After spending three days with Alan, I now understand that with or without his thick ankle bracelet binding him to the suite, there’s no stopping the man from drinking and whoring to his heart’s content. And his heart has an endless need for contentment.
It’s impressive. And a nice distraction from the nonstop texts and calls from Austin.
Blocking his ass would have been easy enough, but the sick, twisted idiot in me always stops my finger just before it presses the little button marked block. Somehow, I like keeping count. Thirteen calls. Twenty-two texts. Even five emails. Four to my work email account, which is public knowledge. And one to my personal account that I didn’t think anyone had except for spammers, extended family, and the Longs.
To keep from obsessing, I throw myself into dealing with the mounds of emptied high-end wine bottles interspersed with an equal number of bottles of inexpensive booze. I’ve taken for granted how much Alan needed someone to rein him in. And how much I’ve missed and needed him the past few years.
I collect as many bottles as will fit in my hands and make a trip to the bathroom trash can, which is its own overflowing mound of frat-house art.
“That’s what room service is for, sis.”
Alan’s head is a mop of overgrown blond ringlets that women probably imagine their children being crowned with, along with those bright blue eyes that I’ve always envied. Their color is a striking shade with a drop of bright green that people always think is too bright and rich to be real. Today they’re bloodshot, but manage to sparkle as he smiles at me. He takes a swig from a half-empty bottle of thirty-year-old single-malt Scotch and gives me a wink.
In return, I give him a tight squeeze around the waist, and resume cleaning up after him, neatly lining up the bottles next to the receptacle. “There’s no way I’m letting housekeeping in here like this. You’re still technically the CEO of an almost billion-dollar company. One snap of a maid’s cell, and the photos would pretty much throw your chances of getting that life back out the fucking window.”
My nervous hands need something to do, and so I’m arranging the bottles by height when Alan snags my attention with the gentlest touch on my shoulder.
“Didn’t you get the memo? That’s never happening.”
I don’t make eye contact. “Did Dad’s lawyers tell you that?”
“Is that why you found me? Trying to rescue me again?”
“I didn’t find you, exactly. I mean, I could. We’re still tethered by our phone-finder app. No, I told Dad where I was going, and he mentioned you were here. I just needed to get away.”
“Evie, you’re talking to the ultimate escape artist. You’ve always been there for me, so let me be here for you. Did Dad—”
“No,” I say quickly, quieting my own alarm. “He . . . wants me to marry someone. Someone I don’t love. And the person I thought I loved made a fool of me. I just needed to get away.”
Eager to jump out of the unbearable spotlight, I shift gears.
“But what about you,” I ask. “Whatever Banks Multimedia attorneys told you might be wrong. I could check their homework, find a loophole they missed. And I’m sure they missed something. They’re a bunch of overpaid assholes.”
Alan’s hand squeezes mine, and my eyes take their time meeting his. I could never take his beautiful, sensitive tears.
“I don’t want it back, Evie. I’ve spent my whole life suffocating in Dad’s shadow. We both know you would’ve been the better CEO.” He pockets his hands and squares his shoulders, but his voice is soft, almost a whisper. “This is your chance, Evie, to get what you’ve always wanted. To be validated as the H-M-F-I-C.”
I cock my head, thinking too hard on what the acronym means.
He jumps in, saving me from the noticeable strain. “Head Mother Fucker in Charge.”
My light laugh comes out in a breath. “No, I’ve nev—”
His hand lifts to stop my protest, while his easygoing smile relaxes me. “No. You never. You never defied our father. You never stood up for yourself, though you did it for me time and time again. And you never resented me when that asshole shoved me ahead of you. But he’s gone from Banks Multimedia, Evie. In my absence, the place is practically on autopilot. But you could do something with it. Take it where I never could.”
The crease in my brother’s brow tells me he senses my hesitation.
No matter what my ambitions were in the past, I gave up on the Banks legacy continuing with me long ago. I’m arrogant enough to know I can do it. But for the first time in my life, I’m hit with the fact that I don’t want to, and maybe I never did. All I ever wanted was to be seen as good enough. Relevant. As good as Alan—the fuck-up king of self-abuse that I love with all my heart.
“Even if I did want it, and I don’t, Dad would come back from retirement before he’d let a woman take the helm.” I shrug in apathetic defeat. “I don’t want to fight with him anymore.”
