Chapter 39
ISAAC
“Are you still an idiot?” Ryan asked as he walked into my office. “Or have you finally booked a flight back?”
I glanced up from my laptop. “Good morning to you too.”
He shook his arm and took a quick look at his watch when it slid out from under his sleeve. “There’s only five minutes of morning left.”
“Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Good almost-afternoon, then. What do you want?”
“Oh, nothing.” He crossed the office to drop into the chair in front of my desk. “I just wanted to find out if you’re going back yet, because you should.”
I stared at him for a long beat, then scoffed and shook my head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Will you just leave it alone? Please?”
I only tacked on the plea as a last-ditch effort to get him off my back. For the last week, ever since I’d gotten home, he kept telling me that being here was a mistake. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was trying to get rid of me, but I did know better.
All my siblings knew Joseph and I had gotten the contract and Ryan’s way of encouraging me to take it was a little more direct than the others.
He fixed me with a look that said he was never going to drop it, then leaned forward and looked me right in the eyes.
“You have to go back, Isaac. Only an idiot would turn down that job and you’ve never been one. Why start now?”
I groaned. “I’m not being an idiot. It’s just not as simple as you seem to think.”
“It is,” he insisted. “Colin offered to go back with you to help smooth things over with Basel, so what are you waiting for?”
“An embossed invitation from the universe,” I said dryly, then dropped my arms and motioned to my laptop. “Some of us have work to do and I need to get back to it.”
He sighed and made himself comfortable in the chair, sitting back and hooking an ankle over his knee. “I’ll leave you to it. As soon as you tell me the work you’re going to do is for Basel’s complex.”
My door opened again and Jane peeked in, perking up when she saw Ryan already there.
She pushed it all the way open and walked in, leaving it for Colin to close after he’d followed her.
Exasperation rolled through me in a heavy, black wave as I stared at them.
Jane sat in the chair beside the one Ryan was in while Colin took the third seat.
“Alright, Isaac,” Jane said, her expression gentle but determined. “I’ve been doing my best all week to shake you into your senses, but you’re still here, so what can we do?”
“Alex’s jet is on standby,” Colin said. “You and I can be wheels-up in an hour.”
I glanced between them, frustrated as fuck, but knowing they meant well. “Can everybody please just let this go?”
Ryan snorted. “No.”
Colin folded his arms. “I can talk to Basel, Isaac. He’s been calling me nonstop anyway. He still wants you on that project.”
“I’m not taking it,” I said, shoving a hand through my hair. “Look, I appreciate you all being here and trying to support me, but I’m not going back to Egypt. I can’t.”
“Why not?” Ryan asked, his eyes wide and shining with irritation. “You got the bid. You have the contract right there in front of you. Sign it and go. It’s that simple.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t blame them for not understanding. None of them knew the real reason I’d come back with nothing to show for my time in Egypt. Nothing that mattered, anyway. They didn’t know the real reason I’d gotten that bid either.
Every time I closed my eyes, I still saw Jasmine standing in my apartment, telling me she was going to marry another man. What am I supposed to do, fly back and congratulate them? Fuck that.
Ryan finally stood, the abruptness of the movement yanking me out of my thoughts. “Call me when you’re ready to stop acting like a potato.”
With that, he spun around and stormed out, and I blinked a few times as the door slammed behind him. “How am I acting like a potato? What does that even mean?”
Jane smiled. “I’m not actually sure, but somehow, it makes sense. You’re not being yourself, like, at all, and we’re worried, but we might as well be talking to a potato for all the answers you’re giving.”
“Potatoes have been more useful, actually,” Colin muttered, shaking his head as he backed toward the door.
“I have a meeting, but I’m still willing to go with you.
Whatever happened, you don’t have to sort it out by yourself.
You’re not alone and Basel is more understanding than you might think. Just let me know, okay?”
I made a noncommittal sound and Jane sighed, waiting until Colin left before she reached across the desk and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“He’s right, you know. You’re not alone and you never will be.
Alex can help too, and Nate, and Zach. All the Westwoods, actually.
If there’s anything you need, just tell us. ”
“There’s nothing,” I muttered, blowing out a heavy breath as I looked back at her. “Thanks, though.”
She nodded and stood up but didn’t turn to leave just yet.
Instead, she gave me a soft, knowing smile.
“We haven’t had it easy for a long time, and I know that Colin and I have been so busy trying to sort out the investigations, and find the money, and put Mallory behind bars that you might’ve felt like you had to fend for yourself, but that’s not true.
I know you, Isaac. I know this is your dream. ”
“It was,” I admitted quietly. “I’m just not willing to pay the price it costs, but for the record, I know I’m not alone. That’s not what this is about.”
“Do you want to tell me about this price?” she asked gently. “I wasn’t aware the project comes with strings.”
“That’s because they’re not attached to us,” I replied vaguely. “Either way, I don’t want to talk about it. The point is that if I take the job, there really won’t be any going back.”
She inhaled a deep breath, pausing like she was considering pushing the issue, but in the end, she just nodded. “When you’re ready to talk, I’m here.”
