

This particular Wednesday had more than its share of trouble, but as afternoon came things began to kind of wind down, and Mark felt like he could finally take a moment to breathe.

That was, of course, when one of the female golfers decided to approach him.

She looked like the kind of woman who spent a lot of time at golf courses. Her clothes were impeccable, the sort of thing that you might see in a catalog geared at women whose husbands worked in the upper echelons of Fortune 500 companies. And there was no denying she was beautiful. Maybe not quite Erica's equal, but then, who was?

As the woman approached, she smiled at him. Mark took that as a good sign. Most people who were about to make a complaint didn't smile at him.