Holiday Husband

Chapter 1

HARRISON

“God, you love yourself.” Sterling leaned against the doorway to my brand new corner office and folded his arms over his chest. “Narcissism incarnate.”

I smirked at my view that overlooked the San Francisco skyline- just like I’d always dreamed it would. Christmas lights hung from half the skyscrapers in sight, adding festive cheer to the glass and steel of the urban jungle I would soon own.

Okay, maybe that’s a little bit too cocky. Even for me, but shit.

“I’m not a narcissist.” I tugged at the cuffs of my shirt with deliberate precision. “I just love being me. It’s not my fault I do it so well.”

In this office, I was the Westwood in residence, and I’d had it arranged precisely like I’d been planning to since I’d learned how to say acquisitions.

Dark wood shelves lined the wall, interspersed with framed photographs of places I’d traveled.

The leather furniture smelled expensive.

Black and white images of my favorite haunts in the city hung on the walls.

It was masculine. Refined. Old money.

Mine.

I turned to find my eldest brother still leaning against the doorframe like he owned the place, which technically, I supposed he kind of did.

Dad barked a laugh from behind Sterling, crossing the floor and clapping me on the back hard enough to make me jolt forward.

“That’s my baby boy. Corner office before he’s even thirty. ”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Before twenty-five, actually. Don’t age me up.”

He shook his head and for one terrifying second as he looked around, I thought he might tear up. “Our last one. All grown up.”

His voice was gruff, his gaze roaming across the office like this was a rite of passage. I pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare. If you cry in this office, that’s bad luck. I’m sure of it. It’s probably some old Wall Street superstition. Tears kill future deals.”

Sterling chuckled. “You’re unbelievable.”

“No,” I countered smoothly, feeling like the king of the world. “I’m unstoppable. There’s a difference.”

Dad slid his hands into his pockets, staring out the window with a weirdly soft smile on his lips. “One day, this will all be yours to pass down to your own children. You’ll understand, then. Tears don’t kill dreams. They build them.”

Sterling scoffed. “As if you’ve ever shed a single tear in this building.”

A steely grin spread across Dad’s lips. “No, I haven’t, but it’s different now. I’m thinking about my legacy. What I’m leaving behind.”

For just a second, I thought that this was it. I thought he was finally going to tell me that it was my turn now. That he expected me to settle down, get married, and produce a couple heirs of my own.

My brothers had gotten the whole spiel this year. Dad had hounded them about it, not giving up until they’d all been married and he now had three grand-kids on the way. Somehow, he’d skipped right by me.

At Thanksgiving, he’d asked about my plans for marriage. I’d thought he was about to launch into the speech. He hadn’t.

Now it was almost Christmas, and he still hadn’t said anything more about it.

In fact, he was circling the office like he was dropping me off at kindergarten for the first time.

After getting all misty-eyed over the view, he tapped on my desk, straightened the frame of the Westwood crest on the wall, and kept letting out these little sighs.

I half expected him to pull out a juice box and tuck it into my drawer when he finally lowered himself into a chair across from my desk. “Are you really ready for this, son? Ready to grow up and move into this role?”

“Ready?” I gave him a confident grin. “I was born ready. I’ve got the office. I’ve got the position in the company. All I need now is a wife, right?”

That should’ve baited him, but instead of the legendary Westwood it’s-time-to-settle down Lecture, my father chuckled and shook his head. “A wife? Why? You’ve got time, Harrison. Slow down. Live a little.”

I blinked hard. “I’m sorry, what? What happened to twenty-four not being a kid anymore and how Sterling was already on his way by the time you were my age?”

“Settling down can wait in your case, Harry. I didn’t have a choice, but you do. It’s like you said, Sterling is taking over when I retire, so you don’t have to worry about the same things I did. Enjoy your youth while you’ve still got it.”

With that, he stood up and left my office. No lecture. No warnings about what would happen to my inheritance if I didn’t fall in line. No guilt trip.

Sterling’s eyebrows were raised, but he chuckled once Dad was gone. “Do you think he’s having a stroke?”

“I don’t know, but that was definitely weird.”

I stared at the door as it fell shut behind Dad, dumbfounded. My brothers had been stalked by wedding bells since college, and I was getting a bachelorhood hall pass?

That’s just not right.

“Maybe you should leave early today,” Sterling suggested as he strode toward the door himself. “Go out. Celebrate your office.”

“Why?” I watched him curiously, wondering what the hell was going on. “Are you leaving early?”

He let out a bark of dry laughter. “No, I wish I could, but the baby will be here soon, and I’ve got too much to do. But you? You’re young. You have the freedom to go day drinking on a Tuesday. I don’t.”

“I did plenty of day-drinking in college. More when I was in Europe over the summer. I’m ready to get to work.”

His head tilted slowly, his piercing gaze on mine. Sterling was our family’s bulldog. A legendary negotiator who hadn’t met a deal he couldn’t close. I respected the hell out of him, but I wasn’t backing down about this.

