CHAPTER 32 Ford Bradley
Inheritance
When I wake in the morning with Tatum in bed beside me, my first thought isn’t how today is my mother’s funeral.
My first thought is that it’s nine days until I marry Tatum.
We were all a little tipsy last night after shots, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t get much sleep. Instead, I spent the night fighting my urge to give in to the heat between Tatum and me well before the already agreed-upon date.
She kissed me goodnight, and it wasn’t just a quick peck. It was lips, tongue, hands caressing jawlines. We didn’t take it further than that. I wanted to. It felt like she did, too.
But Archer is in the next room. It wouldn’t be right, no matter how strong the pull is between us.
I take a cold shower, and when I get out, she’s sitting up, leaning against my headboard and scrolling on her phone.
“Good morning,” I say. Her eyes edge to my abdomen and then to the towel wrapped around my waist—the only thing currently keeping me from showing her all the goods.
“Morning,” she murmurs.
“Stop looking at me like that, or you’re going to get the kind of good morning I’m supposed to be waiting nine more days for.”
She glares at me, but then she giggles as she climbs out of bed and walks toward the bathroom.
“Fine. But just for the record, I’m no longer convinced I want to wait nine more days.
” She closes the door behind her with those words, and then I have to fight with my boxers to get them over the enormous erection she just caused.
I slip into my suit, and I’m dressed when she exits the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and her body. I allow my eyes to dance down to that towel, too, and she fingers the edge like she’s going to drop it.
I walk over toward her, and I grab her to pull her against me. I drop my lips to hers, and I pull back to whisper, “Don’t tempt me. I’ll fuck you right here.”
She gasps at my words.
I let her go even though I’m reluctant. “I’m going downstairs for breakfast. Come join me when you’re ready.”
She’s gorgeous in a black dress when she joins me twenty minutes later, and Penny provided food for us once again. This time it’s a buffet of breakfast items, and I’m grateful that she’s nearby to help.
We fill our plates, and I suppose I take more than my fair share of bacon. Eventually, it’s time to leave for the funeral.
My mother thought of every last detail, and this is less of a sad event bidding goodbye to a loved one and more of the event of the season.
The funeral itself is going to be held at a cathedral downtown, and then there will be a procession to the cemetery followed by the reception at Mom’s favorite country club.
Limousines have been arranged to take the family to each event, and Archer slips into ours at the last second, taking a seat beside Tatum.
I let go of the slice of jealousy that forces its way through me.
She’s choosing me, and she has a history with him.
She should be there for him during this difficult time.
We may not have been close to our mother, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t lose someone important to our family—no matter how much Archer claims he isn’t a part of it.
And that’s where I find myself torn. If I go through with this wedding, Tatum gets the money back to put toward another venue.
She gets to keep building toward her dreams. I get everything I’ve wanted for a decade.
But I also put my already fragile relationship with my brother into even greater jeopardy.
If we don’t go through with it, though, we don’t get that money back.
We weren’t expecting it, but it’s an awfully nice bonus.
If we don’t go through with it, maybe we’ll build toward this same place eventually, if we’re truly meant to be.
But maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll lose each other.
Maybe I’ll lose everything…not just a brother who I already lost anyway.
I blow out a breath.
The decisive piece that makes up my personality wants to make a snap decision. Marry her. It’s what you want anyway.
But the pragmatic side wants to weigh the options carefully and make sure we’re doing the right thing.
Only…we don’t have that kind of time.
We have nine days.
We have a funeral to attend.
I have practice tomorrow.
I have a game this Sunday.
It’s a lot. All of it. It’s weighing on me. Heavily.
Can I really do this to my brother?
I think of her standing in the towel this morning as I pulled her in for a kiss.
Can I really not do this and give up the only thing I’ve ever really wanted?
I don’t think I can.
She sits between us at the cathedral. She walks with Kennedy as my brothers and I carry the casket out of the church and help load it into the hearse. She sits between us in the limo as we travel to the cemetery. She holds each of our hands as we say goodbye.
Ivy cries. The rest of us are stoic, Everleigh included.
We make it to the reception, where we’re forced to mingle and dine with the members of high society my mother considered friends—or associates, at least.
We take pictures. A lot of them. The seven Bradley siblings are all in the same place, and apparently that’s big news when it comes to town gossip.
Four pro football players, a pro baseball player, a brand strategist engaged to a pro football player, and the baby sister still finding her way in the world.
We’re all in the same place at the same time, and we’re all dressed up. It’s the photo op of the century.
We make it back to the mansion one more time to gather our belongings and meet in our father’s office, which looks like it did long before the feds upturned it not so long ago.