After sending me one last smile, she strode out of my office, her phone already ringing before she’d even shut the door behind her. My sister had been carrying so much for so long and she did it so gracefully that most people wouldn’t even realize how massively heavy her burdens were.
The thought made me glance back down at the contract on my desk. It was an instinct I couldn’t fight. If I signed on the dotted line, I could ease Jane’s burden. Even if just a little bit.
Jasmine had known that. She’d known how much this project could mean not only for me and my career, but for my family. That was why she’d put her own future on the chopping block.
Back in the gray, brutalist office I hated so, so much, I kept staring at the contract and thought about what my brothers and sister had said.
All of them had raised good points. I was an idiot for not being back in Egypt, preparing to start building.
Basel would understand. If I just spoke to him, I knew he’d still let me take the lead as structural engineer.
This stack of papers I was staring at was worth millions of dollars.
Nearly a hundred million just for the first phase.
My cut would make me a very wealthy man right off the bat.
All I had to do was sign. Joseph had already said he wouldn’t do it until I did, which meant I was holding both of our futures—and bank accounts—hostage by not putting pen to paper. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
It felt like I would be signing Jasmine’s life away if I did, even if logically, I knew that wasn’t true.
She’d made her own decisions and they were hers to make, I got that, but every time I reached for the pen, I saw the way she’d looked before she’d walked out of my apartment and I dropped it again.
I cursed under my breath and shoved the contract away.
My office door reopened and Ryan came back in.
I sighed. “I still haven’t signed.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, I didn’t think you had.”
“So why’d you come back?”
“To apologize for calling you a potato.” He shrugged and slid his hands into his pockets, regarding me with a strangely analytical look on his face and not moving any further into my office. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Nah, you were right,” I said, managing a small smirk as I hooked my hands behind my head and leaned back. “As soon as Jane explained why she thought you called me that, I realized you had a point. I have been a potato.”
He chuckled, inclining his chin as he finally crossed the office and sat back down in the chair he’d vacated.
“The thing is that you’re no idiot, Isaac.
Especially when it comes to your work. We all know how much you’ve hated being trapped at Thayer and that you’ve been wanting to branch out.
Hell, you even engineered our pillow forts when we were kids.
No one was dumb enough to believe you wanted to be confined to the family business for the rest of your life. ”
I swallowed hard. “I didn’t realize it was that obvious.”
He shrugged. “It is, so why aren’t you taking this project? I’m done guessing, Isaac. I know you well enough to know that you would never turn your back on something like this unless you had a really fucking good reason, so what is it?”
I closed my eyes. All week long, I’d been pretending everyone else was missing the point. I’d danced around their questions and acted like I was being all noble for doing it, but it was bullshit.
“I fell in love with Jasmine Saad.” I opened my eyes and looked back at my brother just in time to see his jaw drop. “Don’t ask me how it happened, but it did. I fell hard and fast, and unfortunately, she’s in love with me too.”
“How is that a problem?” His eyebrows shot up. “I know you’ve never thought of yourself as the marrying type, but?—”
I snorted back a bark of dry laughter. “I’d marry her in a heartbeat if it was an option, man. It’s just not, and it gets worse. If I take that job, she has to marry another man.”
He gaped at me. “What?”
I nodded. “Joseph and I didn’t win the bid outright. GlobalStar’s board said our design was too ambitious, so they gave the project to someone else. Someone who has no experience, but whose father goes back a long way with Basel. The guy’s family needs the money. It doesn’t matter how he gets it.”
Agitation shot through me for having to say all this out loud. “He told Basel he’d withdraw his bid if Jasmine agrees to marry him. She knows our money is gone, and she also knows what this project can do for my career, so…”
Ryan stared at me, then clapped his hands and stood up. “Right. We’ve got to go back to Egypt. Now. You need to put an end to all this.”
I scoffed. “Did you not hear what I said?”
“No, I did, and that’s exactly why we’re not going to let it go down that way.” He grimaced. “Do you really want Dad’s drama to ruin the rest of your life? Because from where I’m sitting, that’s exactly what’s happening.”
“No, what’s happening is?—”
“Do you honestly believe Jasmine Saad gives a damn that you’re not the heir to a fortune that doesn’t even exist anymore? Seriously, if that girl loves you enough to throw her entire life away, you’re not going to let her do that.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” I trailed off, suddenly realizing that he’d been right all along. “I am a fucking idiot.”
Jasmine did love me that much. She knew who I was and what I could offer, and she’d still stepped into the firing line—for me. Of course, I couldn’t let her do that.
He grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
I was already standing, grabbing my jacket off the back of my chair as urgency ripped through me like wildfire. “I just really, really hope that this doesn’t make things worse for her.”
“Worse than marrying some dude she doesn’t love who only wants her for her money?” He snorted. “It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
“True.” My heart raced as I thought about what I was about to do. I just prayed that it wasn’t already too late. “Okay, let’s go.”
Ryan opened my office door, then paused to look back at me. “Uh, I’m all for this, obviously, but what exactly are we going to do?”
I thought it over for exactly two seconds before I picked up my phone. “We need Colin. Get him back in here. He said Alex’s jet is waiting, right? Let’s just hope it’s fueled up and ready to go. We need to pack.”