Chapter 18
Grayson
Istalk into the room, meeting my father's gaze for a fleeting second. The old man doesn't even look guilty that he ambushed me. He could have mentioned over the phone that this meeting wasn't just between the two of us. He could even have said the other party would be him… George.
He didn't. Why not?
This doesn't look good.
"Grayson," George says, crossing his legs and straightening his tie, before folding his hands together. His classic move when he's trying his hardest not to fidget. "It's nice to see you."
"Wish I could say the same. I didn't know you were back in town."
"Your brother just flew in this morning," my father answers for him.
"I see. Is this meeting as much a surprise for him as it is for me?"
"Nope," George admits, smiling happily. "I knew I'd be here, and I knew you would be here, too."
"How nice for you. Once again, Father, despite my position as CEO, I'm the only one you chose to keep out of the loop." I say the words casually, but there's enough of a bite to make George's smile drop and that familiar look of guilt appears on his face.
I hate it when he does that. It's worse when he goes apologetic.
If it were me, I'd stand on my ground, take the hit and keep pushing.
If he has the balls to marry my ex—the woman he slept with while I was still with her—he should have the balls to face me properly.
I'd rather he tell me to get over it than roll over and show me his belly, like some kicked puppy.
"Well, Grayson, that's because you would have made yourself scarce if you knew he was at this meeting," my father speaks up.
"True," I say, and take a seat across from him at our father's African blackwood and burgundy-leather desk. "So, Daddy dearest, you've gone to a lot of trouble to get us in the same room. What's the occasion?"
My father laces his fingers together on the table, unlaces them, and laces them again. A nervous man's tic. "I'm thinking of reorganising things a little," he says. "Just for the time being."
"Meaning what?"
"Grayson, I want you to show George the ropes of running the main division." He meets my gaze head-on. "From today, I want both of you to work together in operating it."
Ah. Of course. "Why? Is he going to be taking my job?"
Dad sighs and repeats the finger-lacing.
"You know how hard I've worked for this company, and you also know I've always wanted the Wolfe Group to be a business with continuity—something to be passed down the generations.
I want it to be led by a Wolfe after I die…
and after you die, I want one of you to pass it on to one of your sons. "
"What about daughters?"
"Sure, if the sons aren't capable. But preferably the male child." He looks at me as if this were practical business strategy rather than antiquated paternalism. "The thing is, although neither of you has children, George is engaged—and he's younger. Better odds for conceiving, you see."
"And so am I," I say, because I'm not about to let that one slide. George's head snaps to mine.
"You are what… getting married?"
"Yes. You met my fiancée Jenna over breakfast earlier this week, remember? Surely the old fool hasn't forgotten already."
"Yes, yes, of course." He blinks several times and looks almost relieved. "I didn't realize you were serious about her."
"Did you think I would put a girl through the nightmare of introducing her to you and our mother unless I was serious?"
"Well…" His expression falters. "Perhaps not," he finishes lamely. "But the important thing is that George has been with his fiancée for longer—"
"Technically, I was with her longer than he's been. She was with me for over four years before he decided to fuck her over his desk."
George jerks like he's been struck. Dad gives me a disapproving look.
"Whatever the case may have been," Dad says quickly, "for now they've been together longer than you have been with your fiancée. I believe they will have children sooner. But anyway, this meeting is about the company, and who is to be the permanent CEO, not about—"
"You don't know that," I interrupt him. "You don't even know if either of us can father children. Maybe George here is firing blanks. It's never been tested." Silence lands in the room like a landed bird; it's clear this possibility had not occurred to them.
"Is this because Mom doesn't like Jenna?
" I continue. "Because I thought she didn't like Marina either.
As for the company, I'm the acting CEO, and the firm has been doing fine under my leadership.
Why rock the boat? Shareholders won't like it, and neither will our major clients.
They trust me. George would be a relatively unknown quantity. You'd be creating risk for no reason."
"This isn't about what your mother likes," Dad says.
"This is about being realistic about the business.
Let me remind you, Grayson, that you are not the CEO—you are only the acting CEO.
You were chosen because we needed someone to step in immediately when I had my stroke and George was away in London. It was a matter of expedience."
We both know that's nonsense. They would have preferred me for the job in any case. But the old games of favor and lineage are back in play, and Mom's disapproval—her quiet, corrosive voice—still carries weight.
"I don't know yet which one of you will take the permanent position," he continues. "But whoever it is, I don't want them to be incompetent, so I need you to bring George up to speed."
"No."
Dad raises an eyebrow. "No?"
