God, it’s good to be back.
Dereck and Damon better stick around after all the pussy-whipped boys go home.
“Predictable,” I shake my head.“Although I thought you’d last at least a year.”
Colt doesn’t react.He’s probably the thickest-skinned of all of us, besides me.Dereck mutters a complaint, and we share a smirk.
Mason rubs the back of his neck.“You sure you want to sell?Put a CEO in place and step right back.”
He’s not wrong.
This place brings in some decent cash and has been a source of networking for us all, despite its confidential nature.
“I considered it,” Colt shakes his head.“With a baby on the way, it doesn’t feel like me anymore.It’s been wild, but it’s time to hang up this bachelor life hat and become a family man.”
I almost gag.Not to make a point, although tempting, but I genuinely feel nausea rise up inside me.
It’s not a life I want.
All of us watched Jack marry Sandy and then return from his honeymoon in a fucking casket.How have my four friends so quickly put a ring on it and changed?As I’ve said, I like Gemma, Riley, Emily and Lexi...but their husbands could be my clients in five or ten years.
Just saying.
There’s no way any of them can know what they’ve found is true love this fast.
So much for our group pledge to marry for love and nothing less.The one we made after Jack’s funeral almost ten years ago.
It seems to be forgotten.
Well, I haven’t.
In fact, I’ve found Sandy and been keeping tabs on her.She’s living in Palo Alto, California.She has remarried and has a child.
Digging further into her world and finances is taking time.We know she has Jack’s wealth behind her, and it was far more substantial than any of ours in those days, so she has smart protection in place.
My investigator said he needs more time to get around them.
But he will.
And when he does, I’ll share it with the boys, and together we will destroy her.Legally, of course...probably.
So yeah, I know the root of my cynicism.That experience as a young man and my upbringing have played a bit part.Doesn’t it always?
My parents are good people, Christians, and both highly successful.However, my arrival was a surprise.Technically, I shouldn’t even exist.
Mom and Dad had no hesitation in telling meyou weren’t planned, Zander.One day your mother threw up, and the doctors were telling us in five months you’d be parents.They didn’t, at any point while I was growing up, add,but from that moment you were the apple of our eye.
In fact, I can’t ever recall them using the L word.
Love.
Their careers always came first.I had a nanny—three nannies—and the only time I really saw my folks was at dinnertime.My father would ask how my day was and what I learned.Then he disappeared into his den or left the house.Mom would sit with me on the sofa and attempt to show interest in something I was playing with for what felt like two minutes.
I valued those minutes, speaking fast, showing her my latest toy or show, updating her on what my friends and I did.
Mom struggled to connect.
As a little boy, I saw it as rejection.There was always something urgent she had to rush off to do, or was interrupted with a call.My nanny would reappear, ordering me to have my bath and prepare for bed.
