Southern Gentleman (Charleston Heat 3)

“Look, I may not be around all that much, but it’s my way of showing I give a fuck—keeping up with how y’all are doing.”

Ford’s wife Rebecca died from cancer not long after Bryce was born. I immediately stepped up in a way that I could—we agreed that I’d take the helm at Montgomery Partners while Ford worked part-time. I wanted him to be able to grieve and take care of his then-infant daughter without worrying about deadlines or project management or fundraising.

It’s an arrangement that we’ve kept to this day. Ford’s been bugging me a bit for more responsibility. But I’m not sure he’s ready yet, and I’m happy to cover for him in the meantime. Even if it does mean working eighty or ninety hour weeks.

Work is what I do. It’s what I’m good at.

It’s how I can give back to the family that’s given so much to me.

Working this much means I don’t see Bryce as often as I’d like to. But I try to have dinner with her and Ford at least once a week, and I see them at Sunday supper at my parents’.

I’m crazy about that little girl. She’s opinionated, stubborn, and a master of looks that kill. Just like me.

I couldn’t be prouder.

“As long as I’m still her favorite, I don’t care.” I hold up my Marlboros and nod at the back patio. “I need to talk to you.”

“Everything okay?” he says, raising his eyebrows.

“Not by a long shot.”

He gets to his feet with a groan. “I’ll get the whiskey.”

I’m already on my second cigarette when Ford steps out onto the patio, careful to close the door softly behind him. He’s got two tumblers of brown liquor in the fingers of one hand and a baby monitor in the other.

He sets a tumbler on the railing by my elbow, glancing at my cigarette.

“You’re going to quit, right?” He takes a sip from his glass. “The cigarettes. Punishing yourself.”

I grunt in reply.

“We were happy to let you have your vices at first, but it’s been three years, Grey. Don’t you think it’s time to give up the ghost?”

I draw hungrily on my cigarette and let out a steady stream of smoke. “Nope.”

Sighing, Ford leans his elbows on the railing. The city is quiet around us. The autumn bite in the air feels good on my skin.

“Did you see Cameron today?” he asks softly.

My gut contracts. Always does at the mention of my ex-wife’s name.

I reach for my whiskey and take a healthy pull. Fire spreads down my throat and through my chest, loosening the tightness there.

“I didn’t. But I did find out I got Julia Lassiter pregnant.”

Ford drops his whiskey on the railing with a thump. His stare burns a hole in the side of my head. I take another drag, feeling dizzy. Did I eat tonight? I try to remember, but everything before I’m pregnant is a blur.

“The designer on the Rodgers’ Farms project?”

“That’s the one.”

“Our employee.”

“Technically she’s Luke Rodgers’ employee. But yeah. Same one.”

“The woman you’re constantly complaining about?”

“Yes.”

“The one you’re always growling at.”

“I growl at a lot of people.”

“Not as much as you growl at her.” A stunned pause. “Wow. Wow, it actually makes a sick kind of sense. She’s the only person, man or woman, I’ve ever seen go toe to toe with you so often, and so…passionately. Y’all were fucking the whole time, weren’t you? There’s that saying—the one Mom always uses—that love and hate are two sides of the same coin.” He scoffs. “Jesus, how did I not see it sooner?”

Another pull of bourbon. “Baby’s due in June. She’s keeping it.”

My throat suddenly feels tight.

I still can’t believe I’m going to be a daddy.

Me. The control freak. The broody asshole.

The marked man.

Ford puts a hand on my arm. He’s too smart to say shit like it’s going to be okay, because he knows better.

Still. The small gesture makes me feel slightly less like dying.

I’m the big brother. I look out for Ford, not the other way around. It’s really nice, though, having him here.

“You know I’m going to be a helicopter uncle now too. Just to bust your balls.”

I scoff. Tamp out my cigarette in the heavy glass ashtray I brought over the day I left Cameron. Ford gives my arm a squeeze before dropping his hand.

“So are you and Julia, like, together, or…I mean, how are y’all going to work this out?”

I lean my forearms against the railing and dig my thumbs into my eye sockets.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “Ford, I don’t know what to do.”

Ford lets out a breath. “Been a spell since I heard those words from you, Grey.”

“No shit. This is new territory for me. Care to offer any fatherly wisdom?”

“Well, for starters, what are you afraid of? Aside from the obvious holy-shit-I’m-going-to-be-responsible-for-a-human-being thing. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a big deal. But I know it’s not responsibility that makes Greyson Montgomery piss his pants.”