Chapter 1 #2
“Oh, I’m so sorry for throwing this on you so suddenly, Logan.
What a surprising inconvenience.” I shove the last box toward the rest of the pile, and it skids across the marble floor.
“Dad leaving everything to you after what it’s cost me to keep these fuckers alive and thriving?
” I shake my head. “If anything, you should be shocked I’m not already gone by now. ”
“Breezy, trust me, I was shocked too when he told me about the will.”
I pause menacingly, turning to face him with my hands on my hips. “What do you mean, when he told you about the will? You talked to Dad about his will?”
Logan sighs and runs a hand through his silky hair. “It’s not a big deal, Breeze. It was, like, six months ago.”
“You and Dad talked about his will six months ago?” My heart pounds wildly in my chest, and I think I might throw up. This keeps getting worse. “What was said? What was decided, Logan? Did you know he was giving you the galleries?”
His long, dagger-shaped silence is all the admission I need.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Lo?” My bottom lip quivers traitorously until I dig my top teeth into it so hard I taste blood. “You knew about me getting cut out of the galleries before Dad died, and you didn’t tell me?”
My brother Bennett might not have a relationship with Logan, but I always have. I’ve defended him, gone to bat for him, loved him despite all the trouble he causes. But this? It’s duplicitous. It’s deceitful. It’s fucking treason of the highest order.
“It’s not how you’re imagining it.”
“Then how about you tell me how it went,” I demand. “Because I can tell you, from where I’m standing, you’re looking more and more like the biggest asshole on the planet than you ever have.”
“You know how Dad was, Breezy.”
“No, actually, I don’t. Clearly. Not like you. Because if I did, this wouldn’t be nearly the shock that it is. So, why don’t you tell me how Dad was? Why don’t you tell me why he cut me out of my life’s work without so much as a warning?”
Logan sighs again. “He was a macho prick. You know this. He wanted the galleries to go to one of his sons.”
“And so, what? You stepped up and decided to fill those shoes for him to win the merit badge of macho-prickdom for yourself?”
“I did it to protect you.”
“You stole the most important thing in my whole fucking life to protect me?” I yell. “Well, ding-ding-ding, that’s some of the most patriarchal bullshit I’ve ever heard, so congratulations, you’re a badge winner!”
“It’s complicated,” he hedges. “Dad was determined. Bennett is incommunicado these days. And honestly, I didn’t think he’d fucking die so suddenly. I figured we’d find a way to make him see the light. I figured we had another twenty fucking years before he’d kick the goddamn bucket.”
“If you wanted to protect me, you could have stood up for me. You could have fought him on the half-baked idea that Bishop Galleries should go to anyone but me,” I bite out. “You could have done anything besides sit there, complacent, while I got screwed over.”
He takes a step closer. “I can’t run this place.
You know it and I know it.” His voice is low and raspy around the edges.
He seems sad, upset, even earnest—but he’s an actor, and I refuse to forget that one very important fact.
“I’m not cut out for it. But you’re the galleries, Breezy.
You always have been. I thought…you’d keep going. That we’d figure it out together.”
I stare at him, hurt and fury rolling together in a wall cloud of impending change.
“Since I was eighteen years old, I’ve done nothing but figure it out, and the only acknowledgment I get is being erased from Dad’s will because I don’t have a fucking dick.
I’ll be forty next year, Logan. Forty years of dedication to the Bishop legacy, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing. Not even my name on the door.”
I’ve quite literally sacrificed everything to run these galleries. Other career possibilities, relationships, marriage, babies—all of it was put on the back burner for years and years so I could catapult my family’s wealth and reputation.
No more. I’m done.
Panic flickers in his eyes. “Don’t walk away. Please. Don’t let him take this from you.”
“No.” I hold up both hands and shake my head, already increasing the distance between us again with a giant step in the opposite direction. “It’s done. The only thing left to do is finish packing up my shit and get the hell out of here.”
“I don’t know the first thing about this place,” he argues, following me as I backtrack to gather the final remnants of my desk. “You do. You always have. You are the galleries, Breezy. If you go—” His voice cracks. “I can’t do this without you. Let’s do it together.”
“Together?” I laugh, but it’s hollow. “Where was together when you were talking about Dad’s will with him?
Where was together when I sacrificed everything to keep our family’s galleries running while you Holly-whored it up under the bright lights of stardom?
You can tell yourself we’re a team, but I’ve been the only one on the field for a while. I’m tired. I’m done.”
“So, that’s it? You’re just leaving?” His face falls. For once, it feels like Logan Bishop isn’t acting. He looks lost. “Where are you even gonna go? You live in New York. Your life is here.”
“Not anymore.”
I reach for my stack of newspapers to wrap up my paperweight, the latest issue of the Red Bridge Chronicle right on top.
The weekly subscription I secured almost a decade ago to keep tabs on Bennett when he moved to Vermont is usually nothing more than a habit, but today, it feels a lot more like fate.
Tad Hanson: Keeping Red Bridge Warm, One Fleece at a Time, the headline reads, a photo of a sheep farmer I’ve met more than a few times holding a lamb like it’s a Gucci bag right below.
Handsome-as-hell Farmer Tad looks like he belongs on the cover of a Ralph Lauren ad rather than on the front page of the newspaper in one of Vermont’s smallest towns, but that’s probably why Eileen Martin, the editor of the Red Bridge Chronicle, is always finding something to interview him about.
If I gathered all the issues I had with his smiling face on the front page, I could fill my now-empty office two times over.
But right now, it beckons of a new, quieter life. Somewhere where the snow falls heavy and people notice when you walk into a room. Somewhere without the teeth of wealth-chasing, where you end up chewed up and spit out on the sidewalk with the gum. And somewhere where sheep farmers look like that.
“Please stay,” Logan begs once more.
“No.” The answer rolls off my tongue with ease. “I’m done here, Logan. I’m going to Red Bridge.”
“Are you serious?” His disbelief sharpens into anger, his sad act ending in a flourish. “You’re going to fucking Red Bridge? Running off to Bennett, the golden brother.”
“Yeah. I am.” My voice is calm now, steady even, a sharp contrast to the sounds of his envy and regret.
“Fucking figures. He was always the untouchable one. Dad wrapped him in bubble wrap and threw me to the wolves so Bennett could keep painting. Ten million dollars to keep his little prodigy clean. I took the fall, did what Dad asked, and Bennett’s still the only ass anyone ever tries to kiss.”
“You and I both know that if there’s anyone who understands walking away from the Bishop bullshit, it’s Bennett,” I say. “He saved himself. And right now, he’s the only family I can stand to be around.”
Logan stares at me, chest rising and falling, but he doesn’t speak. I sling my bag over my shoulder, heels clicking against the floor like punctuation marks as I pass him on my way to the door. “You’ve got the galleries, Logan. Good luck.”
He spins in place to follow me with his gaze, his arms coming up to his sides. “What about all of your shit, Breezy?”
“I already have a courier coming in a few hours to handle it.”
It’s my last official stead as head of the galleries. From here on out, Logan can figure out what to do with the empire I don’t want anymore.
For all I care, he can burn the whole damn legacy to the ground.