Chapter 4
Zander stared at the phone on his desktop, a hot dose of dread slipping slowly over his skin. Perry, Duke’s irresponsible public relations rep, had sent Zander two texts earlier that day, five minutes apart, no less.
Zander didn’t call Perry. He did, however, call Duke. It was no surprise that he didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop the onslaught of worst-case scenarios from flooding his mind.
Heck, within the last seven years, the Bentons had lost a brother, their father, and their grandfather too.
Only Zander was certain Duke’s sticky spot, as Perry put it, was far from fatal.
The truth was, Zander had an inkling as to what the trouble might be, which was probably where the dread came from.
His office phone let out a beep. “Mr. Benton?” Linda said through the line. “Perry did say it was urgent. You’ll be picking up soon, right?”
Zander groaned. “Right.” With that, he reached across the desk and tapped a finger on the flashing dot. “This is Zander.”
“Oh, man. Thank you for taking my call, man. You have no idea what Duke’s gotten himself into.”
“I think I do,” Zander interrupted. He stood to his feet in the quiet pause, tucked a hand into one pocket, and circled the desk. “Does it have something to do with a social experiment?”
A chorus of crickets would have been more comforting than the silence that followed Zander’s question.
“Let me guess. He got picked, and now he has to marry some woman he’s never met. Am I right?”
“He told you about it?”
Zander stopped pacing, clenched his eyes shut tight, and stifled a curse.
“Hello? He said nobody knew about it.”
He shuffled back to his desk and sank into the chair, giving into the heightened pull of gravity—a force that threatened to plunge him into dark places.
“We knew about the show, the fact he tried out for it a long time ago. He sounded shocked every time he made it to the next round…” Zander’s words died off as he considered the last time Duke texted him regarding the show; it was moments before the pretty chemist walked through his door.
He sighed, forcing his mind back to the issue. “Last I heard, he had one final round of eliminations to go through. So they picked him?”
“They picked him. They notified him. And I think he’s in denial or something.”
“Probably,” Zander said. “Who wouldn’t be? It was a crazy thing to sign up for.”
The magnitude of the situation hovered beyond a mound of thinning denial.
Having money did that to a person—made them feel as if they could get out of anything.
But that wasn’t always the case. And as much as he’d teased his twin for signing up for the TV show, Zander knew how binding those contracts could be.
He pictured Grandma Lo and her determination to hold up the Benton name after Dad and Grandpa died.
The last thing the Benton Family needed was a fresh scandal on their hands.
And hadn’t they had enough media attention over the last few years?
Duke signing up for the reality wedding TV show—whatever it was—would bring on a whole lot more.
At once Zander’s shoulders lifted. Duke might have beat him out of the womb, but Zander had played the part of the oldest for as long as he could remember. And it was his job to fix this.
“I’ll talk to him,” he said. “In fact, I’ll head over after my three o’clock and—”
“He’s in Nepal.”
Zander shot to his feet. “What!” The single word rumbled the glass walls surrounding his office, but that was nothing compared to the trembling within him.
On the family’s TV show, Zander was often introduced as the lion with the loudest roar. The truth was, he’d only lashed out twice during production, and both incidents were within the first year of filming—a time Zander was trying to cope with his father’s death.
And though he’d learned to control his temper since then, the perfect storm—passion, frustration, and outright fury—gave life to that roar even still.
“I, uh…” Perry squeaked through the line. “He went to Mount Everest.”
Linda came rushing down the hall in long, desperate strides, her gaze catching his through the glass.
Zander put up a hand as she scurried into the room, concern etched on her pale face.
“Just when is this wedding supposed to take place?”
“That’s the reason I’m calling you.”
Zander gritted his teeth. “When.”
“In two days.”
“Two days?” Claudia Benton cried. “There has to be some sort of mistake.”
Zander tore his gaze off the Persian rug at his feet to look at his mother.
“It’s not a mistake.” He glanced about the large room, catching one horrified expression after the next.
It had taken exactly three and a half hours to assemble an emergency family meeting at his place.
Everyone had made it. Everyone, that is, except for Duke.
“I can’t believe he’d do something like that,” Mom’s boyfriend, Michael, said.
“I can,” snapped Grandma Lo. “He might pretend to be playboy, but I think Duke’s a romantic at heart. I’ve always suspected that about him.”
Zander fought back an eye roll and turned his gaze to the newlywed section.
His sister, Betzy, and her husband, Sawyer, were seated on the leather sofa beside James and his wife, Camila.
Without the other single sibling in the family, Zander was highly outnumbered.
But, of course, if Duke stayed true to the contract he’d signed, he wouldn’t be single for long either.
Mom must have been thinking a similar thing because suddenly she gasped and brought a hand to her chest. “That will make three Benton weddings in a year’s time.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Zander hissed as he folded his arms.
“You can’t kill him,” Mom said, her voice tight. “Who knows if he’ll even survive Everest? People die there all the time.”
Zander was too angry to worry over his brother’s safety. “He’s just dodging his responsibilities. Who knows if he’s even attempting to climb it?” He looked over at James for backup.
“Yeah,” his younger brother said. “I agree. He’s probably not climbing it. That’s not something people decide to do last minute. They have to train for something like that.”
Zander huffed out a breath. “Let me just break this down for everybody since I don’t think we’re grasping the magnitude.”
