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“Exactly like that.” I shuffle forward until my knees press against the bench in front of the bed. “Are you mad at me?” The question is directed toward the kids, but I’m worried about Theo. He’s been watching me this entire time and hasn’t said a word. All the money in the world couldn’t take away the pain of losing him if he chose to walk away after this.
“Why would we be mad?” Theo finally breaks his silence. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You told him to stop, and he didn’t.”
“But he’s my brother. He’s here because of me.”
Theo sits up and scoots toward the edge of the bed. “No, he’s here because of me. I brought him here to protect you. I forced him to come. We could have easily gone to Georgia and worked out this deal, but I wanted him on my turf, playing my game. I should apologize to you for bringing him to our house.”
Our house. I like the sound of that far too much, and though this really isn’t my house, it feels more and more like home every day.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper.
“The kids asked to see their mom so I’ll work on making that happen,” he tells me. “And you are going to let me handle the sale of Gerard Fine Foods. I do not want you coming to Portland with me because I don’t want Curtis to hurt you again.”
“I’m sorry.” A single tear slips down my cheek. I couldn’t help it.
“Baby, why are you apologizing to me?”
“Because I sat there and let him say those things to me. I should have stopped him right when he said my biscuits were shit, ’cause they weren’t!”
He chuckles and reaches for me, his arms warm and comforting as they wrap around my body. “Those biscuits were amazing.”
“Thank you,” I tell him with a sniffle. “Do you really want me to stay here while you finish the deal?”
“Do you want the money you’re rightfully entitled to?”
I want to tell him no. That I don’t care about the money or my trust fund as long as Curtis is safely back in Georgia and stays there for the rest of our lives. But I’d be foolish to walk away from it. I could finally turn my dream of attending culinary school in France into a reality. I could buy Piper a hundred dogs if she wanted.
“I’ll stay here,” I agree.
He reaches out, sliding his hand along my cheek and into my hair. “He hurt you, said horrible things to you, and I intend to make him pay.”
“Maybe you should have been a lawyer instead of a finance manager,” I tease.
“I’ve got the best financial lawyers in Portland working for me, baby. They’re going to screw him out of every penny he tries to take.”
It should feel wrong to think about inflicting pain on my brother. He’s family, and blood is supposed to be thicker than water. In my case, nothing was thicker than the stacks of money sitting in the bank, or the line of zeroes on the bank statements. Curtis and my father were cut from the same cloth, greedy men always wanting more. I never understood how they could act so callously toward me. They treated me as if I didn’t matter, except for when they needed something from me. My father wanted to marry me off to another wealthy Southern family, and when that didn’t happen, he punished me by putting Curtis in charge of my trust fund. Curtis only thought of me as the hired help; he wanted me to work for him, not with him. He never thought of me as his equal.
Well, I guess in a few days’ time, I’m going to prove them wrong and finally embody the words of Gordon Gekko, “Greed is good.”
