Page 2 of Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee
I look down. Dec handed me a Chewbacca stuffed toy as my junk cover.
“Maybe he just wants a little Chewie down there,” Rainbow dude notes, as he starts to back out of the room, taking Josh with him. Self-preservation is a strong instinct.
Rainbow dude finally covers himself. I hold one finger up to Dad, like I’m pausing him.
Dad doesn’t handle being paused well.
“Well,” Josh says slowly, giving Rainbow dude, who I realize is one of the chauffeurs (George? Geoff?) a series of nervous looks. “We snuck back in to find Geordi’s pants sometime after three a.m., I think.”
Geordi. That’s right.
“And my dong.” Geordi holds up the item in question. The chocolate is starting to melt in his hand.
“So you didn’t sleep in the room all night? You weren’t, er....” Shannon grimaces, looking at Dec, who gets an aha! expression on his face.
“This wasn’t a foursome?” Dec asks bluntly.
“What a ridiculous question!” Dad shouts, exploding on the spot.
“Oh, no!” Josh squeals, flailing his hands. “No, no, no! I don’t sleep with—” He breaks off the sentence and looks at me, biting his lower lip, eyes filled with the kind of panic usually reserved for contestants on Hell’s Kitchen who move a basil leaf counterclockwise as Gordon Ramsay’s coming over.
“You don’t sleep with...what?” I ask.
“I don’t sleep with women!” He points at Amanda like she’s wearing a scarlet letter on her chest.
A scarlet W.
“And I don’t sleep with gay guys!” Amanda moans back.
“Aside from that hook-up our freshman year,” Shannon whispers.
“You pinkie promised never to talk about him!” Amanda hisses.
Declan and Dad start hooting.
“Trust me,” Josh says in an acid tone. “The only two people in this room who had sex last night were you and Amanda.” He looks down with a forlorn look.
Declan thumbs toward Shannon. “Actually, we did, too.”
Josh’s turn for a raised eyebrow. “In this room? Kinky.”
Declan shuts him up with a glare. Josh and Geordi wisely leave.
“Now that we’ve gone into more detail about my sons’ sex lives than an IRS audit, could we please get back to the fact that the CEO of the company I built from scratch is currently wearing a Star Wars action figure as a penis cozy and can’t perform his job!”
You can guess who said that.
“Technically,” I correct him, looking down, “this isn’t a Star Wars action figure. That would be far too small to cover my—”
“Are you really arguing with the semantics about a stuffed Chewbacca toy?” Dad snaps.
“Declan can’t take that meeting with the Sultan, Dad,” I grind out, trying to take the heat off me.
“Why not? You’re here, Dec. Delay the honeymoon by a few hours.” Dad’s hand does the familiar dismissal gesture. “The jet can wait.”
“No, Dad,” I explain, trying to catch Declan’s eye. He won’t give it to me.
“Andrew, you smell like a distillery and—” he sniffs the air. “And oddly enough, cat urine. You’re standing in a disgusting room filled with people who are staring at your naked body while you use Disney merchandise in a decidedly unconventional manner. You’re hardly in any position to argue with me over whether Declan is a better fit for representing Anterdec in a high-level meeting for a multi-billion dollar deal.”
I try. Declan has a chance to cough it up on his own. Instinct makes me pause. Or maybe that’s nausea, roiling in my gut. What the hell did I drink last night? Normally, I can hold my own with liquor. I go up to the line, and even cross it by a single, regrettable drink, but I don’t do what I’ve clearly done to my body.
Mustering clarity, I give Declan a hard look. Silence.
Huh.
Looks like he isn’t going to step up, after all.
“Declan resigned from Anterdec last night, Dad. He bought a coffee chain for Shannon and he’s declared himself the CEO of the new company. He can’t represent Anterdec because he doesn’t work for us anymore.”
Declan flinches at the word us.
If I had any muscles to spare, I would, too. It sounds really awful coming out of my mouth, and a part of me wishes I could take it back.
But not a big part.
Declan clears his throat and does the unexpected. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out another resignation letter. I had to lead the way. Big brother follows.
Does this really have to happen now?
Dad looks at me with disgust, then turns his attention to Declan, brow turned down, the lower half of his face blank. He starts reading the letter just as Amanda’s mother, Pam, appears behind him, stepping gingerly through the mess on the floor, her eyes catching mine, briefly stopping at the beast I’m pressing over my groin to hide my...beast.
