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BEFORE
There were some things in a man’s life that had to be done. Though the world had gone tits up, I had to get to New York to do one very important thing. Something that had been a lifetime in the making.
Before I left, I stopped at Grant’s cabin to let someone I trusted know where I was going. He may have been my cousin, but he was also my closest friend. Though with more than six years separating us, he treated me more like a little brother at times.
He was outside when I pulled up and hopped out, forgetting about the new world order. He held up a hand to stop me from getting closer and walked over to the other side of my truck. He leaned on the edge of the truck bed, and I mirrored him on the other side.
“What brings you around?” he asked.
I lifted the ball cap off my head and ran a hand through my unruly hair before putting it back on. He eyed me but I said nothing, letting him pin me with his gaze as I thought about what I was going to say and how he would react.
“I think I’m going to New York,” I finally said.
He whistled long. “Why now?”
There had been a report on the news that had forced my decision. “They say the old man is dying.” That was the speculation at least and according to my mother, the King of New York himself was my father. “They are starting to quarantine?”
I shrugged. “No one really knows what’s going on. It could be my last opportunity.”
People were getting sick, but some thought the virus would disappear as quickly as it had started. So far, they’d ruled out wearing mask. So how bad could it really be?
“What are you going to do? Ring his bell and declare you’re his long-lost son?” he asked.
“I’ve got to do something,” I spat. “They say in his will, he limits the time for heirs to produce themselves.”
Grant appeared shocked by my revelation. “How did you find out about that?”
“Reporters. There’re have been rumors about him and his sons since the reported fraud at his company and the scandal that followed with the oldest son has put him in the news more than ever,” I said.
One of his sons had been accused of defrauding the family business.
“So this is about money?” he asked.
“It’s about making things right for Mom.”
As the story went, when Mom confronted my father about paternity, he’d threatened to take me from her if she was right about that assumption. With no money to legally fight him, she’d given up.
She wasn’t the only one coerced by Royce. The very person she’d met him through, Grant’s father and my uncle, had signed over his rights to the family business to his brother. “And what about what he did to your dad?” I tossed out.
“Dad made a choice. He didn’t have to sign,” Grant said.
“How do you know?” I asked. “He could have blackmailed him the same way he did my mom.”
“That’s Dad’s battle to fight, not mine.”
“He owes me,” I said, gripping the bedside of the truck like I could bend the metal with my bare hands. “I need to know the truth.”
“What if you get stuck there? I heard they might close the state.”
The recent virus outbreak was spreading like wildfire through the city. “That’s a risk I have to take.”
“What’s your plan?” he queried.
I shrugged as I let go of the truck before I did damage to it. Frustrated, I took two steps back. “I don’t know. Connor has a club in the city. If I can’t get to the old man, I’ll reach out to him.”
Connor was one of two brothers I’d never met and neither had Grant. My father had written both of us and his brother out of the family.
The door to Grant’s cabin opened and a gorgeous brunette was framed in the doorway in the thermals that clung to her. I gaped not only because she was that beautiful, but because Grant didn’t bring women to his cabin. Grant didn’t do girlfriends after the last one had burned him.
“Jo, honey. Why don’t you put on a coat?” he suggested.
Honey? Since when did he call a woman ‘honey’? I grinned because I would razz him about it later.
Grant glared at her and the next thing I knew she crossed her arms over her chest and went inside. I chuckled. The man had gone all possessive over a woman, which was something. “Sorry, cuz. Uncle Ted told me you weren’t alone, but he didn’t say you were hiding a smokestack.” I whistled. “I can see why you’d quarantine with her.”
“It isn’t like that,” he said, “Mind your manners.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I’m just saying—” I joked.
He glared at me and I cut off anything else I might have said. I raised my hands in surrender just before the smoking hot brunette came out wearing jeans with her coat zipped up tight and boots on. She stopped far enough that we formed a socially distant triangle.
