Breathless (Steel Brothers Saga #10)(28)

Colin had no idea what Talon had been through. The same as he had been, only at age ten instead of twenty-six and for a longer period of time.

“You need to stop talking about my brother right now, or this conversation will end.”

“I’m just—”

I held up my hand. “Don’t.”

He sighed. “Fine. Will you arrange for me to talk to Jade or not?”

“Not,” I said.

The door to the small shop opened.

“Hey, Marj. What are you doing here?”

Talon.

Talon had entered the shop.

This would not end well.





Chapter Eighteen





Bryce





I cleared my throat. “Your offer… It’s extremely generous.”

It definitely was. I’d take over as chief financial officer for the Steel Corporation at a very nice salary with full benefits, and the package also included a two-percent profit share in the business.

Yes, extremely generous.

“You’re the best man for the job,” Joe said. “There’s no one I’ve known longer and trust more.”

I nodded, a huge lump forming in my throat. I’d sworn I’d turn down whatever they offered. I’d sworn I’d stay away from Marjorie Steel. But once I heard the magnitude of the offer, I realized I had other considerations. Important ones.

I had a son. I had a mother. If I didn’t take this offer for them, I’d be a selfish bastard. My father had killed himself, so his life insurance hadn’t paid. Plus, he’d left next to nothing in their joint accounts. As for his other accounts? The FBI had confiscated everything.

We sat in Talon’s office. He and Jade still hadn’t gotten back from the hospital, but Joe and Ryan had gotten texts saying they were on their way. Joe sat behind Talon’s large mahogany desk, and Ryan sat next to me in another of the very comfortable leather chairs facing the desk.

“We’d like you to start pretty much immediately,” Ryan said. “You can have a couple weeks to wrap up any loose ends, if you need it.”

What loose ends? I hadn’t been working. I’d asked Talon for a job as a ranch hand just two days ago. I needed the work. I needed money. What little my mother and I had would soon run out.

I rubbed small circles into the palm of my hand. “I’ll need some time to think about it.”

“What is there to think about?” Joe asked.

“Just some…things.”

“We’ve known each other our whole lives,” he said. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“I’ll be happy to leave the room if you want to talk to Joe in private,” Ryan offered.

“No, no. That’s not it,” I said. “I just have a lot to think about.”

Joe regarded me, his forehead wrinkled. For a moment, I thought he was going to ask what I had to think about again, but then he seemed to change his mind.

“We’ve all had to deal with parents who turned out to be something other than we thought,” Ryan said. “Or who turned out to be someone different altogether.”

Ryan’s birth mother, Wendy Madigan, had been the mastermind behind the entire Future Lawmakers Club when our parents were in high school. She was just as psychotic as my father.

Ryan continued, “Melanie has assured me that if I were going to turn out like my mother, I’d know by now. Ditto for you, man. You’re not your father.”

I nodded, saying nothing. Ryan’s mother had been a horrible person. She had not, however, been a rapist and pedophile. Those two things haunted me all the time.

“We wouldn’t be offering you this if we didn’t think you were the best man for the job,” Joe said. “The fact that you’re my oldest and best friend has nothing to do with it.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Only in that I know I can trust you,” he said. “Anyone else, we’d have to vet.”

Again, I said nothing.

“Look,” Ryan said, “I get what’s eating you. Do you hold my mother’s crimes against me?”

“Of course not!” I said. “But you weren’t raised by your mother.”

“I see,” Joe said. “Look. Your father raised me as well.”

“Brad Steel raised you.”

“He turned out to be kind of a dick—”

I opened my mouth, but he stopped me with a gesture.

“I’m not comparing the two. Your father was far worse. I get it. But I knew him nearly as well as you did. He took us on overnight fishing trips, for God’s sake. He raised me just as my father raised you. Both men were significant in our lives, but their actions don’t define either of us, Bryce. You’re a smart guy. You know that.”

Yeah, I knew that.

Objectively, I knew all of it.

The problem was that I wasn’t thinking objectively.

I had two issues.

Dealing with who my father truly was and its effect on my life.

And Marjorie Steel.

I couldn’t be around Marjorie. I wouldn’t be able to resist her, and she deserved better than a man who could only offer her emotionless fucks—or rather, a fuck full of emotion that I couldn’t let mean anything. Yeah, I had feelings for Marjorie Steel. Strong feelings. But a lifetime relationship wasn’t in the cards for me. I certainly couldn’t bring more children into the world—not with the faulty genes I carried.