“Maybe you should ease into it,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. I didn’t think I’d ever heard him use that tone on me. Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d heard it with anyone but his wife, Laney. “You really are young, Harrison. There’s nothing chasing you, so why are you so keen to run?”

“I happen to like running.” I lifted my chin slightly. “You didn’t ease into it. I might not have been around the office back then, but I was still living with Mom and Dad. I heard them talking all the time about how worried they were you were going to burn out.”

He sighed and slid his hands into his pockets. “If that’s true, then Dad was just pretending to be worried. Don’t get me wrong, I love the man, but he’s had me jumping through hoops for my seat at the head of that table since the minute I first walked into this building after I graduated.”

I nodded, because I’d known that. It was helping me prove my point. “What about Jameson? Did he ease into it?”

Sterling chuckled. “Does Jamie even know what it means to ease into something? I don’t think so.

If I recall, he called half of his department idiots on the first day, fired them, and told them to reapply for their jobs when they figured out what the fuck it means to be in finance and liquidations. ”

“Callum?”

“Oh, that was interesting.” Sterling let a rare grin slide across his lips.

“After he convinced Dad to let him start an in-house marketing department, he showed up sometime after ten am looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, but had slept in a five-thousand-dollar suit, then he chose where he wanted his department to be, made everyone else clear out of that space, and started calling down employees who had any kind of background in marketing. ”

I nodded slowly, more in awe of my brothers right now than I had been in a long time.

“On your first day in acquisitions, you closed a deal Dad had been working on for months. No one could get the owner to budge, but you walked into the conference room, uninvited, and told him pointblank what the next year of his life was going to look like if he didn’t play ball. ”

“Yeah, I did. I’d forgotten about that, actually.” Sterling chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “What’s the point of all this, Harrison?”

“You guys did all that, and you want me to go day drinking?”

For a moment, I thought I had him, but then he opened the door and waved me toward it. “Exactly, because that’s what all of us would’ve wanted to go do on the day we got our first offices here. We just couldn’t. You can.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could get a word out, his phone rang and he took the call, his features immediately hardening back into stone as he barked instructions into the receiver and disappeared out into the hall.

I watched him go. Honestly, I didn’t understand what was going on with my family. When I’d asked Mom to set me up so I could get a head-start on my quest finding a wife, she’d sent me a date with a relative. Distant, but still.

Now, Dad had straight-up told me he wasn’t going to be breathing down my neck about it and Sterling, who had finally given me a chance in his department, was telling me to go day-drinking. Something I didn’t think he’d ever done in his entire damn life because he took work too seriously.

Exasperation sat like a hot coal in my gut, but I planted my ass more firmly in my chair. If they weren’t going to push me into either marriage or closing deals, I’d prove myself another way—and I’d do it by staying right here.

Pulling a thick leather file closer, I flipped it open, gaze skipping across a modest property portfolio inside that wasn’t actually modest at all. This was a billion-dollar acquisition wrapped in failure.

There had been a time when the family this company belonged to had been banking royalty, their wealth rivaling even our own.

Unlike what had happened in our family when my dad had taken over, however, their heir had fumbled the ball so badly that they were now desperate enough to sell out completely.

Which was great news for me, since it meant I could swoop in, Westwood-style, picking the bones clean before Jameson liquidated what was left. This was my chance to prove to Dad, Sterling, and myself that I was more than just the baby.

I spread the contents of the file out across my desk like a chessboard, the pieces already moving in my head. Properties in San Francisco, New York, and Colorado, all of it prime parcels of land that could’ve been a gold mine until the heir had gambled it all away.

But it left space for me to slide into the vacuum.

I felt for the heir, really, but I grinned once I had my ducks in a row and punched in the number for his attorney.

After I introduced myself, I got straight to the point.

“Westwood and Sons is prepared to move fast. Let’s set up a time and place for your client to sign the papers. ”

The attorney cleared his throat. “We have the greatest respect for W&S, Mr Westwood, but I’m afraid there’s another bidder in play. My client intends to meet with them this afternoon.”

“Cancel.” I smiled into the phone. “I have an offer your client can’t refuse.”

“Unfortunately,” the man said, not sounding like this was unfortunate at all. “The other bidder is insisting on a face-to-face meeting. It’s happening at the St. Regis at three o’clock. I’ll get back to you about a meeting after that.”

The St. Regis. A hotel ten blocks from here. This idiot had just handed me the keys to the castle.

“Fine,” I said smoothly. “Let him have his face-to-face. Just tell him we’re interested and that we can make it happen. Today. No hold-ups or stalling. If he’s willing to match my pace, that is.”

I ended the call and leaned back in my chair. My brothers would’ve taken the polite route. Waited, made counters offers, and played nice.

Not me.

One of the good things about being the baby of this family was that I got away with shit. I’d learned early on that rules were merely suggestions when your last name was Westwood.

I was going to get what I wanted, which, in this case, was a forty-percent commission on a billion-dollar buyout—my first week in the office.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Even if I have to say so myself.

I straightened my tie, already planning my next move. If the heir wanted a face-to-face, he was going to get one.

I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized he was sitting across from a Westwood.