A Guide to Being Just Friends(83)

They lay there for a while, her breathing him in, doing her best to get her emotions somewhat contained. Hoping she didn’t look like a puffy mess, she leaned back, smiled up at him. Wes stroked her hair away from her face, pressed a kiss to her cheek, trailed along, up, over her temple, across her forehead.

Before his lips touched hers, it occurred to her he’d created a game. An actual on-screen game.

She started to share how happy she was but his lips touched hers, making her forget about anything else. She’d tell him later, how much he meant to her, how proud she was. Right now, she put her effort into showing him.





36


April

Wes didn’t keep things from his brothers. Ever. Until now. As they each took their seats around the table to listen to their lawyers, his foot bounced up and down.

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Noah leaned in, tapped him with his hand.

“Nothing.”

Noah arched a brow, looked to where Wes’s leg continued to dance on the spot. He stopped.

“Meeting Hailey’s cousin and family later. Guess I’m nervous.”

“We met them at the restaurant,” Noah said.

Wes frowned. “For five minutes. This is different.”

“Equivalent to meeting the parents?” Chris asked, leaning in from the other side.

“Pretty much.”

Chris smiled. “You clean up okay. You’ll be fine.”

“Let’s get started,” their lead counsel, Leonard Reiner, said. He was an older, distinguished man who had a long, successful career fighting for the underdog against men like their father. He worked for them and with them to do things right once and for all. “Your father has agreed to drop all proceedings if these conditions are met.”

The other lawyers and assistants passed papers forward. Wes scanned the list. Their father wanted rights to intellectual property Wes had created, or would create, in the cybersecurity sphere. He wanted a percentage of their investments in exchange for them breaking contracts with his company.

“This is bullshit,” Noah said, tossing the paper back. “We didn’t break anything. We’re his sons.”

Chris flipped through the pages.

“He means by leaving before the contracts expired on any of the investments we brought in. He’s claiming by not staying, we breached several contracts. Which is ridiculous since he could buy or sell whatever he wanted without giving us notice.”

Wes’s shoulders tightened like an overwound spring. “What does he want? What’s his endgame?”

Leonard sighed, steepled his fingers under his chin. “In some ways, I think this is his attempt to hang on to whatever sort of relationship with the three of you he can. Even if it’s volatile.” Leonard had taken the time to learn everything he could about their father. Between what the brothers had shared and people he had spoken to, he knew more than enough to want to be in their corner.

“I don’t think so.” Noah scoffed, pushed back from the table, heading to the side bar where he poured some water.

“You don’t want this fight,” Leonard said.

Chris looked up. “He has an endgame proposal, doesn’t he?”

Wes sat up straighter, knowing the answer from the look on their lawyer’s face.

“He’s to be married at the end of July. He wants all of you there.”

Noah slammed the glass down. “Who does this? Who manipulates their children like this?”

Wes didn’t know what to say in response to that. Noah started to speak—if Wes had to guess, he’d say his brother was about to use a lot of unfriendly words. Chris sank back in his chair. Wes hated knowing his father still had the power to hurt them. He felt like he’d worked his whole life to protect them, shield them from this kind of manipulation. This had to end.

“I’ll talk to him,” Wes said.

“I’d advise against that unless I’m present,” Leonard said.

“You’re not taking the brunt of his bullshit.” Chris’s expression was hard. Only their father brought that out in his brothers.

“We can’t keep fighting like this. I’ll be the go-between. We need to end this. It’s pulling us away from the things we really want. Let’s focus on that.”

Noah walked over, stood by Wes’s chair. “You don’t agree to anything on our behalf. You don’t agree to take one for this team. He doesn’t get his way. On anything.”

Wes nodded. He’d do whatever was necessary to keep their father from wrecking everything they’d built. “Sit down, Noah. I’ve got this. Let’s talk about the Mayville Street Shops.”

The conversation shifted, moved through the tension talk of their father always brought. His brothers told him they’d face their father as a united front but Wes wanted to finish it for them. He owed them. As their older brother and for going around them on his most recent investment. Guilt tugged at his conscience, but he told himself they’d have done the same. Doing the right thing didn’t always mean it was right for everyone.



* * *



Hailey greeted him in the back of her shop. She was dressed casually in a pair of cropped pants and a pretty tank top, and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. He didn’t love the way his heart actually jumped toward her every time but he was getting used to it. It was easier to acknowledge it, accept it, than worry about it.