“Okay,” I say. “As much fun as it is watching you two go at it, I’d really love to get home before the sun goes down.”
“I told Angelica that I would be home in time for dinner,” Trevor says of his longtime girlfriend.
“I don’t know how you do it.” Francis looks at Trevor. “To be with the same one day in and day out.” His face forms a grimace. When I graduated from the university, these two were the only ones cheering me on. Over beer and chicken wings, the three of us joked about starting a company with the chunk of change we inherited when Ernest died. No matter how many times I fought with them about giving it back, they refused to take it.
Francis got us our first client. It was someone he went to school with. His agent had just dropped him because of another DUI, and we decided that if we could turn his image around, it would look great for us. He then introduced us to other athletes, and slowly, but surely, we built our portfolio.
Francis takes care of baseball and golf. Trevor takes care of football. I take care of hockey, and we all split the basketball players.
We now have a staff of over one hundred, and we continue to grow every year.
“Okay, so what do we have going on this week?” I ask. They each fill me in on their prospects, and we finish the meeting in record time.
I walk back to my office and see that everyone has cleared out for the weekend. Grabbing my purse and laptop bag, I walk out just as the sun dips below the horizon.
I don’t think I’ve left the office early in five years, I think as I’m unlocking my white Range Rover. I climb in and start it. My phone rings right away, and I look down to see Manning’s name.
“It’s Friday, and it’s almost time for you to be at a dinner.” Manning is the captain of the Dallas Oilers. The sponsors are all eating out of his hand because he stays out of drama. He refuses to be on social media other than his Facebook, where he pushes said sponsors.
“I’m on my way there now,” he says.
“Good.” I pull out of the parking lot. “I arranged for you to have a room downtown tonight in case you wanted to get a night away from the wicked witch of the east.” I mention his wife that he refuses to leave.
He laughs. “I might take you up on that offer.”
“Good,” I say. “Call me tomorrow to let me know how the meeting went. Two other sponsors called me today. I’ll research the companies and let you know.”
“Sounds good,” he says. “Have a great night.” I disconnect at the exact time I pull up to my parking spot. I’m getting out when I get a text that makes my night.
Matthew Grant: Pencil us in for Friday afternoon. My office.
Chapter 2
Nico
“We have a meeting in ten minutes with Frank,” my assistant, Elizabeth, says from the doorway of my office. I look up and see her usual attire of a business suit with her hair in a high bun, and she’s holding a leather folder in her hand. “If you leave now, you have seven minutes to eat before the meeting starts.” Getting up, I look around the office at the sun shining in the sky and wonder what it would feel like to take a day off. But then I shake my head, reminding myself there is no time for that.
I walk out of the office and make my way down to the conference room. “Your mother called you,” she says, opening her folder. “You have a meeting tonight at seven with the foundation chair,” she says, going over my schedule.
When I inherited this team, the first thing I did was hire Elizabeth to be my right-hand person. We grew up together, and she’s the only one I trust. As my nanny’s daughter, the two of us were brought up almost like siblings. Only, she wasn’t exploited because of who her parents were. “What’s my weekend look like?”
“You have Candace’s birthday party tomorrow,” she tells me. “Gift is bought and already wrapped.” I look over at her, and she smirks. “I got myself a matching one.” We stop walking when we get to the doors of the conference room, and she smiles. “Your lunch is already in there. I have seven minutes, so I’m going to go outside and see if my skin glistens in the sun like a vampire.” I shake my head, laughing at her. “I have my phone.”
“I’m sure I can handle a meal without you, Lizzie.” I use her nickname, and she rolls her eyes. Walking into the room, I see my brown paper bag at the head of the table right in front of the stack of papers we are going to go through. Slipping off my suit jacket, I put it over the back of the leather chair, then sit down and take out my sandwich. I grab my phone and get on my social media right away. I scroll through, seeing pictures of people on vacation. A couple of my old friends are partying in Vegas. I shake my head, taking another bite of the sandwich while trying not to remember what my life was like before.
I was the only son of oil tycoon John Earl Harrison the third and Daniella, an Italian model. They met at a fashion show in Milan. My mother got swept up with living the life in America. It was a whirlwind romance, and they wed at a venue with over one thousand guests just five months after they met. I can’t even imagine the spectacle that was. They lived lavishly as jet-setters around the world, but always came back to Dallas, where the tabloids would be on full baby bump alerts. My mother knew she never really wanted children, but she had to give my father an heir. It was her duty as a wife to make sure his name lived on.
Thankfully, they got it right the first time and didn’t have to go through it again. Every chance she got, she told me how I changed her body as she pointed out every stretch mark I gave her. The best thing they did for me was to hire Fernanda because she treated me like her own. It was usually just the two of us while my parents went away, which was most of the time. It’s because of Fernanda I had a little bit of a normal upbringing. I was in every sport she could drive me to. My parents never attended any of the games because their schedules just didn’t allow it.
My parents would take me out when the cameras were around, but Fernanda raised me. Slowly and quietly, I grew up. The press would follow me from time to time. Those embarrassing photos of me in college doing things I shouldn’t be doing are floating around somewhere. I mean, everyone else did them, but I just got mine caught on camera. No one reported that I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master's degree in foreign communication.
They were on wedding watch as soon as I officially moved back to Dallas. It all became worse when my father gave me the Dallas Oilers. I was the youngest team owner ever. I had just turned thirty, and I had no idea what to expect. I knew what I didn’t want, which was to be the laughing stock of the league. The team was a fucking mess. Even with our draft picks, they’d placed last in the league for seven years in a row. It was a shitshow.
Being twenty-seven and the owner of a professional sports team made me an eligible bachelor. The headlines were either Nicolas Edward Is dating so and so or Nicolas Edward just made another stupid trade.
I was over it all. It was almost like a downward spiral. I knew my father was waiting in the wings to swoop in and make it better, even if it was his fault that the team was so bad.
“Hey,” Frank, the general manager for the team, says as he comes into the room with a coffee cup in his hand. “I thought I would be the early one.”