Chapter 2
2
Preston
“ I ’ll be in touch in a day or so with next steps,” I tell the CEO of MegaStar as I shake hands with him and his flunkies and escort them out of the Grantham-Hoyer conference room.
I exhale relief and inhale the big-money smell of imminent success as I head back to my office, where my assistant, Franklin, is waiting for me with his tablet in hand.
This office? Is my kingdom. Thick carpet, big mahogany desk, top-of-the-line office chair. Bookshelves full of finance books. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines, New York Harbor, and the East River. I am king of all I survey.
“Cut to the chase,” I say. “Anything from Rhys?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I called him and left him the message about needing an answer ASAP.”
“It’s a sad day when your own brother won’t return your calls.”
Franklin raises his eyebrows. “Have you tried being nice to him?”
I glare at him.
“Just a question,” he says, shrugging. “It’s a strategy that might work for you…every once in a while.”
“He’s my brother. I don’t have to be nice to him.”
“Is there anyone you feel like you do need to be nice to?”
“I’m nice to you,” I remind him.
He rolls his eyes. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” he says, Inigo-Montoya-of- Princess - Bride style.
Franklin, unlike my last assistant, can take the heat, which is one of the things I like best about him. He gives as good as he gets—which reminds me of my brothers, actually—and he’s stellar at his job. Which is why if he says Rhys hasn’t called, I know it’s true.
If my last assistant had said it, I’d assume he lost the message.
“You did get…” Franklin consults his tablet. “Fourteen messages from Arthur Weggers.”
“Shit.” Arthur Weggers is my grandfather’s lawyer and the absolute last person I want to hear from. “Can you give me the too long; didn’t read ?”
“Messages one through six: Can we please reschedule last week’s meeting that you failed to attend?”
“Predictable.” I had my reasons—very good reasons—for blowing off the meeting in Weggers’s office. And I wouldn’t expect him to walk away without a fight.
“There are also forty-three text messages and nine phone calls from people claiming to be your siblings also wanting to know what the hell you’re thinking and what the fuck you think you’re doing.”
“I told them what I was thinking and what the fuck I’m doing,” I say calmly. “I can’t possibly leave New York right now with this deal and this promotion on the line. What about messages seven through fourteen from Weggers?”
“They say that if you don’t call him to reschedule, he’ll take some kind of unspecified action to compel you to show up.”
I wave a hand. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Not worried.”
“Not that it’s any of my business exactly, but what meeting did you fail to show up for?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“As predicted,” he says, unruffled. “But don’t you think I might be able to do more to help you make this dude Weggers disappear if I knew what I was dealing with?”
See, this is why I like Franklin. He doesn’t take anything personally, and he always steps up.
Still, I hesitate before airing the laundry. Because…well, it’s so…
Ridiculous.
But Franklin’s right, and I will do anything to make Weggers disappear.
If only.
I gather myself for the reveal. “When my grandfather died last year, he left this will that said there would be a letter for each of my brothers—five of us in total. The letters would come at a time and date chosen by him, via Weggers. Two of them have been read already—Quinn’s and Shane’s. The letters contain elaborate instructions we have to comply with. We don’t know when they’ll be read or what the instructions are going to say, but if what happened to my two other brothers is any indication, mine’s going to be extremely disruptive and require me to spend at least several weeks, if not months, in Oregon. Which is not what I need when I’m trying to seal this deal and score this promotion.”
“Jesus,” my assistant says. “That’s?—”
“Next-level manipulative bullshit from a dead guy I stopped talking to when I was twenty-one,” I agree.
Franklin frowns. “I didn’t even know dead guys could be manipulative.”
“Me neither, until my grandfather died.”
“But if you don’t show up?—”
I nod. Trust Franklin to immediately grasp the situation. “As far as I can tell, if I don’t hear Weggers read the letter, the clock won’t start ticking on whatever bullshit project I’ve been assigned postmortem. I’ll have to pay the piper eventually, but hopefully it won’t happen until I’m installed in that managing director’s office, with you safely by my side.”
It never hurts to remind people what’s at stake for them. And indeed, Franklin’s eyes get wider at the mention of the managing director’s office that we will both be enjoying in a few short weeks.
“Why are we still talking about this?” I ask him.
“We’re not,” he says. “We’re talking about how I’m about to confirm your Sagrada reservation and call your car for lunch with Damon and Ella.”
“Good man.” I grab my messenger bag—laptop inside—and head for the door.
As I step outside my office, I see a small gathering of people, and my mood—already sour—shifts for the worse. One of the men is David Olafssen, who has been a thorn in my side since we were just-out-of-college analysts fighting for the best assignments. It’s definitely no better now that we’re seasoned senior veeps jockeying for the same promotion.
Because of the big client I just scored, I’m winning at the moment—assuming I can get this merger pushed through relatively quickly and before David comes up with something to outmaneuver me. And I know I can get it through—because I’m that good. I just need to keep my head down and work like a dog for a few more weeks, and I’ll have done it.
I’ll have proved, once and for all, that my grandfather was wrong. I can succeed in New York finance.
