Brother to the Boss (Managing the Bosses 8)

“It’s more than that and you know it, Mark.”

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’?”

If the situation hadn’t been so serious Alex might have laughed, but as it was he didn’t feel like laughing in the slightest. After all the work that they’d done to build a relationship, Mark was just going to throw it away like this. He honestly couldn’t believe it. Regardless of what he’d said to Jamie, Alex knew that Mark had always been the one pushing for them to reconcile. So why was it that he didn’t care now?

“I’m not going to listen to any more excuses,” Alex said. “You’re going to do what you want either way. You can start sending me payments on the loan I gave you at the first of the month. Consider yourself lucky that I’m not charging interest.” He turned and walked away.

Mark moved toward him, he heard the sound of the footsteps in the grass. But then he stopped. His brother had decided not to come after him. Apparently the relationship wasn’t that important after all. Shaking his head, Alex got back into his car and headed home, not once glancing back over his shoulder toward the brother he’d just left behind. Again.

Chapter 10

“Are you sure you’re okay, Jamie?” Christine asked for the second time.

Jamie looked up from the glass of wine she was staring moodily into and tried to find a smile for her sister. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m good.”

Christine shook her head. “I don’t really believe that, you know. I'm not stupid, Jamie.”

She sounded so much like the old Christine that Jamie turned to look at her sister, eyebrows lifted.

“First off,” Christine said, pausing to lift her wine glass to her lips for a sip. “I work at the country club. And I was there when Alex showed up looking all kinds of less than happy. And secondly, I know you well enough to see when you're unhappy.” She glanced away. “Just because I ignored it before doesn't mean that I don't know.”

Jamie sighed. She hadn't heard the full story of what happened between Mark and Alex yet, only knew that Alex had come home last night in a mood and had hardly spoken to her before storming up the stairs to bed. When she'd crawled in with him later, he'd either been asleep or pretending to be, and she hadn't really been in the mood to check. If he wanted to act like the entire world was against him, that was his prerogative, but she wasn't going to indulge him in it. “Well, I'm sure you know that things haven't been the greatest lately. I mean, with Alex.”

“I know that Mark hasn't been happy lately, and that the argument with Alex seemed to really upset him, but I don't know what caused it. I also know that you've been unhappy lately, but you haven't really talked about it either, except to say that Alex was dealing with things at work.”

“Well,” Jamie said slowly, “there’s this man named Nicholas. He used to have a thing for me, actually. Kept trying to get me to go out to dinner with him when Alex and I were first dating. I went once, but I was too in love with Alex to be really into him. At the time, I thought he was a nice guy.”

Christine nodded.

“To make a long story short, he tried to help Alex by convincing the secretary who had been with him since Reid Enterprises started to authorize herself a new company card and start buying totally unapproved things with it. To show how overworked and distracted Alex was or something. Of course it ended up with Gina getting fired, and I think Nicholas is lucky he didn't end up in jail. Alex settled with him and we thought that was the end of it. Only now he's come back, and he's secretly been buying stock out from under Alex. Which means that Alex has been spending almost all of his time at work trying to deal with it, because he won't give any of the problem over to the people he hired to help him with problems.”

She couldn't keep the frustration out of her voice, and Christine's expression shifted, becoming sympathetic.

“And you're upset that he's been spending so much time at work instead of at home with you and the babies?”

That wasn't what Jamie had said, but it wasn't exactly hard to guess. She nodded. “Yeah. I guess I’m a little upset about that. I mean, he was supposed to cut back on the overtime and the crazy hours once the twins were born, and I don't know if he would have or not, but it feels like he's using the thing with Nicholas as an excuse not to do it. I get that he cares about the company, but he owns enough of the stock himself now that Nicholas can't buy it from him, and so there's no reason for him to be so worried. And I don't see why he can't give some of the workload to Zander, if there really is a reason to still be concerned, and actually spend some time at home with us.” Jamie looked down at her hand, twisting her wedding ring slowly around her finger. “It just feels like we're not as important to him as his business, and I don't like feeling that way.”

Christine reached out and laid a hand over hers, stopping Jamie's nervous motion. “I know that it really sucks to think that your husband's first priority is his job. I mean, I don't know from experience. I'm not sure Stephen had any priorities that weren't 'Do whatever I want regardless of the consequences,' and working wasn't really something he wanted to do much of, but what I'm saying is, maybe you're being a little too harsh. Alex cares about his business, yes. He built it. That's something to be proud of. But he also cares about you and Benton and Lilli. It's obvious every time anyone is in the room with you guys.”

For a moment, Jamie just stared at her sister in silence. “Okay,” she said finally, “who are you, and what have you done with Christine, because that is not something I expected you to ever say.”

One corner of Christine's mouth lifted in a slightly wobbly smile. “Well, I've been reading a lot of self-help books, and doing emotion identification exercises with my therapist. Apparently I'm not capable of understanding the ways other people feel, which I guess is an improvement.”

Jamie laughed. “I think you always knew. I just think that you didn't know how to care after being raised by someone like Mom, who never cared about anyone but herself and what she wanted.” She paused, taking a long drink from her wine glass and then setting it aside. “So what do you think I should do?”

“I think that you should try to believe that Alex doesn't care about work more than he cares about you. Give him a little time to deal with the fact that he's going to have to give up some of the control over his baby. Don't let this be something that comes between you two permanently, because you're perfect for each other. It's so obvious. And he makes you happy, Jamie. I don't want to see you lose that, you know?”

“I don't know how you suddenly became a marriage counselor,” Jamie said, shaking her head. “But I'm kind of glad you did.”

Christine smiled at Jamie over the rim of her wine glass, and then lifted it to take a sip.

The waiter approached their table, smiling, and set the tray of appetizers they'd gotten to share down in front of them. Jamie gave him a nod, and he went away again, leaving them alone.

“So,” Jamie started, picking up one of the mozzarella sticks and taking a bite. Once, she never would have eaten anything like that in front of her sister, but these days Christine never picked on her for what she ate. Or about how much she weighed. And Christine was actually eating enough food to be more than skin and bones, which made Jamie feel a lot better. It was good to see her sister healthy and happy. And speaking of happy... “Now that we've dealt with my issues, how are things going for you? I don't see you as much since you started working at Little Lake.”

There wasn't an answer right away. Christine was busy chewing. She swallowed, and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It's been kind of busy,” she said. “I think that I'm finally getting the hang of, you know, actually working, which I guess is kind of a good thing. I'm not sure that it's the job I want to stay at forever, but for now I enjoy it, and it keeps the bills paid.”