It’s a big office, but it’s still crowded with our father sitting behind the desk, his lawyer standing behind him, and the rest of us gathered around.
Madden sits in one of the chairs facing the desk with Kennedy standing behind him. Ivy sits in the other chair.
Dex, Ainsley, and Jack are on the couch with Everleigh and Maverick beside them.
Archer and Liam lean against the wall next to the couch. Tatum and I stand near the door.
“Your mother left you each something she thought would be meaningful to you,” Dad begins.
He nods to his lawyer. “Paul has an envelope for each of you. She also wanted Everleigh and Ivy to take whatever they wanted from her closet. She specifically wanted Everleigh to get anything red and Ivy to get anything blue.”
Maverick lets out a little chuckle at that.
It’s the first sign that maybe our mother knew us better than we thought she did.
Each of us gets our envelope from the eldest to the youngest, and we all open them at the same time.
Mine is a letter from my mother.
Dear Ford,
As I reach the end of this journey, I can’t help but reflect and wish I had done things differently.
You are smart and strategic, and you always loved science.
Those are the things on the surface that everyone knows about you.
I never allowed myself to know you deep down the way a mother should.
I regret that, but I do hope that you’ll learn from my mistakes.
To that end, I’ve set up a trust for any future children you may have.
I had my hand involved in many foundations over the years, and I’ve decided to create new foundations for each of my children.
Enclosed, you’ll find all the details regarding the foundation that’s already in your name.
All my love,
Mom
Emotions plow into me for the first time as I glance around the room and see similar reactions to the letters.
She gifted each of us a foundation. A way to make a better impact on the future.
I glance through the attached paperwork to find the Ford Bradley Foundation. The details say that I can do whatever I want with it. She laid the groundwork and fronted quite a bit of capital, so now it’s up to me to run with it to help people however I choose.
“Your mother set up trusts and foundations years ago for each of you,” my father begins.
I glance up at him, and I narrow my eyes. Did she? Or is this another thing he’s done to protect the legacy he’s so fond of mentioning?
It appears I’m not the only one thinking those thoughts.
“Did you have anything to do with this?” Madden asks quietly. Frankly, I’m surprised he’s asking in front of everyone here. While everyone in this room is important, not everyone is officially a member of this family.
Dad holds up both hands. “I had no hand in any of this.”
“But where did the money come from?” Madden asks.
“Your mother’s inheritance.” He glances around the room at each of us only to find we all look like guppies, our mouths dropped wide open.
“As you know, she didn’t get along with her own parents.
What you might not know is that they demanded she marry someone in the same social class as her.
She married me anyway. There was love between us once upon a time, believe it or not.
” He sighs, and I sense a bit of regret in its heaviness.
“When her parents died, they left everything to her. She refused to touch it, insisting we make our own path. I suppose that was the point for me when greed took the place of love, and that’s something I have to live with.
Regardless, she wanted the seven of you to have the money.
You’ll see when you look further into both the trust and the foundations that the trust has five million in it for each of you to use for your future children, and each of your foundations has an account with two million in them to start your bankroll. ”
“That’s almost fifty million dollars,” Madden murmurs, echoing my own thoughts. “Her parents were worth that much?”
He shakes his head. “Her parents were worth double that.”
I mean…I don’t want to sound greedy, but—
Before I can finish the thought, Dex asks, “Where’s the other half?”
Dad glances out the window, guilt playing on his features.
“Oh, no. Dad, no,” Everleigh says.
“He has admitted to nothing,” Paul reminds us, but we all know where the money went.
He pilfered it for some underground operation, or for gambling, or for…something. He took it. It didn’t belong to him.
Add it to the list of crimes.
“What’s all this nonsense about the fucking legacy when you continue to prove that all you care about is yourself?” Archer asks, surprising everyone in the room with his question. It’s one we were all wondering, but probably one that none of us had the nerve to ask.
“Judge me how you want, but understand that there’s a lot you don’t know,” he answers. “I made investments to build this family’s wealth. I did it to create something that would last, to give us the type of wealth and power we deserve.”
Madden stands and shakes his head in disgust. “You’re not fooling anybody,” he hisses.
“You did this to serve yourself. To pretend like you fit in with some social class, like you were good enough for Mom. But there’s more to that class than wealth.
It’s not just how much you have. It’s how you make it.
Mom apparently came from old money.” He shakes the papers in his hands to prove his point. “You come from dirty money.”
He walks out of the room, and Kennedy looks around a little helplessly, a little lost, before she follows him out of the room.
The rest of us glare at our father and give him our own looks of disgust as we each follow suit, walking out of the room and leaving him alone with his lawyer…which is likely a mirror image of how he’ll be spending most of whatever time he has left on this earth.