Casanova(7)

“This is the most ridiculous conversation I’ve ever heard,” Pops started. “William, son. We all know Brett isn’t perfect, but he is the heir to the business alongside Camille. You don’t know if he’ll be reliable because you’ve never trusted him enough—with good reason, of course, I know,” he added quickly.

“Still sitting here,” I said.

“Brett, you have one chance.” Pops turned the full force of his gaze onto me. “But we’re going to make a deal.”

I hesitated. “A deal?”

“A deal?” Dad echoed, much more warily than I had.

“Oh god,” Camille muttered into her wine glass.

“You have one chance to you clean up your act.” The way Pops said it left no room for argument. “You’ll stop the partying. No more parties, no more womanizing, and certainly no more stepping out of line. We’ll also work to publicly clean up your image, but you must be a fully willing participant in whatever means we decide to use to do this.”

Fuck me...he didn’t want much, did he?

“What happens if I break the deal?” I asked, putting my knife and fork together on the plate.

Pops looked me dead in the eye and said quite simply, “You’ll find your inheritance drastically cut and your sister will stand to take ninety-eight percent of the entire business when it gets passed on.”

What the fuck? Was that for real?

Camille gasped. “Pops. You can’t do that!”

“It’s still my business, Camille. I can do what I want with it.”

“Henrick,” Nan said. “Think this through. That’s very drastic.”

“He needs drastic, Mother.” Dad gripped his glass tightly. “He’s had it easy for far too long. Camille works for her money—Brett doesn’t. First the lifestyle and now The Thing. I side with Dad. He absolutely needs this to happen.”

And this was why I hated family dinner. It always came back to me and how much I’d fucked up in my life. I don’t know why they didn’t record the damn conversation and put it on replay whenever we got together. It’d save us all some time and I wouldn’t even have to show up for it.

“Brett?” Pops’ voice broke through my thoughts.

I dragged my gaze toward him.

“Your choice, boy,” he continued. “Clean up or be cut off. Which one is it?”

I clenched my jaw as annoyance slammed into me. “Clean up,” I ground out through clenched teeth.

Camille’s eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline. “You’re going to clean up? Really?”

“I can do it.” I didn’t want to sound like a petulant child so I left it at that. I also didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by telling her fuck off.

I’d do that later when nobody else was around.

“We’ll see,” Dad simply said. “We’ll see.”





CHAPTER THREE


LANI



I stared at the pink, fluffy bear sitting on the shelf. I didn’t have a clue what to buy a baby. All I wanted to do was buy something for Connie’s bump that would hopefully apologize for the fact I was a little bit of a bitch when I arrived back in Whiskey Key.

Except I really, really didn’t know what to buy.

Would it use a bear? The baby? Damn it, the baby. She already told me off three times yesterday for calling the baby ‘it.’ Something that is easier than you’d think.

Would the baby use a bear? I didn’t know what babies did. Didn’t they just cry, poop, vomit, and drink milk? Why on earth would she need a light pink bear?

She wouldn’t. Right. She wouldn’t.

I shuffled down the aisle toward the other baby toys. Rattles. More soft toys.

Good god, what is a Lamaze?

Oh. Oh. It was a brand. Never mind. I liked those.

I reached out toward the toys, hesitated, and then pulled my hand back. Which one did I pick? Dear god, why was it so freaking hard? It shouldn’t have been this hard to pick a gift for a baby. It—she, damn it, she—wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about it until she was older.

“Having trouble?”

I looked over my shoulder and smiled at Camille. “Trouble is probably a very nice word for how I feel right now.”

She laughed lightly and stepped up next to me. “Trying to find something for Connie?”

“Again, trying is a nice word. I have no idea what I’m doing.” I joined her in laughing and blew out a breath as I looked up and down the aisle. “Who knew there were so many toys for such tiny people?”

“I know, right? When Melly had her baby—”

“Melly had a baby?” I asked, referring to her cousin. “That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, last year.” She smiled and looked over at the black, white, and red toys that had all sorts of noisy, wrinkly attachments. “I’m pretty sure that he really liked these when he was old enough to grab and stuff. Melly said it was something about the colors. I don’t know.”

“Good enough for me.” I picked one that looked like a butterfly off the shelf and flipped it over. Yep. That would work. “Oh, hey, I meant to call you yesterday, sorry. We started clearing Grandma’s stuff after breakfast and I never got around to it.”