Chapter 30
PLOTTING YOUR brEAK
“I’m surprised you came.”
Dean shouldn’t have been shocked those were the first words out of his grandfather’s mouth. Here the old man was lying in bed in the ICU looking frailer than he’d ever thought imaginable for the man who wielded so much power and control over the family.
“I was summoned,” he said, not able to help himself. His grandfather just brought the worst out of him. For a man who always said he was closest to Dean out of all his grandkids, he never treated him well. He never had a lot of nice words to say either.
Most of the words were directions on what Dean should do with his life. Where he should be at a certain age. Who he should hang out with and what type of woman he should marry.
Surprisingly, his grandfather might actually approve of Molly. Though she didn’t come from money, she had the brains and the guts to do her own thing and break away from those who controlled her or made her feel like shit.
But the way D.T. treated his family and refused to acknowledge his first great grandchild, there was no way he was letting Molly be touched by this part of his life.
Not after he knew she loved him.
To him, that meant she landed right in the same circle as Jonah to be protected from this bullshit.
“You never listened before when I talked,” his grandfather said. “I’m not stupid. You’d nod your head like you agreed, but in the back of your mind you were plotting your break.”
His grandfather made it sound like he was running from the law. He supposed in some ways that might have been the case.
“Do we really need to do this now?” he asked, trying to be the bigger man. He could feel what he wanted for his grandfather and the way he was treated, but it didn’t take away from the fact that the man was ill.
That he looked like a patient he should have been operating on years ago when he was in his prime.
Instead, his life was going to be in another’s hands.
“No,” his grandfather said. “Go lock my door.”
“What?” he asked.
“You heard me. Lock the door so no one can come in and we can talk.”
He got up and did what he was told. If he found it odd, he didn’t let on. It’s not like it made much of a difference to him at this point.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“If you’d followed in my footsteps you’d be the one operating on me, not someone else that I’m not sure I can trust.”
“You’d rather put that guilt on my shoulders if something went wrong?” he asked.
Jesus Christ. Talk about selfish.
“Is that what the problem was? Be honest with me. I might not be around tomorrow. I might not wake up from this surgery and you know it. Let’s clear the air.”
Nothing like a close to death experience for his grandfather to want to make amends. He wanted to argue but then asked himself if he would regret not having this conversation if his grandfather didn’t make it.
He didn’t want to find out.
Not when he was experiencing true love in his life.
Maybe it was making him a better person.
“No. I could have done it. I could have been better than you.”
His grandfather laughed. “I know that. That’s why I pushed you.”
“But I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want that life. Was some of it the responsibility of holding someone’s life in my hand? Maybe. Or maybe I just didn’t think I could be as cold as you.”
“You have to be detached to do this line of work. I’ve lost a lot of patients in my career. Not always on the table, but sometimes just a few years later.”
“So, is that why you stopped practicing?” he asked. Wouldn’t that be a kicker if it were true?
“No. It got old for me. The thrill was gone.”
“You used to love to talk about how it felt to have your hands in the chest of a patient. To be holding their life, literally, in your palm. The thrill of it. The excitement. How does that ever go away?”
“It just did. I decided I could make more money and have more control with the medical device end. You know as well as I did I worked endlessly to develop everything I could. It wasn’t just one device but consulting on many others.”
He’d heard the stories enough in his life. The royalty checks would never stop coming in, even after his grandfather’s death, whenever that may be.
“So that control was the deciding factor?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” his grandfather’s voice rasped. Not as strong as he remembered it years ago. “It doesn’t matter at this point. I always said you were the most like me and I wanted to see that through. I saw myself in you and wanted to make sure you reached your potential.”
He snorted. “If we are so much alike then it shouldn’t have come as any surprise that we butted heads like we did. You don’t like to fall in line any more than I do.”
His grandfather’s lips twitched toward a grin. Almost, but not quite. “It took me a lot of years to figure that out.”
“So you want to make amends now?” he asked, not sure it would be so easy in his eyes. “It’s bad enough to do what you did to me, but my son? You don’t know him. You’ve never met him. You’ve never asked about him.”
“We don’t talk for me to do those things,” his grandfather said. “I’m not asking your mother. I don’t go through other people. You know that. You walked away from me, Dean. Not the other way around.”
Those words hit harder in his chest than he thought they would.
He had been the one to walk away.
And he knew his grandfather would never give in to anyone. And hadn’t.
So without Dean reaching out, D.T. Easton wouldn’t either.
