Chapter 25 P-A-R-D-A
P-A-R-D-A
Brendan
“When the fuck is dinner going to be? I’m about to chew my goddamn arm off.”
By the booming timbre of my father’s voice, you’d have never known he’d just had a heart attack. And if he didn’t mellow out soon, he’d probably have another one.
Unfortunately, mellow wasn’t in the old man’s vocabulary.
I checked my watch as I walked into the house, then shrugged out of my coat before handing it to Jenkins, the butler.
“Thank you,” I told him, ignoring the mild surprise on the older man’s face at my gratitude.
Christ, I wasn’t that bad, was I?
Simone had texted me about an hour ago to tell me she was running late from a salon in Cambridge.
I didn’t ask her what the hell she was doing on that side of the city or why she couldn’t have found somewhere to do her hair closer to my apartment downtown.
Ruth had told me she was planning to shop today for something to wear to this dinner, and if I was being honest, I was kind of curious what she’d come up with.
I liked Simone in a bartender’s black T-shirt. I enjoyed her in a simple blue dress. I honestly wasn’t sure how I’d feel once I saw her looking and feeling her absolute best.
For that reason alone, as soon as I entered the mansion’s marbled foyer, I found myself wishing I’d waited for her to join me.
Maybe I could wait in the car.
“Brendan! Are you fucking coming?”
Shit. Too late.
Leaving once the old man started raging was not a wise idea. We’d all learned early to let him go on until he ran out of steam.
I grimaced as I turned around. “Dad.”
My father exited his study in the company of the nurse of the day, his new cane, and an oxygen tank. Owen and Ronan trailed after him like dogs as he made his way to the parlor, where he held court at family gatherings. Reluctantly, I joined them.
We all watched awkwardly as he settled into his favorite armchair. Only then did we take our own seats near the fire that was inexplicably roaring despite the balmy spring weather.
Dad liked the things the way he liked them, weather be damned.
“Get out, I said.” Dad batted the nurse away like she was a fly. “Do I look like I need to be mothered?”
“Sir, I’m supposed to take your vitals every hour, and—”
“I don’t give a fuck about my vitals. I’m up, aren’t I? Breathing, talking, doing just fuckin’ fine. If I collapse, one of my sons will fetch you, so do us all a favor, Mary, and go watch soaps in your room or whatever the fuck you do in there all day.”
Sniffing back tears, the nurse fled.
“He’s been calling all the nurses Mary,” Rowan said beside me on the Chesterfield couch. “I think this one’s name is Ethel. Or maybe Edna.”
“It’s Elena,” Owen corrected him. “She just told you that ten minutes ago.”
“It’s whatever the fuck I want it to be for what I’m paying her,” Dad snapped.
Jenkins reappeared to pour everyone their favorite drinks: an old-fashioned for Ronan, vodka soda for Owen, and scotch neat for me. Just like my old man.
For the first time, the idea of being just like him didn’t quite appeal to me.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?” I asked, taking my drink from Jenkins.
“Why?” Dad barked. “I’m fine. I feel great. Better than ever. Jenkins, where’s my drink?”
“He says with a tube up his nose,” Ronan remarked. “Did you want to snort it, Dad?”
“Sir. The doctors said no alcohol for another two to three weeks, at minimum.”
“What the fuck do they know?” he barked, the vein in his forehead pulsing. “How’s a man supposed to get through anything, much less run his business, without a bit of whiskey?”
“We’ve got the business covered,” Owen put in. “Haven’t you heard that Brendan’s doing a bang-up job selling off company assets?”
“That’s right,” Ronan chimed in. “Big bro’s selling everything left and right. Blackguard’s keeping afloat like a raft of Venezuelan refugees, Pop.”
I glared at my brothers, a silent command to keep their mouths shut.
I knew Owen wasn’t happy with the plans around his real estate projects, but honestly, we didn’t need to encourage another heart attack.
Things would settle down, and everyone would adjust to the changes I’d made.
Bringing them up now, in front of our father, wouldn’t serve any of us well.
They kept silent. And Dad, thankfully, didn’t take the bait.
“I’m waiting for the quarterly reports from Liza, but she’s dragging her damn feet. What’s going on with that?” Dad pushed up from his chair and yanked the oxygen tube from his nose so he could start his customary pacing in front of the fire.
With his cane, it was more like a slow, tottering shuffle. Honestly, he was liable to fall into the flames if he wasn’t careful.
He didn’t seem to care that he looked less like a titan of industry and more like a crazy old man.
The nurse hadn’t even helped him dress for dinner—he wore a comfortable sweatsuit, his knotty feet shoved into a pair of sheepskin slippers.
