“You’re my one o’clock?” Henry asks, annoyed as I enter his office without even knocking. Just like his assistant instructed me to do.
“I’m surprised your assistant isn’t outside waiting for you to bark some orders,” I comment, pushing the door closed.
“She’d sue me if I make her work on Sunday.”
“Saturday is an option?” I ask sarcastically.
“Sometimes,” he confesses, and I’m starting to believe that this guy is worse than me. At least I have the excuse of saving lives, but he … what is he saving? His fortune?
“You have five minutes,” he says. “Use them wisely.”
“No, I’m pretty sure your assistant said one to three,” I amend and grin when he gives me an annoyed glare.
“Like you, I wasn’t a fan of our father. To this day, I still don’t know how to feel about him,” I say directly without rushing. Though, I’m not sure when he’s going to kick me out. “He died. I should mourn, but I’m not. The point isn’t how I feel or if I even care to dissect my emotions.”
“What’s the point of this conversation?”
Last night, while I drank my dad’s expensive scotch and reflected on my life, I realized I wasn’t much different than him. I don’t have one meaningful relationship. Not even with my brothers.
I’m not hoping to spend the next fifty Christmases with them, but maybe, we could stay in touch. Today’s goal is to get my brothers together and find out what the old man wanted to do with his beloved town.
“I took care of almost everything. His assistant will be closing the penthouse,” I say, taking a seat across from him.
“Are we having a funeral?” he asks.
“Should we?” I refute. “It’s not like we were close to him. What are we supposed to say? He was a shitty father and a horny asshole.”
He chuckles and shakes his head.
“Well, he had business associates, friends. I’m sure whoever continues the Aldridge legacy has to keep with appearances and make sure he shows that our father mattered.”
“Who is going to keep his legacy?” I inquire because I only know medicine, and bones are my specialty. “I’m a doctor. You’re the closest to what he used to do. I read that you’re a hotel mogul.”
He nods. “They left me everything. I had to rise to the occasion.”
“They?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.
His face falls slightly. “Mom died a couple of years after Carter. It was a car accident. I began to take over her responsibilities as CFO of the company. Then my grandfather died a couple of years ago, so it’s now all mine.”
“Sorry to hear about Debra,” I say, feeling like an asshole, because she never married, and they weren’t that close if I recall.
“Hey, life sucks and you just deal, you know. Mom and I weren’t too close. She was always busy, and sometimes, I was just another one of her employees.”
My chest tightens when I hear how distant he sounds about the death of his mother. Mom and I might have our differences about my life and my future, but we have a good relationship.
“How’s Cassandra?” he asks.
“Mom got married a few years ago. She retired and moved to Sweden with her husband.”
“How about you?” he asks. “Are you married with children?”
I chuckle. “Nah, and you?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have time, and I doubt I can be faithful to a woman.”
“My feelings exactly.” I nod in agreement.
“No, you did have someone. I’m still trying to understand what happened with Blaire—how things ended up all fucked up between the two of you.”
Pain cuts through my gut at the mention of her and the memory of our fucked-up ending. How did it really end?
Me leaving, or her betraying me after I left?
If only that’s what I remembered about Blaire Wilson: the end when she didn’t love me anymore. Not the beginning when I fell madly in love with her, not her cool ice blue eyes that contrasted with her tanned skin and dark hair, but the pain I felt after everything was over.
She broke me. That’s what I should remember. Not the times I brushed my lips against her forehead at night while I held her against me as she slept. Those are the kind of memories that sneak up on me at night. The ones where I nuzzled her hair after making love to her. My lips still remember all the times I took her mouth, exploring every corner of it, searching for her flavor as I ignited the fire within her.
It’s been over a decade since it all ended, but my body still misses hers. Her soft skin, her heat enveloping me when I was inside of her. Being inside of her used to be my favorite place—the only place I liked to be. My entire being aches, and I don’t know what is happening to me.
What I miss the most is talking to her at night before we fell asleep after a long day at school. She would listen to me rant about my teachers or the EMT training I was taking. Sometimes, I’d talk about the latest astronomical discovery or some random scientific article. She not only listened, she also contributed. Deep down, she’s just as nerdy as I am.
She’d tell me about her classes, or the kids she visited while she volunteered at the hospital. With her, I was never alone. Blaire was the only person who could make me feel like love existed and that maybe there was more to life than just science. That there were some things you couldn’t explain. You just had to believe in them, like faith and love.
I push my mind away from Blaire. She’s a bittersweet memory. If I could, I’d shred it. But then, if I do, I will have nothing left of her.
Does it even matter?
The answer is yes. She’ll always matter.
“Let’s concentrate on our father,” I say, focusing on the now and the future of the company.
For the next few minutes, I brief Henry about my conversation with Jerome Parrish.
“You’re only coming to me because I’m the business guy, so why not dump the responsibility on him. I have enough on my plate, and I honestly don’t care about him or his legacy,” he says firmly.
“No, you’re misunderstanding. This is a one-time thing. As I said, we meet in Baker’s Creek, he reads the testament, and it’s over.”
“What’s going to happen with his fortune?”
I shrug. “Who cares about it? We’ll sell, donate, and walk away from everything.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “You don’t want his money?” he asks, suspiciously. “You’re his legitimate child. I guess you deserve the name and all the shit that entitles.”
This should be the part of the conversation where I tell him that his perception of my position in the family is outdated.
Who the fuck cares about being the legitimate child? I don’t think that’s even important in modern life. We were all the same to William Aldridge—nothing. Just products of his irresponsible sex life.
“Why should I care about his money?” I ask. “I make half million a year. I haven’t touched the trust he gave me.”
I don’t know why Dad gave us three trust funds. Out of guilt, a way to say I’m done pretending we’re a family, or just because he had too much money. Either way, each one of us received three different amounts. The first one when we turned eighteen for two billion dollars. The second for the same amount when we turned twenty-one. The final payout to happen at twenty-five for six billion dollars. We each have ten billion dollars—except Carter, who only received the first because he died at twenty.