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“Oh yeah? What about when you fucked that secretary over Dad’s desk and she drooled all over the Hamilton’s paperwork?” Fred’s face turned red as he came closer, his son giggling wildly as he ran circles around Mom. I didn’t even bother to sit up.
“There were digital copies. It’s hardly the same as talking shit about the company we were meant to be acquiring to the goddamn CEO,” I retorted. If Fred wasn’t so hellbent on kicking me out of the running for taking over the Harris agricultural empire, I might have even felt bad for him.
“I didn’t know it was him!”
“Can we please have one family dinner without you boys arguing?” Mom said. She looked straight at me as if I were the problem, one hand on her hip and a metal spoon in the other, that same look on her face that used to be permanent when we were children.
We never got along much then, either. But that was before everything else happened.
“Surely that’s directed at Fred,” I deadpanned. I was never the one to start the arguments, never the one to cause chaos in front of the one man we needed to suck up to. But here I was, as always, getting the brunt of the blame because I hadn’t ‘settled down’ like my brother.
“It’s directed at both of you,” she warned, her nose crinkling as she waved the spoon toward the dining room. “Dinner’s ready. Get your asses in seats or you don’t get to eat.”
————
Dinner was always the same. The only thing that changed was whatever Mom decided to cook. Quiet, idle chatter unless Fred decided to start a war. Fred’s son, Harvey, always complaining that he didn’t like the food. Fred’s daughter, Ivy, inevitably flinging baby food in someone’s face or at the wall.
I hated it.
Dad sat at the head of the table, his usual spot. On his right was Mom. Fred’s wife, Penelope, sat next to her children and husband, always fairly quiet and staying out of any drama.
I, ever the black sheep of the family, sat at the complete opposite end from my father.
Normally during our family dinners, I’d find something to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t have to talk about business or Fred’s ineptitude. Today, though, I had two choices: think about my brother and his dogshit ability to run the Harris agricultural empire; or end up with a raging hard-on from thinking about Lottie, which seemed all my mind was capable of doing lately.
Fred it was.
He had no business running the company. He’d always been Dad’s right-hand man, always the secretary to the leader. He didn’t dabble in actual business dealings very often, not on the level that I did. I’d been given portions of the company to run entirely by myself, and I’d excelled at every single one of them, bringing in more profits than we’d seen in years. Fred was good at paperwork and not much else.
But he was older than me by three years. He believed he had a claim on it by birthright, and goddammit, he’d do whatever it took to achieve that claim. Even if that meant the business crumbling to pieces, us losing every billion along with it.
“Hunter,” Dad said, his voice booming in a way I’d not heard since I was a child. It made me jump, pulling me from my thoughts and nearly making me drop my spoon into my bowl of stew.
“Yes?”
“Were you listening?”
“No,” I admitted. “Sorry. What did I miss?”
“I said I’m retiring,” he replied, deep brown eyes fixed on me in a way that made my stomach churn. The potato in my mouth suddenly felt like sand.
Retiring.
My mind began to race. I hadn’t expected it to come so soon—he was only in his early sixties, still loved working, still ran the show like a champ. Every plan I’d ever had to convince him to give me the business over my brother slammed to the front of my mind—a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas that needed sorting. I had to fast-track this. I had to figure it out now rather than later.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to make Fred the CEO.” The words fell out before I could stop them, a thought I’d meant to keep to myself. The adrenaline had gotten the better of me.
Dad cleared his throat, his brows lowering. “Son,” he said. He set down his utensils and smoothed his napkin in his lap. “You know I have full faith in you running your side of the business. But Fred is a family man and he’s settled, he’s not nearly as much of a liability.”
The world turned on its fucking axis.
“Fred will likely take over as CEO,” he continued, but the words sounded muffled, like they were being spoken in a tunnel or underwater.
My brother turned to me with the snakiest grin I’d ever seen on his face. It set me on fire in the worst way imaginable, that horrible, gut-wrenching sear that made me want to scream. I didn’t have anything to say. Not in that moment and maybe not ever.
The conversation continued without me, leaving me in the muddied waters, and all I could do was stare at my food. Muffled words about retirement parties and cruise liners filtered in, but they seemed too far away to comprehend. I felt completely unattached.
There had to be something I could do. Something to show my father that I was as good as Fred, that I could be calm and settled too.
