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Me
I know that. Everyone knows that, I promise.
Don’t let him get under your skin.
Rowan
I’m about to get in the car. I’ll call you on my way into the office.
Me
I love you.
Rowan
xo
I set my phone down, still staring at the screen and her messages about Rhett, my blood fucking boiling. His comment was bullshit. He knew that Rowan was the most dedicated, hardworking executive we had on this team. He also knew that making that comment would piss her off.
He could have said far worse.
But the fact that he’d said anything at all, that was what got to me. That he had intentionally tried to hurt her. If he was teasing her, like big brothers often did, I could forgive that. But since themerger, Rhett had made things progressively worse, and I knew the moment he found out about this pregnancy, he was going to flip his shit.
I’d been putting off the inevitable, hoping things would repair themselves, wishing the motherfucker would come to his senses.
That obviously wasn’t going to happen.
Discussing this with him wouldn’t get me anywhere. He was too hotheaded.
I needed to go in the back way.
Which I would, but first, I had to tackle my own family.
I picked up my office line, hitting the button that would connect me to our assistant.
“Hi, Cooper. How can I help you?” Kathleen asked.
“Can you set up a meeting with my brothers and Jo? I want it to be today. As early as possible. And put us in the conference room, it has more room than my office.”
“I’ll work on that right now, and I’ll text you the time.”
“There’s one more thing I need you to work on …”
“I now have to use our assistant to coordinate our schedules to get us all at the same place, at the same time,” I said to my family as I walked into the conference room, where they were already seated around the table. “What the fuck happened to us? When did we get so busy?”
“Pre-merger, we were busy,” Jo said, the exhaustion evident on her face. “Post—I don’t even know what day it is.”
I took a seat at the head. “We need an executive meeting to discuss more staffing. Of course, we have to include the Coles in that meeting. I’m sure they’re drowning as much as we are.I know Rowan is at least.” I set my hands on the table, linking my fingers. “I can’t speak for the other two. I’ve only had a few exchanges with Ridge and nothing but dirty looks from Rhett, so I don’t know how either of them feels about the workload.”
“Ridge and I have had plenty of conversations,” Macon said. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually like the dude.”
“Nah, I can see that,” I replied to him. “The couple of times we’ve talked, he’s been cool.”
“Rhett’s a lost cause.” Brady sighed.
The room turned silent.
“Listen, there’s always one in every family who makes things a little more challenging,” I told them. “Brady is our challenge.” I gave my eldest brother a big, fat grin.
