He’d fucking leaped the hell over it. I was aware of how he felt about the issue. The company’s lawyers, my lawyers, had to get involved. So yeah, I was aware of how he felt regarding my personal life. He thought I was reckless.

He thought I was young, like he said.

He, along with anyone else on the outside looking in, saw a snapshot of a situation, and since I’d been forced to save face, yes, the “incident at Brown” definitely had looked a certain way. But that was the outside perception, not the truth, and he should know that since he had known me for so long.

“We just don’t want you overwhelmed.” He passed a look to me. “There’s a concern about that, that all this is too much.”

“Well, it’s not.” I wet my lips. “So, if we’re done, I’d like to get back to work.”

Maybe actually do some work this time and though he did get up, his shoulders sagged.

“Please let me know if you need anything,” he urged. “No one will fault you for waiting one, two, or even five years if you’re not ready for all this yet. Don’t make me or any of the rest of the board the enemy. We are here to advise, to help you.”

I said nothing, and he took that as the sign it was. He left the office, and I would be changing the locks. Too many people had a say in this office besides me.

*

“So, I had a rather interesting call with Duncan Salsbury this afternoon.”

I bet she had.

Snitch.

My mom’s voice had drifted from her place across the kitchen, cutting away at bell peppers and onions with the precision of a sous chef in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen. No sooner had she sliced and diced than she grabbed for the mushrooms, doing the same for our weekly taco night. I tried to come over weekly to have dinner with my mother now that I was back in town, and we both made time for it.

To my dismay, considering I was currently being probed.

Obviously, good ole Duncan had been running his mouth after our little tiff this morning. I grumbled.

“And how is everyone over at the country club?” I asked, knowing that was where she’d run into him, talked to him. They were still very much friends, and I was sure the entire town knew about my struggles at the office, thanks to a certain board member. These people spouted gossip like a TMZ Kardashian spotting at a club. I growled. “Still being complete busybodies?”

My mom’s serrated knife paused on a portobello. My mother was a blond woman, tall and who’d been about half the reason I ended up reaching six-foot-eight. My mom was just shy of six-foot-one, which was basically fucking awesome when I’d been a kid and needed to find her in the store. I passed her in height around seventh grade, and the woman looked like Daryl Hannah walking off the set of Splash. This basically made my life hell my entire middle school career. The whole MILF thing and all that, but seeing as how I attended boarding school on the other side of the country for most of high school, I hadn’t had to deal with the ridicule there. For my boarding school days, I could thank, once again, my father. He’d shipped me off back then, easier to do that than actually deal with me.

My father had a tendency of sweeping things under the rug when he didn’t want to deal with them, and how ironic as he had gone off to prison. There wasn’t sweeping away anything there, and this family had to deal with it, the busybodies over at the country club completely in our business.

Mom grumbled now. “How is it that I raised such a complete and ridiculously smart aleck of a son?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” I stated, being extra bold when I winked at her.

She tossed a piece of mushroom at me, as she should for being smart, but that was our dynamic. In fact, I got most of my sense of humor from her. Hell, if I could ever crack a smile across Ibrahim Mallick’s lips, former mayor and who had more scowls to his name than Royal Prinze. He’d cashed in quite a few in my direction as well, for being smart-mouthed and all that.

Mom frowned. “Ramses, don’t be mean. Those ‘busybodies’ as you put them were there for me. There for this family when we were going through the most difficult time period. They would have been there for you too had you let them, had you stayed.”

My gaze lifted from the romaine I was cutting, hesitating but only for a second. I angled the knife into leaves. “Are we talking about that now, too?”

She’d shared her opinion about Brown as well. Everyone basically had, so why not just give this thing another go?

A sigh fell from my mother’s lips. “I just worry about you. Duncan said you’re being resistant to his help, and I think we all were surprised to see you so ready to just jump in and get started working after you came back.”

“Why?” I’d been born into this, bred for it. This was my legacy, the plan, and she knew that.

Mom eyed me like it was obvious. “I don’t know, because you expressed zero interest every time your father actually tried to get you involved with the business. You basically went kicking and screaming every time he tried, and eventually, he just gave up. Gave up on you.”

“He was really good at that, wasn’t he?”

Another frown in my direction, and had she’d been close to me, she probably would have shoved that entire cutting board of pre-cut vegetables into my face. She lay the knife down. “I’m just saying you never wanted to get involved before, but that’s the first thing you did when you came back.”

“So, I’m trying to get my shit together,” I said. “Obviously.”

Tags: Eden O'Neill Court University Romance
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