"You heard me. Since when has George expressed any real interest in the business? He's always wanted to do his own thing. You trained me for this since I was a little boy. Now I'm supposed to teach him everything?"
"I wasn't uninterested in the family business," George snaps, oddly defensive for someone who looks like he's about to faint. "I just wasn't as ambitious as you are."
"You mean you preferred gambling dens and whorehouses to an honest day's work. What changed?"
"Maybe I did have a misspent youth, Grayson. We can't all be angels. But those days are over. You want to know what changed me? It's a who, not a what. Marina—that's who changed me. She made me grow up. She made me responsible."
I feel bile rise, momentary and hot. Marina. The name still tastes like rust. He gestures towards Dad with a look of gratitude I want to punch off his face.
"I think Dad's right," he says with an annoying mixture of earnestness and triumph. "I think the position should go to whoever has children first, and it looks like it will be me." He swallows. "In fact, we weren't going to tell anyone for a few more days, but Marina's pregnant."
They both wait for the explosion. They expect pain, tears, rage.
I let them. I watch their faces. I had braced myself for a hot, fresh spike of betrayal, the sharpness of the original wound reopened.
Instead there's a cold dullness—an irritation—because the conversation has been reduced to uterus and timing rather than competence and duty.
So that's what Marina called to tell me; that explains the missed call. She'd wanted me to hear it from her. My thumb hovered over the screen and then I ignored it. I hadn't thought there was anything she could say worth my time. Turns out—apparently—I was wrong about that too.
"Whoever isn't the CEO gets to oversee the European branch," Dad says with the clumsy enticement of a man expecting his sons to be flattered by consolation prizes.
"No," I say. "I'm not teaching him shit. If you want to hand the reins to him, be my guest, but he'd better learn everything the hard way, exactly like I did." I stand. "Oh, and the second George is elected CEO, I'm leaving the company."
"What?" Dad's face drops in shock.
"Yeah. The very second, and I'll make it clear why."
"Are you that petty, Grayson?"
"It's not about being petty." I meet his eyes and let the accusation land.
"I've worked my ass off for this firm. I'm not going to sit and watch it flounder under someone who doesn't have the right knowledge or backbone.
If you hand a role that belongs to me to my less-competent brother, I'm gone. " I turn and head for the door.
"Grayson," my father calls after me. "Come back. Let's talk this through."
I keep walking. George sits there like a well-meaning, bewildered child. That's precisely why he shouldn't be CEO; the buck cannot stop with someone who freezes at the first sign of friction. It's laughable—would be, if it weren't the future of a company I built my life around.
Outside, mid-morning Brooklyn is a sunlit grind of taxis and suits.
The air tastes of exhaust and pretension.
I let the noise swallow me while I try to remember why I threatened to walk away.
I meant it. I meant every word. Pride is a currency that buys you clarity at times like this.
If they want a CEO who'll be a puppet for lineage and old resentments, fine. Let them have it. I won't.
I spend the rest of the day in the office, choosing work as an antidote to thought.
When the sky goes dim and the floors clear, I finally lock the door and drive home.
The house is too quiet. Yesterday there had been laughter in the hallway, the sound of towels on tiles, the muted rush of the jacuzzi. Tonight there is nothing.
I go to the jacuzzi because habit is a kind of superstition—if I arrive and it's full and warm, then everything will be okay.
If it's empty, then maybe the world is as empty as my chest feels.
I push the door, and the water lies silver and still.
No bubbles. No displaced towels. The silence presses.
I close my eyes and picture Jenna: the way she moved around the tub, the soft, dangerous way she'd let herself enjoy a private thing.
She was reckless. Present. She is the opposite of everything my family stands for—honest, messy, incandescent.
The picture wedges under my ribs and I close my hands into fists.
Why am I angry? At her? At Marina? At Dad? At myself for ever being foolish enough to imagine the people who raised me might play fair?
Probably all of it.
I sit on the couch and take out my phone.
There's nothing to do but replay the fragments of the day like some ugly opera that will not end.
I pick at my thoughts like a scab until the memory becomes a want.
The want, when it arrives, isn't a neat thing.
It's a slow burn: the memory of Jenna's mouth, the sound she makes when she thinks no one is listening, soft and private.
It coaxes like a hand on my thigh. It nags. It aches.
When I hear her car pull up, something fierce and sudden flips inside me.
A small, mean smile corners my lips. Payback—that thought appears, unsolicited and childish, but it feels like fuel.
Not payback for humiliation, but a reminder: I can make myself feel better.
I can take back the territory they've started redividing without me.