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I felt my back teeth clench until they throbbed, but I refused to say another word about it. Chase chose that moment to hurry into the room, and I saw my assistant’s apologetic face behind him. I shook my head slightly to let him off the hook and then asked him to bring us all some coffee.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” Chase asked with a huge smile on his face. “I wasn’t expecting you. Did you hear the news about our new client?”
I felt my gut clench. Despite being twenty-four years old, Chase still had a desperate need to impress his asshole of a father, and it always took every measure of restraint I had to keep from reminding Chase that Keith only doled out his approval when it suited him.
“Sure did,” Keith said with a frown. “Saw the press release. I was just telling Aiden that—”
I cut him off. “That we’re going to have lots of work ahead of us with such a big client. And I told him that we’re looking forward to it, aren’t we, Chase?”
Keith’s eyes narrowed at me, but he kept his mouth closed.
Rather than give him a chance to speak, I continued, “Keith, since you’re here, I may as well let you know that I’m planning on using the beach house this weekend. I’m taking a friend up there.”
He eyed me with thinly veiled disgust before murmuring, “Fine.” I’d come out when I’d been in my teens, so it wasn’t anything new for him to read into what I meant by a “friend.”
I hated the fact that I even had to give the man a heads up, but for whatever reason, my mother had left the house to me, Chase, and Keith instead of just Keith after her death two years earlier. I’d been stunned to learn that, despite being married to Keith, my mother had kept many of the physical assets she’d brought into the marriage in her name, giving Keith no legal claim to them. It was a lesson she’d likely learned during her bitter divorce from my father. While Keith had inherited the majority of her financial holdings, a considerable amount of her money had gone into Chase’s trust. Keith had ended up inheriting the Manhattan condo he’d shared with my mother, but she’d left the beach house to all three of us. I was in the process of buying Chase and Keith out, but it had been a tedious fight to get Keith to agree to the price. Until the paperwork was signed, the three of us were stuck sharing the place, and I knew Keith still made regular use of the house.
I was glad Keith didn’t put up a fuss about me using the house because I knew Ash didn’t have to work at the coffee shop this weekend, and the idea of having him all to myself at the beach house was too tempting to pass up. The weather was supposed to be sunny and mild, and I knew it would do both of us some good to get out of the city and breathe in the ocean air. For the most part, things had been going well with Ash living with me, but money continued to be a major sticking point between us. Not to mention that being so close to Ash and not being able to touch him was driving me insane with need. It wasn’t unheard of for me to have to sneak off to my bathroom to jack off on the occasions when the proximity just became too much.
To Chase, Keith said, “I came to see if you want to meet me for lunch later today. I’m dining with some of the partners at my firm and I thought it would be a good opportunity for you to reconnect with them. It’s been too long since you came to see us over there.”
Chase looked taken aback. “Dad, I met them all for drinks like a month ago.”
As usual, I wanted to intervene and save Chase from the sense of obligation I was sure he was feeling, but I didn’t. It would just cause an argument that neither Chase nor I needed right now. For whatever reason, Keith still had it stuck in his head that Chase would see the error of his ways and drop out of our business and go to law school like Keith and our mother had wanted.
Keith responded with, “Right, so it’s been a month. I know Don Schubert would love to see you. He’s been asking about you. I think it has something to do with his daughter. Did you know she’s joining the firm when she finishes her law degree from Columbia?”
“I believe someone mentioned it once or twice,” Chase mumbled under his breath. “But, sure. I’ll meet you for lunch. Just tell me where and what time.”
