AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her cheeks fired with a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun. This was the last conversation she wanted to be having with him when sex was most certainly off the agenda. When she was still angry at him for assuming she was going to give up her career while he played the golden-hued CEO.
She focused her gaze on him. “I have a question for you.”
“You did your homework. Good girl.”
She rolled her eyes. “I want to know why you agreed to take the CEO job at Grant when you said you never wanted it.”
He cracked open a Perrier bottle and handed it to her. “I decided I wanted it.”
“Why? What changed your mind?”
He shrugged. “It was clear the business community was going to back Harrison’s run for president. The only question was whether he would take it. I needed to be ready with my answer, and I realized that answer was yes, I did want Grant to be mine. It’s in my blood. But I wanted to do it my way, not Harrison’s way, not my father’s way.”
“And now? Do you think it was the right decision?”
He frowned. “I’m only six months in. I am not my brother. There are growing pains... But yes, I think it was the right thing to do. I’m excited about the future.”
She could sense it. There had always been a restlessness about her husband, a low-level frustration with anything that had to do with work, because playing second fiddle to his brother had never been easy for him. The intense, focused man beside her now was a very different creature. She had seen it in him instantly that night at Tony and Annabelle’s—the ruthless edge that made her all jittery inside.
“Harrison is not an easy act to follow.”
He shrugged. “It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Harrison was a known quantity—steady, dependable. He rarely worked outside of the box. With me, the board isn’t sure what they’re getting. I’m doing things differently. I’ve ruffled some feathers. It’s going to take time.”
She studied him then, the tension etched into the grooves at the sides of his mouth. His father, Clifford Grant, had been an icon of American business, a success story that was corporate folklore. Harrison was so widely respected he had been chosen to represent the interests of business in a presidential race. It made the pressure her father had put on her seem like child’s play.
“What was that phone call this morning? You looked stressed.”
He cracked the other bottle of Perrier open and took a long gulp. “Just business.”
She scowled. “Is it just me playing this game or have you checked in, too?”
He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “This is about me and you figuring this out, Di, not business. I’m not interested in sidetracking the discussion.”
She thought him sharing why he had been distracted all morning was them understanding each other, but she left it for the moment. “Fine. I would like to understand you and Harrison. You would never explain what happened between you two.”
Dark lashes swept down over his brilliant eyes. “We’ve had some major philosophical differences over the years. Although, like I said last night, we’ve worked a lot of it out.”
“Philosophical differences over what?”
“Does it matter?”
She gave him a pointed look. “You don’t get to veto every topic I throw out there.”
He set the bottle down and crossed one of his long legs over the other. “My father’s illness put a strain on all of us for many years. Harrison and I were focused on keeping things running when my father was in a depressive state and out of the picture and attempting to keep the ship upright when his brilliance was running amok. We were a good team. But after my father shot himself, everything changed between Harrison and me.”
The fact that Coburn’s father had been a severe manic-depressive for many years before he had committed suicide was something she’d known. But she’d thought the rift between him and Harrison had preceded that, had been because his father and Harrison had such similar personalities and, according to his mother, had been closer than he and Coburn.
Her husband sat back on his forearms and looked out at the sea. “Harrison pretty much lost his mind. There were...extenuating circumstances around my father’s death. It was a period during which he was hell-bent on expansion, intent on stealing market share from competitors. He made a deal to buy a company from a Russian named Anton Markovic. Outwardly, it was an excellent deal. What my father didn’t know was that Markovic had sold him a false-bottomed company. It wasn’t until after the deal had closed that it became clear the company was pretty much worth nothing.