Nice things, of course. Everything my father owned was nice.
But it was the first time in my life I’d seen him in anything other than a suit and tie since we left Southie.
“Jesus, Dad, sit down before you pass out,” I said.
“Don’t patronize me, Brendan.” He paused his pacing to give a few wheezing coughs that shook his frame. “The numbers. Where are they?”
I sighed. “I’m not sure.”
Bald-faced lie. Liza was delaying those numbers because I’d told her to wait myself.
I would never admit that, of course. Not to him.
But the truth was, they weren’t great. Our stock had taken a dive after the news had broken about his heart attack, and it was slow to recover.
Dad would blame it on me, on the fact that I’d been appointed interim CEO.
And while I knew that the numbers would certainly cast some doubt on my stewardship of the company, there was also the simple truth that they’d been trending down for the last year.
Dad was a lion, but he’d made some wrong moves. Trusted the wrong people and taken some bad gambles. And facing that now would throw him into another rage.
Simone’s introduction aside, I was only trying to protect his fragile heart—literally.
“You’re not sure?” Dad growled. “I guess I have to do everything myself around here. Mary! Bring my tank!”
The nurse returned, then followed Dad’s stumbling form with the oxygen tank, Jenkins with his drink. My brothers and I let out triplet sighs of relief. Dad had a way of sucking the air not just out of the room, but out of our lungs, too.
“He’s on a fucking tear.” Owen downed half of his vodka.
“Sure you want to have your immortal beloved over tonight?” Ronan wondered. “I walked in, and he said I needed to be ready for heads to roll since I’d be the one chopping them off. Not even a fucking hello.”
Neither Owen nor I argued. If I was the heir and Owen the spare, Ronan was the mercenary knight as well as the jester.
It was the unspoken way of things, coming down to the fact that he carried a darkness about him the rest of us didn’t.
Something he covered with humor, but which was there nonetheless.
I took another mouthful of scotch. “He doesn’t know how to rest or relax. I’m convinced the doctors only allowed him to leave the hospital because he was terrorizing the nurses.”
“Like your new ‘fiancée’?” Owen didn’t bother to conceal his mocking tone. “Where is she, anyway? I thought she was coming to kiss the ring. Or is that just in bed with you?”
“I’ll thank you to keep a civil goddamn tongue when it comes to Simone,” I snapped. “She’ll be here any minute. Where’s Shea? I wanted everyone to meet Simone tonight.”
“She’s at the Sox game with Brad. Or maybe Chad.” Ronan shrugged and took a drink. “Who the fuck knows who Shea spreads her legs for these days? It’s all to get Daddy’s attention, and Dad couldn’t care less as long as she marries for money.”
“Can you not talk about our sister’s fucking legs, you ingrate?” Owen said. “It’s bad enough we have to hear about your exploits all the fucking time?”
“Jealous much? Come with me to Vegas for once, brother. Prostitution’s legal, so even you can have an orgasm for once and learn not to be such a fucking grouch all the time. You can even pretend her name is Ivy Ink if that will help you finish.”
Owen’s knuckles turned white as he clenched his glass. “You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?”
Ronan smirked at me. “Did you hear? The Herald turned poor Owen down for ten mil this week in exchange for her real identity. He’s just a sore loser.”
“She’s a pain in my ass. Did you see what she wrote this week about Ventnor? I look like a fool.”
“I think you do that just fine on your own.”
I scowled at the two of them. “Christ. Can the two of you at least try to be civil tonight? Dad’s bad enough.”
“What’s the point?” Ronan asked. “Your darling betrothed might as well see the family for what it is. It’s what she’s getting paid for, right?”
I set my glass on the coffee table hard enough that the whiskey sloshed onto the wood. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Ronan?”
Ronan cast an odd look at the glass, then another at me. “Well, she’s not exactly worth millions, is she? Is it too much to say she’s, ah, digging for treasure here? I assume the prenup was reasonably good.”
“She’s not a fuckin’ gold digger,” I said a little too quickly.
Across the room, Owen sniggered. “I forgot it was love at first sight. Never knew ‘The Black Prince’ was such a romantic.”
I forced myself to meet his eye. It took everything I had not to look away first. “Don’t be a dick. Either of you.”
I stared down Ronan too, who finally shook his head and tipped back another gulp of his drink.
“Fine. But tell us she’s great in the sack or something. She does have a nice mouth.” Ronan’s lips curled around the cruel joke. “All pretty and pink. I bet it’s great when she’s down on her knees, and—”
In a second, both our drinks had spilled on the floor, and I had my brother pinned to the couch by his neck.