“Nice work, Hott,” David calls out, and damn, it feels good. For about 2.2 seconds, until he says, “I’m hot, too, big man. Just brought in AmbiScreen.”
Damn it. AmbiScreen is at least as big a player in tech as MegaStar is in entertainment, and a win right now could put David back in the running for the coveted promotion.
But I’m not worried.
I didn’t get as far as I’ve gotten by letting a little competition put me off my game. In fact, I thrive on competition. I eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I shrug. “Now things get fun,” I say.
“Preston Hott,” a voice says behind me, at about mid-back height. I spin and?—
Oh, shit.
It’s a short balding man wearing a cat-who-swallowed-the-canary expression.
Arthur Weggers, my late grandfather’s irritating little attorney, stands there with a sheet of cream paper in his hand. I recognize that cream paper. I have nightmares about that cream paper.
“How did you get in here?” I demand. Security should be better than that.
“You can thank me for that,” David says cheerfully. “He was downstairs arguing with security, and I asked him what he was here for. When he said it was a legal matter concerning you, I knew you’d want me to send him up.”
Of course David sent Weggers up. While there are plenty of people at Grantham-Hoyer who would be happy to sell me out,David has the most at stake—and he’s happy to play dirty. The idea that a lawyer wanted to serve me with papers probably made his entire day.
I can’t let Weggers read that letter.
“You want me to read it? Or do you want to?” Weggers asks, all wide-eyed innocence.
“I want to tear it into shreds and flush it down the toilet?—”
“Let the man read your letter,” David says, all mirth. He leans against the wall, the picture of relaxed nonchalance. Settling in for the show.
I grit my teeth.
“Thank you,” Weggers says to David.
“Someone call security,” I command, but I’m surrounded by people who are bored and jonesing for some drama—and who wouldn’t mind if I got taken down a notch—so no one does.
In case Franklin hasn’t heard the commotion, I pull out my phone and text him: Get security up here right now.
Franklin
Already on their way.
Good man. But by the time security gets here, it might be too late. Because Weggers, who is normally all about the pomp and circumstance, opens his mouth and dives straight in. “‘You’re a stubborn bastard, just like your granddad. But all work and no play makes Preston a dull boy, wouldn’t you agree?’”
There are snickers from David’s lackeys. My workaholic reputation has never been a secret.
“I will sue your ass if you read one more word from that letter.” But even as the words leave my mouth, I’m aware that in the last few minutes, I’ve gone from being a power broker to a heartsick kid fighting with a ghost. I hate this. I hate that my grandfather can reach out a bony finger from beyond the grave and erase all the years I spent proving myself.
“Go ahead,” Weggers says. “I’ll relish the fight.” He drops his gaze to the letter again:
“‘You have three months, starting with the reading of this letter?—’”
I lunge for him, but he’s surprisingly agile for an old guy and darts out of my way. Worse, David steps between me and Weggers. “Whoa. Whoa, man. I don’t think you want to get physical about this, do you? Wouldn’t look great when they’re trying to decide whether to install you or me in that big, cushy new office, would it?”
And fuck, he’s right. I glare but don’t come at him again.
“‘—to build an all-ages activity program at Hott Springs Eternal Resort.’” Weggers is breathless with excitement.
My chest deflates. My whole self deflates. Because let’s face it. Even if he doesn’t read another word, even if security drags him out of here right now and tosses him on the street, it’s over. The letter is served, the charge is read, the clock starts now, and if I don’t show up?
I’m the Hott brother who let our sister down.
That sucks.
Weggers, unaware that I’ve already ceded the victory, goes on. “‘The program must provide an assortment of weekly activities that cater to wedding parties and attendees—some for adults, some for children, and some for families—and be vetted in a booth at the Rush Creek Summer Festival. See below for more details on the variety and number of programs.
“‘You will live in Hott Springs Eternal housing starting no more than forty-eight hours from the reading of this letter until your task is complete.’”
David hoots. I didn’t even know he had that sound in him. I’ve never seen him this amused. He’s bent double, laughing.
“Or?” he says. “Or else? Or what?”
Weggers, delighted to have a new audience for his shenanigans, says, “Or the family business and the family land will belong to a mining company.”
“You’re not serious,” David says, sobering. “That’s tragic. What’s the family business? Oil? Steel? Ranching?”
I’ve always wondered what people mean when they say something feels like a slow-motion train wreck, but now I know.
“It’s a wedding and spa venue,” Weggers pronounces.
“A wedding and spa venue!” David echoes. “Oh, well, then. That’s definitely important enough to take a month off from work!”
I hate him so much.
“It’s my family’s land,” I say. “It’s my sister’s business.”
David’s eyebrows go way up. “Then you know what you have to do, don’t you?” he asks, barely able to get the words out through his laughter.
“What’s going on here?” a voice says behind me.
No.
It’s Anjali. Our group head. The big boss. The one whose vote weighs biggest in the decision about whether David or I sit in the managing director’s office starting next month.
Arthur Weggers looks from David to me to Anjali.
David grins.
“Anjali,” he says, “I believe Preston needs a leave of absence, starting tomorrow.”