Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16), стр. 33
“It really isn't a competition. If we only ever had Ellie, I'd be the happiest man in the world.”
“If the only child I could ever have was Ellie, so would I.”
Hard blinking, a sign he's surprised, makes me realize how important my words are. This is Declan's version of emoting. When he's not stone faced, he's irritatingly condescending or jocularly sarcastic, so getting a better range of emotions is a nice change.
Then again, maybe I'm not giving the guy enough credit. Shannon has definitely softened him.
And Ellie has turned him into melted butter.
“Thanks. Those babies are lucky, too.”
“Are they?”
We both gulp a lot of beer, then sit in silence, holding back the inevitable carbonated sounds that want to replace words from our mouths. This restaurant isn't top of the line, but it's pleasant, and right now, pleasant counts for a lot.
“Did Dad talk to you about the trust? About inheritance?”
Ah. That's what this meal is about.
“Yes.”
“Is he being a jerk about Ellie?”
“Ellie?”
“She's the wrong gender, in his eyes.”
“Oh, Dec. God. No. Don't worry about it. If he does the wrong thing, I'll make it right.”
“It's not about the money, Andrew. We have more than enough. And he can't change Mom's trust, so there's that.”
“He tried, with Terry.”
Declan lets out a nasty sound. “Sure did.” Concerned green eyes meet mine. “What kind of pressure is he putting on you to turn your children into little James McCormick Perfection Bots?”
I let out a curse.
“He did,” Declan says, banging the table with one fist. “I knew it.”
“You, too?”
“His big thing was that Ellie wasn't a boy, but yes. He tried.”
“What'd you say to him?”
“I told him to go to hell and stormed off.” Anger has a way of settling in comfortably on Declan's face, as if his features were made for it. “You?”
“Something like that.”
“He's a piece of work.”
“Will we be?”
“What?” Declan covers the top of his beer as the server comes by. My own glass is enough, and I'll have to call José or one of my other drivers soon.
“A piece of work to our kids. Mom was our shield against Dad. Are Amanda and Shannon going to have to act as shields for us because we put too much pressure on our kids to be clones of us?”
“Why would I want my kids to be clones of me?”
“Dad has a point.”
“Oh, geez, Andrew. Come on.”
“Bear with me. He has a point. I didn't say he's right.”
“That's some heavy-duty parsing you're engaging in, bro.”
“He worked his ass off to build Anterdec. We're all where we are because of him. Even Terry benefits from Mom's family trust. We've never had to build anything from scratch.”
Dec starts to argue, but I stop him. “You bought Grind It Fresh! with money from Mom and Dad. I bought the gyms that way, too.”
Damn.
“Gyms?”
I stare at the beer and blame it. “Never mind.”
“Gyms?” he presses.
“Fine. I'll tell you. But you have to keep it a secret.”
He pretends to zip his lips. The gesture looks so stupid on him.
“I need more than that.”
“Like what? Pinkie swear? Blood rites?” He perks up. “The Turdmobile! You can have the–”
“A basic promise is enough.”
“No, no, no. Taking the Turdmobile off my hands is the ultimate in helping me keep a secret.”
“I thought your assistant, Dave, took it?”
“He gave it back. Said the miles-per-gallon wasn't good enough, and he couldn't convert the engine to run on old french-fry grease, so we're stuck with it again.”
“I don't want it.”
“Fine. Tell me about the gyms.”
“How did we get from Dad wanting to use us and our kids to secure his legacy to the Turdmobile?”
“The gyms, Andrew. What kind did you buy?”
Once the words are out, I can't put them back in.
Finally, he gets it. Dec isn't stupid, but he's a wee bit slow on the uptake tonight.
“Old Jorg sold to you?”
The way he says you makes me bristle, even through the beer.
“He did. Sixteen gyms. Mine,” I growl, like some beast dude in a werewolf film.
“Sixteen.” He says it like he's comparing.
“Size doesn't matter,” I blurt out, instantly regretting my words.
Slinging back a skeptical sound like I threw at him earlier, he eyes me, suddenly serious. “You bought old Jorg's gym chain?”
“I did.”
“Does Dad know?”
“Hell, no.”
“Good. Don't want him mucking it up.”
“What do you mean?”
“He'll try to take control. The old guy loves to rest on his laurels with Anterdec, but if he knows you have something new, he'll jump in.”
“Why would he?”
“Duh. Control. Trust me. I know from experience.”
“He tried to control Grind It Fresh!?”
“He's a coffee expert, Andrew. Didn't you know?”
“Ugh.”
We sit in silence, finishing off the beers.
“Why does he make everything more difficult?”
“Because he is who he is and makes the world bend around him.”
“I'm that way, too,” I mutter.
Dec shakes his head. “Not even close. You're good, I'll admit. Strong, and smart at reading people. But he's an asshole to the core, and we're not.”
“I'm not,” I correct him.
That earns me a laugh.
“We inherited more than enough asshole from Dad's genetic code, but it's muted by Mom's kindness. Terry got a little more of that than we did.”
“Imagine what Dad would be like if Mom were alive.”
He rears back slightly.
“You've thought about it. Right?” I press.
“Sure. They'd be celebrating...” he pauses to calculate, “...wow, forty years together. He'd be the same guy, only more...” Dec fumbles for words.
“Human?”
“Right.”
“What ifs,” I say with a sigh.
“Too many what ifs.”
“I wonder what kind of men we'd be today if Mom had lived,” I confess, the beer making me more emotional than usual. Letting my guard down around my brother is hard.
Especially about feelings.
“We'd have a filter,” he says simply, my signal not to pry or press further.
Line touched.
But not crossed.
“She was our filter. And when she died, we didn't just lose our mom. We lost our filter. Dad lost his buffer.”
“Grace tried.”
“Oh, sure. And she was great. But she wasn't Mom. No one else in the world was Mom.”
“No. No one else was. She was one of a kind.