He held up a finger. “There’s a camera crew lined up and ready to film a wedding that’s supposed to happen in two days.”
Zander held up a second finger. “There’s a woman—Lord only knows what she’s like—who’s known for nearly two weeks that the wedding was on.
She has a dress by now, bridesmaids, you name it.
What she doesn’t have…” He paused there, his gaze settling on Betzy in time to catch the fresh bout of horror on her face.
“Is a groom,” she finished for him, voice flatter than a deflated balloon. Her blue eyes went wide and worried. She stood to her feet suddenly. “We can’t let that happen. We’ve got to call the show and move the production date.”
But Zander only shook his head. “They’re filming live.”
That one earned a full chorus of gasps. “Live?” Grandma had lost her low and steady tenor. The single word had come out as more of a squeak.
Betzy’s shoulders dropped. “Great.”
Zander nodded. “Yep.”
The silence hovering over the air was thick with all the unspoken sentiments playing through Zander’s mind.
The cost of a live production. The intense planning and costly promoting for such an event.
They were in the business after all—the repercussions of messing with a live production could make Mount Everest look like the kiddie hill at a theme park.
“He has to be able to get out of it somehow,” Camila said, looking to James.
James squared a look at Zander. “You said Perry sent you the contract. Did you already have Miles go over it?”
It felt like bumper cars were crashing against Zander’s skull as he recalled the family’s lawyer spelling out the ironclad details. “Yep.”
“And?” James urged.
“Brutal. As long as Duke’s living, he’s liable.”
Chatter picked up among them once more. Mom mumbling to Michael. The newlyweds whispering under their breath like a secret society of their own.
Grandma groaned and thrust her fingers against her forehead. “We can’t afford another scandal.”
“I agree,” Mom said, eyes narrowing in concentration. “But…I might have a solution.”
The mumbling died down.
All eyes shifted to Mom in the quiet pause. A pause that made Zander’s insides squirm.
“What is it?” He regretted the question the moment it slipped off his tongue. Had he not encouraged it, Mom might have kept the thought to herself. And Zander had a feeling that her idea—whatever it was—would be risky.
“Now hear me out,” she prefaced while lifting a hand.
“We can’t get hold of Duke, but we know he knows about the wedding, and he made sure Perry knew about it too.
Either he’s heading back now, in which case he’ll be home in time for the big day, or he’s hiding out until he misses it. Either way, we’ve got to be ready.”
Zander shrugged. “Ready for what? If he doesn’t show, there is no wedding.”
Mom tipped her head to one side. “That’s not necessarily true. I mean, yes, there has to be a groom. And if one doesn’t show, the repercussions will be ugly for our family. Unfathomably so. But…”
A gasp sounded from the newlywed section. Zander looked over in time to see Betzy lean over Sawyer and whisper something to Camila, who let out a gasp of her own.
Mom grinned. “Looks like the ladies are catching on.”
Irritated heat prodded at Zander’s insides. “Catching on to what?”
“Think about it, Zander. You and Duke are identical.”
“So—” But then it hit him. The slam of a mallet to a dangling, unsuspecting gong.
Enlightenment was a funny thing. The word itself suggested that light had been shed on a certain thought or idea, making what was once unseen visible to the mind.
But what if that thing—the very thought or idea—contained no light at all?
“No.”
“Just think about it,” his mom urged. “You probably won’t even have to go through with it. Chances are, Duke’s on his private jet as we speak, heading home in time to do it himself. If that’s the case, we still need to be ready for this wedding.”
“That’s true,” Betzy said. “You’ll have to wear a tux either way.”
James was next to speak up. “So you’re saying that Zander should make plans to be there like the rest of us…”
“In a tux,” Mom inserted.
“And then if Duke doesn’t show, you want Zander to step in and say ‘I do’ in his place?” James shot Zander an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but that’s nuts.”
“Thank you for seeing reason, James,” Grandma Lo said. “There’s no way I’d allow my grandson to do such a thing.”
Relief rushed through Zander’s tightened form. “Good, because I’d never agree to it anyway.”
“Do you want to save this family from further scrutiny or not?” Mom asked.
Grandma Lo was on her feet in a blink, hand raised high and chin propped even higher.
“We are not going to make fools of ourselves for Duke’s sake.
If he doesn’t show, he’ll simply have to suffer the consequences.
” She nodded, eyes thoughtful as she lifted a finger.
“But perhaps we can get hold of him after all. See to it that he keeps his word.”
“If he’s not already on his way,” Michael said, “and we can’t even get hold of him, there’s no way we’ll get him here in two days.”
Grandma Lo chuckled in response. It sounded like the intro to a good retort, but since Grandma couldn’t possibly have one, Zander assumed she was suffering a moment of madness instead.
“You’re new to this family, so let me share a little something with you, Michael. When you have money like we do…there’s always a way.”
She turned her piercing gaze to Zander. “We are going to get hold of Duke, and we’ll make sure he keeps his end of this deal.”
The stubborn woman headed toward the door, snatched her handbag off the side table, and turned to look over her shoulder.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get moving. I expect every one of you to do whatever you can to get Duke home. We’ll have a conference call at eight p.m. to discuss our findings.” With that, she walked out the door, leaving it wide open behind her.