Her teacup Chihuahua, Spritzy, jumps out of her little handbag and sniffs the area around the giant teddy bear. Then he lifts his leg and does what any self-respecting male would do.
Claims his territory.
“You resigned?” Dad’s words scream in my head, echoing off the walls of my skull like—
Like a tuba. Amanda’s got a point.
Dec squares his shoulders and faces Dad, and now I smile.
Achievement unlocked: deflection complete.
“Yes.” Declan’s voice is forceful. He won’t take crap from Dad. Shannon moves closer, her fingers wrapping around Declan’s elbow, and for the first time in my life, I think Declan has a shot at truly taking on Dad. In a game of tennis, this would be Point.
“You can’t resign!”
“Just did.”
“I won’t allow it.”
Oh, big mistake. Big mistake, Dad. When we were kids, the worst phrase you could utter to Declan was “You can’t.”
“Allow?” Declan’s across the room in a flash, right in Dad’s face, making Pam take a step back. Spritzy rushes across the room, collar jangling like he’s Quasimodo the serial killer, destroying me and Amanda with that gong of a collar.
“That’s right.” Dad won’t back down.
“I do not need your permission to buy my own company and to resign from yours.”
I flinch at the word yours.
Set.
When my mother died, I woke up in the hospital to a life that was someone else’s. Nothing made sense. Dad was angry, Declan was shut down, and Terry was off at college. He came back for the funeral and disappeared again. Mom was gone.
One arena made sense, though: business. Joining Dad in running Anterdec was the only way to get his attention.
And now Dec is leaving.
Sharing Dad’s attention is one thing. Being the top dog and edging Dec out just slightly is enough.
Having the full fire hose of James McCormick’s expectations aimed at your face is more than enough.
I have a beast inside me. No, not the flesh stick between my legs.
This creature has no name. It thrives on control and vigilance. It needs to know all. Complete control is not its goal. Oddly enough, it defers at times. Rare times.
Very rare moments.
This is not one of them.
“ENOUGH!” I bellow, dropping the Chewbacca pillow, because why not? I have nothing to lose.
I bend down and find the first piece of clothing that will cover my body. It’s the pink robe I bought Amanda when we arrived. The one with lace at the breasts. I’m not picky. I’m not one of those guys whose masculinity is threatened by feminine attire.
Not that I have a history with that. It’s just that pink lace is an upgrade from Peter Mayhew.
True to form, Dad doesn’t budge, Declan shifts his weight to one hip and thinks he can give me a blank, intimidating look and that will work, and the rest of the interlopers actually do move toward the doorway.
Amanda starts to crawl out of bed.
“Not you. Them.”
“But I need to pee. And quit staring at my breasts. You always stare at my breasts.”
“That’s because they’re luscious.”
“Oh, brother,” Dad and Dec say at the same time, finally moving toward the door.
“So firm and supple,” I continue.
Declan glares. Pam looks like she’s starting to faint. Dad grabs her arm and escorts her out of the bedroom.
Ordering them out of the room doesn’t work, but talking about Amanda’s naked body does? Fine. I take a deep breath and ignore the nine-member funk band in my head and start to talk about my favorite subject.
She looks down and screams bloody murder.
“When did I get a Donald Trump tattoo?”
And faints.
“OUT!” I shout.
They listen to me. People do. I have a voice that makes it clear that not following my command is not an option.
Though I’m guessing that the Chewbacca crotch had something do with their exit.
I join Amanda under the covers and pass out.
Match.
Chapter Two
Hours pass. I don’t know that hours pass, because my consciousness is filled with dreams about Sultans in Dubai with rainbow penises having sex with Donald Trump.
“Andrew,” someone says. Someone with a creamy, sexy voice.
“Look at my hands,” I mutter. “Can someone with hands like this have a short chocolate dong?”
“What?” The creamy voice curdles.
I startle. It’s dark in the bedroom, and Amanda’s sitting up in bed, her lap covered by the bedspread, her breasts still orange. The way her eyes catch mine makes the room feel warm and sweet. Protectiveness kicks in even more. She’s tenting the covers and looking at her midsection. Her dark hair spills over her shoulder, but it’s matted with something white and gooey.