“You won’t have to. He’s been talking a lot about the future. Call me crazy, but I think he wants it too.”
Is that why he came over? Is he watching me for this? To make sure I’m the right choice?
“Okay, you’re crazy,” I say because it doesn’t matter.
If somehow Dad has found God or sanity—or maybe just his own mortality—leaning on me now is too little, too late. The bastard’s too stubborn . . . or misogynistic . . . or arrogant to just tell me. Instead, he resorts to the only tool he’s ever had in that laser-focused toolbox of his. The one he’s skilled at. Serving me with every feeling his heart and soul have for me, coated in a thick layer of pure disdain.
I look up, meeting Alan’s eyes that have softened with sadness and regret. “If I took the job—and the chances of me growing a penis are a thousand percent higher—then what would you do?”
It’s Alan’s turn for a woeful shrug. “I don’t know,” he says, relaxing his brow but looking much older than his thirty years. “But—” He pauses for a second, struggling for the right words. “Evie, I need a favor.”
“Anything.”
“I need someone to look over the books. I’ve never had the head for numbers that you do, but I think money’s disappearing. And the old regime are all loyal to Dad. I think I’m being set up.” His expression turns solemn, and something in him goes dark. “You’re the only person I trust.”
“You think it’s Dad?”
He huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know. But I know if there’s one life preserver, and he just crashed into an iceberg, I’ll be going down with the ship.”
Alan sounds hopeless, so I reassure him. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You always do. I love you, Evie.”
Tears well up when I nearly strangle him in another tight hug, this one around his neck. “I love you too.”
When I hear a harsh, “Evie,” I jolt from Alan’s arms and whirl around to find one of the two men I definitely don’t want to see.
“Austin,” I huff out, annoyed. “How the hell did you get in here?”
And why does he have to look so goddamn good?
His stubble is rugged to match his sandy hair, and his bright eyes are wild. I’m already soaked to the core before I take in the leather jacket that means he rode his motorcycle over, and paints him in a look that’s a thousand times hotter than the clothes he normally wears for work.
Austin does a double-take of my brother before he answers. “Some half-naked woman wearing a Hooters shirt let me in. Friend of yours?” he asks Alan, his question less threatening but more genuinely interested.
“Maybe she’s a friend of mine,” I say, defiant with protest.
The sinful half smile that blooms on Austin’s lips is so playful. So hot. Another second longer of looking at this living god, and I’ll be screwed.
Turning away, Alan takes my cue. “I’m Alan.”
While he extends a hand to Austin, I give my brother a death stare that he knows means I’m seconds away from planting my knee in his nuts. Catching my eye, he simply shrugs as Austin returns the handshake.
“Austin.”
“Yes,” I say firmly, ready to avoid any and all conversation with the man. As Alan carelessly takes another swig of his Scotch, ready to watch what I’m sure he thinks will be fireworks, I square my shoulders. “Alan is my lover.”
Both men snap their heads toward me, their expressions equal parts shock and confusion.
Austin asks, “He is?” while simultaneously Alan chokes out, “I am?” coughing as the swallow he attempted goes down the wrong way.
Strangely enough, Austin pats his back. “You okay?”
“Yup,” Alan squeaks out between coughs, and clears his throat. Without a word, he eyes the Scotch still in his hands, then glares at me. “I’m going to take this and protect you from hitting the bottle further.”
For that, he gets a sock in the arm from me.
“Ow,” he whines on his way out. “Nice meeting you, Austin.”
“You too, Alan.”
I cross my arms tightly over my chest while Austin plants his hands on his hips with an annoyed glance at the counter. After pulling in a controlled breath, he lets it out through his nose.
“So, you do have your phone. And you seem reasonably okay . . . at least enough to answer any one of my dozens of calls and texts. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Thankfully, I’m saved by the bell as my phone rings. At the same time, Austin’s goes off too.
While I busy myself answering mine, I can’t help the angry look I throw his way, trying to get a glimpse at his. Margot’s sister, Jaclyn, speaks so fast, I’m not sure I’ve heard it right.
Before she can say it again, Austin disconnects his call and says, “Coop’s about to propose to Margot. We have to leave. Now.”