CHAPTER THREE
Ford
Four Hours Earlier
It’s eaten at me all night.
That’s a lie.
It’s eaten at me ever since I read chapter twenty-two.
The one titled Fatherhood. The chapter where my father talked about his three boys.
His greatest accomplishments. He detailed his struggles with Callahan and how proud he was of him, and then how Ledger was the epitome of him, clearly born to step into his professional shoes when he chose to vacate them.
Paragraphs upon paragraphs devoted to my brothers and their place in the Sharpe family. The Sharpe universe, really.
“What’s your deal tonight?” Callahan asks as he walks into the penthouse.
Shit’s everywhere—clothes, food, luggage, their wives’ makeup cases—from all of us flying in and getting ready here for the event.
He doesn’t care. He picks up a piece of candy and pops it in his mouth as he sinks down onto the couch.
“Did you take that stick Ledger removed from his ass and insert it into yours?”
“Callahan. He was the one who challenged me the most,” Maxton says with a laugh.
But beyond the laugh is a sense of pride.
A sense of love. A feeling that the only thing that could bring this hard man to his knees was his boys.
“Callahan’s stubborn streak is a mile long, but damn does he continue to surprise me.
He hides his intuitive nature and knack for knowing just what to do behind his reckless behavior.
Almost as if he’s uncomfortable being as good as he is at whatever it is he sets his mind to.
He was just like his mom in that respect.
And having him around is like having her near me still. ”
“Back off, Callahan.”
Wrong thing to say.
That’s like throwing chum to a shark when it comes to my little brother. I can practically see his ears perk up at that.
And maybe I want them to. Maybe I want him to push me on this so I can have the fight I’ve been itching for all night long.
“Ooooh,” he says with a whistle.
“What’s that sound for?” Ledger asks as he enters the room, looking from Callahan to me and then back to Callahan.
And this is why being a triplet is a pain in the ass. It’s always a plus that we can intuitively sense what’s going on with each other . . . except for when you don’t want anyone to know.
And right now . . . shit, right now I don’t know what the fuck I want.
“Your stick? It’s up his ass now,” Callahan fills in.
“Fuck off,” I mutter.
And now Ledger’s intrigued.
“My oldest. Ledger Maxton Sharpe.” The namesake’s said with the softest of smiles and admiration adorning his eyes.
“When I look at him, I see a younger version of myself—only ten times better. If there is an obstacle, he faces it head-on. If there is a challenge, he can’t wait to prove he’s better than it.
He’s a formidable opponent in all things business. ”
“Is that how you think people perceive you?” I ask and get what I’ve learned to expect from the man across from me.
A slow crawl of a smile deepens the lines etched in his face.
Lines I’d love to know the history behind but have a feeling that would equate to book after book filled with his stories.
“I don’t care how people perceive me. Never have.
I think Ledger is similar in that respect.
He’s more dogged than I was if you can believe that, but he shows more of his heart than I do.
He’s more in touch whereas I was so busy trying not to be Maxton Sharpe of the Bronx that I didn’t care who I stepped on to get where I needed to get. ”
“And what of that?”
“It makes him a better man than I was. Than I am. With that comes higher expectations, but I doubt the man that Ledger grew into will have any problems exceeding them.”
“First you didn’t drink tonight and now the attitude,” Ledger, ever the diplomat, says as he perches himself on the edge of the couch, catty-corner to me.
“What’s going on?” I hear his question, but all I see is page after fricking page of praise leveled in his direction.
Top of his class at Wharton. Young Entrepreneur’s Award.
Story after story of how he’s exactly like the man he idolized.
The man I idolized too, but now feel like I was invisible to.
“Ford?” he asks again.
And as if on cue, Callahan shifts on the couch, and a thud sounds as something hits the floor. He leans over and chuckles.
“It looks like Dad wants in on this conversation too,” he teases as he picks up the advanced copy off the floor and sets it on the table. “You know how much he hated when we fought.”
Silence falls over the room as we stare at the book’s cover.
A close-up, black and white photo of our father.
You can’t tell the color of his eyes, but the clarity in them—in both the quality of the picture and the striations of his irises—is mesmerizing.
His expression is stoic, and his lips, identical to ours, are in a straight line.
It’s a stunning snapshot of the man we all loved. One that somehow reflects the intensity of the man we grew up with juxtaposed by the softening heart of a man nearing the end of his life.
A lump forms in my throat as I try to process the emotions that book cover, and those three hundred thirteen pages after it, represent.
An exposé on his life. The moments of his childhood that were life-defining. Poverty. A father who ran off. A mother who struggled and worked nonstop. His desire to never be in the same position when he grew up. How he scraped his way through college only to never graduate because funds ran short.
How he started his empire by being a busboy who befriended the right guests who later believed in him and backed him, only to be rewarded handsomely when he’d reached a level of success only most dream of.
The biography talks about the love of his life, our mom. His first thoughts when he met her. His last thoughts as he buried her at such a young age. And the heartache he still felt to that day.