But yet his grandfather did. Went through his mother knowing his mother would get him to come.
“Are you saying you want to know about my son? Now? Of all times?”
“I’d like to know you at least understood where I was coming from. Your sister, your cousins, your parents and aunt and uncle, they’re all weak.”
He shook his head. “They did what they were told so they could keep the cash flowing. It’s not like they all sit around doing nothing.”
Of course his mother and aunt didn’t work, and Willow was still figuring things out. But his cousins had jobs—careers his grandfather “guided” them on. His father was a doctor himself. Dean was sure his grandfather steered his own daughter into that relationship too.
“If I didn’t push them to a career they’d do exactly that... sit on their asses. When I’m gone, I bet most stop working and blow through my hard-earned money.”
“If they do, they do,” he said. “Why does it matter if you aren’t around to see it?”
“It probably doesn’t any more than it’d drive me insane.”
“Maybe if you didn’t control everyone so much over the years and let them do what they wanted they wouldn’t resent things so much to want to do that.”
“Stop pacing and sit down next to me.” He pulled the chair away from the wall and sat next to his grandfather. He wanted to reach for his hand but held back. His emotions were too heightened right now. “How much of your only trust fund installment do you have left?”
“All of it,” he said. “The check is no good now, but if you want it, I’ll have it wired over in an hour.”
“I don’t want it.” His grandfather shook his head. “I never did. It’s yours. Along with the other three draws you should have gotten by now.”
“I don’t want it,” he said. “I’ve got my own money. I made my own name. I don’t like the strings that come with it. I don’t need it in my life. Neither does Jonah.”
“I know that. Tell me this. How much did you make off of that first installment? I know it’s not just sitting in an account waiting for me to take it. You’ve been investing it all along, haven’t you?”
“It’s worth five times as much,” he said. “I suppose you want interest on that.” He was grinning when he said that, his grandfather doing the same.
“No. It’s your money. Your other three draws have been sitting in an investment account in your name. Along with a fund set up for Jonah.”
“What?” he asked.
“I knew you wouldn’t take it. But it’s yours. Jonah is my blood. Whether or not you want him to know about me, that’s your decision, but he’s still a part of this family.”
“Keep it,” he said. “I don’t need any other family members on my case that they are getting less because I’ve got a kid.”
“I don’t give a shit what they think. It’s my money. I can stop contributing to their trust any time I want. I can drain them too.”
He laughed. “I don’t want to be around if it happens.”
“My point is, it’s there. It’s yours. It’s not going anywhere. It’s all completely in your name. No one can touch it.”
This was just blowing his mind.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
“Does it really matter at this point?”
“It’s a control thing with you. To know you still got your way and dropped your money on me. Almost as if it’s guilt that when I’m spending it I’ll think of you.”
“No different from you controlling who knows what about you,” his grandfather said.
He sucked a breath in. “That’s low.”
“We’re alike, Dean. Not as much as I’d like, but in some ways you just can’t change.
” His grandfather’s hand came out for him to take.
He did because he had to. Not because he was told but because he remembered when he was a kid and how much time he spent with the old man and how much he looked up to him.
That was before everything changed.
Before he was molded into a person he didn’t want to become.
“I don’t suppose I can.”
“And if I don’t make it tomorrow I want you to know that I’m proud of you. All the rest of them are money-grabbing whores. But you, you did your own thing. You stood up to me when no one else would. And you’re the only one I wanted to talk to before my surgery tomorrow.”
“You’re too stubborn to die and you know it.”
“And if I do, you’re named the executor of my will.”
This was too much to take in. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t put that on me. I’m not you. I’m not going to do what you did. I don’t want this headache.”
“I know you won’t be like me. You’ll let them all be happy.”
He threw his other hand up. “Then why not change now? Why not just hand it all over, even change your will to say that?”
“Because they’d think I’d lost my mind. They have an opinion of me and they aren’t going to change it. They blame you for me being harder on them. This will take all the blame off you.”
“I don’t care about that,” he said. Maybe he did years ago, but he had a new life now and couldn’t give two shits what anyone in his family thought of it.
All he cared about was that his son was happy and healthy.
And Molly and what she thought. Which meant he was going to have to come clean with her when he got back.
“You might not, but I do.”
“It doesn’t matter because you’ll be fine and can start giving everyone shit tomorrow when you wake up.”
“I hope you’re right, Dean.”
“You’re stubborn enough to make it so.”