There are chapters on underhanded deals and people who tried to sabotage him. On his antics and superstitions. On his philosophies in business and in life.
Most of it I knew. Some of it I learned for the first time and will be forever grateful to have more to hold on to of the man who was our whole world for most of our lives.
And who now is gone.
What I didn’t expect was to feel curious—hopeful even—to get insight into how he looked at me as a man. And when I read his take on Callahan and then his thoughts on Ledger, I held my breath when I turned the page.
“So you have Callahan the rebel and Ledger the Type A, tell us about your middle son, Fordham.”
Maxton’s eyes grow wistful, and a smile ghosts his lips.
“My wife went to Fordham University. That’s where I met her actually.
I had a side job delivering flowers, and I accidentally ran into her.
I plucked the card out of the bouquet right then and there and gave them to her instead.
” His smile widens. “That’s where Ford got his name from.
A nod to the day I knew I would marry Carly. ”
The imposing man sits back in his chair and looks out the window of his tower in the sky. The city moves at breakneck speed beneath him, and I wonder if he misses the pace or if he enjoys his unhurried life now.
I wait for him to gather his thoughts. Moments pass. Memories are silently relived, and the emotions from them fleet through his expression.
“Ford is . . . the peacekeeper of our family. The even keel in our sometimes-stormy life. He’s . . . just Ford.”
Just Ford.
Not Fordham Rhys Sharpe, second in his class at Wharton by a very small percentage.
Not Fordy, son of Maxton and Carly, who kept the family together after his mother’s death.
Not Ford, the man who streamlined some of S.I.N.
’s chain-of-command issues to make the company more efficient and more successful.
Not my son, the one who called every night to make sure I was okay.
Fucking Just Ford.
And that’s all I could think about tonight as my brothers and their wives, Sutton and Asher, stood before a whole host of people with wide smiles and welcoming hugs.
How do they look at me? Am I invisible to them too? Am I Just Ford, the middle son they often forget—and surprisingly—don’t really know much about?
“It’s the book, isn’t it?” Ledger asks, pulling me from my thoughts. “Reading through it has reminded us of everything we’re missing with him gone. Was it as hard for you to read as it was for me?”
“For that.” I give a measured nod. “And for other reasons.”
The drink I’ve rejected all night long is calling my name right now. But I don’t move toward the refrigerator stocked with beer. I think once I start, I won’t stop. Rather, I hold Callahan’s stare.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he finally murmurs quietly, almost as if in a warning.
What the fuck?
“What doesn’t?” Ledger asks while I wonder if Callahan’s comment means when he read the book, he noticed it too. Or more to the point, my absence in it.
Surprising if that’s the case. My brother, who used to only think of himself, noticed while the one who typically knows every “T” that needs to be crossed and “I” that needs to be dotted, didn’t.
But why the warning?
“God forbid, Just Ford rocks the boat, right, Cal?” I ask.
“Does someone want to clue me in why the two of you are staring at each other while I’m over here standing in the fucking dark?”
“Just Ford,” I repeat.
“What about it? Did you forget your name? What am I missing?” Ledger asks, but I know the minute it registers because his hand falters bringing his drink to his mouth.
“Like I said, it doesn’t mean anything. Like all books, not everything is included in a final product. Things are edited out. Winword probably had a lot left on the cutting-room floor that he just couldn’t use,” Callahan says, referring to the author.
“Edited out? You mean the boring parts that aren’t interesting, right? Because why would he use anything Dad said about me when he has the bad-boy Callahan and protégé Ledger to talk about?”
Because he didn’t have anything to say about me that was worthy of being in his book.
And there it is.
Most things roll off my back. Little affects me emotionally. Rarely anything. But to think that my dad thought so little of me is upsetting. I’m confused by this pressure in my chest. I’m confounded by this need to prove I’m more than Just Fucking Ford.
“That’s bullshit,” Ledger says.
“Bullshit?” I bellow.
“You’re goddamn right, bullshit,” Ledger says stepping into my space. “I paid prices you don’t have a clue about, so fuck you and your bullshit comments.”
The muscle in his jaw pulses as fury I rarely see from him sparks in his eyes. Well good, because I’m furious too.
“Ford,” Callahan says, trying to break the tension when typically, he incites it. “We’ve grown up with cameras in our faces and false rumors being the norm. We all know how they twist words and sensationalize shit to sell an extra copy. It’s the same with that.” He points to the book.
“But these were Dad’s words,” I shout. “Those weren’t made up.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” Ledger rolls his eyes. “Dad was proud of all of us. Even you—”
“What if the roles were reversed? What if—”
“I wouldn’t fucking care. Neither should you,” Callahan says. “Quit being so goddamn sensitive.”
But I do care.
I care more than I want to admit.
“Fuck this. And fuck the both of you.” I head to the door and ignore their shouts of my name.
There is no point in continuing this dead-end conversation.
None.
I’m so much more than Just Ford. Fuck them if they think otherwise.
I will not settle for being a mention.
For being the disregarded Sharpe.
For being just anything.