Page 5 of In the Heir (Westerly Billionaire 1)
“I figured you’d be here,” his father said as he walked into the office. Brett turned, unsurprised to see him in a suit. Neither the early morning hour nor the fact that he was retired had softened Dereck Westerly’s edge. “Did the German contract come through? I heard you hit complications.”
Brett motioned for his father to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk and took the seat across from him. “I did, but it’s all ironed out now.”
“You look like shit.”
Rubbing a hand across the stubble on his chin, Brett said, “Long night.”
His father nodded. “I’ve had my share of those. Need any advice?”
Brett shook his head. His father was referring to work-related issues. As a child, even though Brett had chosen to stay with his father, he hadn’t known him well until he’d started working with him at the family company. Men as successful as his father hired nannies and tutors. He’d never had time to meet with any of Brett’s teachers or watch one of his football games. Later, he hadn’t gone to visit colleges or help Brett choose his first apartment. Business was where they’d connected. “I’m good.”
His father crossed one ankle over the other. “You should have told me you weren’t going to your grandmother’s birthday party.”
“Would you have gone?” Brett challenged. He didn’t expect his father to answer his question, and he didn’t.
“She’s upset no one went. That’s why she came up with the crazy idea of having all of you marry. She’s getting more erratic as she gets older. I can’t believe Spencer was foolish enough to get engaged because of this. Does he actually think he’ll get his inheritance early? The document won’t hold up in court. My mother is obviously not competent to manage her own estate anymore.”
Even though Brett had said almost exactly the same thing two days earlier, he didn’t like it when his father said it. It lacked compassion and loyalty. He could almost hear Alisha labeling it as hurtful. What was the alternative, though? Sitting back and watching his own inheritance be given away to charity? There was no chance in hell he was going to marry anytime soon.
I don’t need it anyway.
But Spencer does.
“Does it matter, Dad? It doesn’t affect you directly. Marriage might be good for Spencer.”
His father sat forward in his seat. “Have you been drinking?”
Brett folded his arms across his chest. “I won’t block him on this.”
Surging to his feet, his father looked down at him. “Marriage isn’t good for anyone. Name one person you know who is fucking happy after a year of marriage. One.” When a name didn’t immediately come to Brett, his father raged on. “See? No one. It’s a contract designed for failure. Till death do you part? Death doesn’t come as quickly as it used to, Son.”
Wow.
Brett had spent most of his life looking up to his father, emulating him. Listening to him was like looking in the mirror most of the time, but for once, Brett didn’t like what he saw. His father had had a long, successful career. His legacy would endure through the company, and he had enough money to live the rest of his life however he chose.
Yet, he’s here. In a suit. Alone and bitter. Seeing his father in this less than flattering light was disconcerting. It also prompted the question: Will that be me in twenty years?
“What was your father like?” Brett asked aloud, surprising even himself with the question.
“My father?”
They were entering uncharted territory, but Brett wanted to know. He’d heard of him through his mother, but never brought him up with his own father. I don’t believe we’re nothing more than the product of how our parents shaped us. Where did it go wrong for you, Dad? “He founded this company, so I know you had one.”
A flash of pain shone in Dereck’s eyes. “There is nothing to know about him.”
“Nothing?”
His father’s jaw tightened visibly as he sat back down. “He was a weak man. A selfish coward who may have started this company, but also nearly ran it into the ground.”
The emotion in his father’s voice was unexpected. It increased Brett’s curiosity. “Grandmother seems to miss him.”
“Because she didn’t know him . . . the real him.”
“But you did?”
“I stepped into his shoes, didn’t I? You learn a lot about a man when you do that.”
Yes, you do. Taking over Westerly Corp. was teaching Brett as much about his father as it was about himself. “He died of a heart attack, didn’t he?”
“He died of heart medication complications.”
It was an ambiguous response that Brett wouldn’t have questioned in the past, but his father had called his grandfather a coward. “He overdosed?”
His father stood and ran a hand through his now-white hair. “You’re the one person who might benefit from the truth. When I took over, I discovered my father had been borrowing money from the company for a long time, but he’d finally reached a point where it was due. He wasn’t man enough to face what he’d done, so he checked out for good. The weight of it fell on me. The cover-up. Everything. I negotiated deals I would have had a moral issue with had I not been so close to losing everything—compromising myself so your grandmother could stay in her big house. I’m not proud of what I did back then, but I would do it again because it ensured you would never be in that position. And I hope I raised you to understand that the welfare of the family should always trump your self-interest.”
You did, but I never understood why until now. “He died the year I was born?”
“Yes.”
Brett stood. “Did you ever tell Mom how he died?”
If his father had an Achilles’ heel, it was his ex-wife. She was another topic normally off-limits. “The doctors said it was accidental. What your grandfather did was a stain on our family history that no one needed to know about. Least of all your mother or grandmother. They would have thought it was their fault. That they could have saved him somehow. His death was better remembered as an accident.”
The weight of what his father had carried by himself made what had happened to him afterward even more tragic. “That couldn’t have been easy, and then Mom cheated on you.”
His father’s face blanched. “Where did you hear that?”
“I was in the living room when you fought over it. I was twelve and curious, but not fast enough to get out.”
“You never said anything.”
“Because you never did. You seemed to want people to think you had cheated on her. I never understood why. I still don’t.”
His father walked to the door of the office before he said another word. “Your mother is a wonderful woman. I was a horrible husband. She deserved better than what I gave her. Your mother wouldn’t have cheated if I had remained the man she’d married.” He closed
the door and the discussion as he left.
Brett sat back down at his desk, but it was a long time before he started working again.
Chapter Three
“This is your grandmother’s house?” Alisha asked Rachelle, as her jaw dropped in shock. The building rose up above its ocean backdrop like a mansion in an old movie. Its stone facade, as impressive in length as in height, boasted more windows than Alisha could count at a first glance. How many bedrooms would a place like that have? Alisha could only imagine. “Why did you mooch half my lunch through high school?”
Rachelle looked much less impressed by the building, but she chuckled. “Because my mother was a health food nut who didn’t believe in sugar. And you had Twinkies.”
“Something I knew you’d thank me for one day,” Stephanie said cheerfully from behind her daughter as she stepped out of the car. “I’m still waiting.”
Spencer joined them with his youngest sister, Nicolette, by his side. “Am I the only one who would rather be dragged across cut glass and then doused in lemon juice than go inside?”
Despite the delicate sundress she wore, Nicolette raised her arms in a pose that a weight lifter might use to show off her muscles. “Alone we are weak against the evil queen, but together we are strong.”
Stephanie shook her head at her youngest. “Your grandmother is not evil. She’s just . . . particular.”
Nicolette made a face. “Five bucks says I’m the first one she insults. It might be Rachelle, though, who needs to put on weight.” Her tone mimicked her grandmother’s. “Spencer, when are you going to get a real job?”
“Stop, Nicolette,” her mother chastised gently.
Rachelle chimed in, “Mom, are you sure you want to come in? Didn’t she say you were not welcome in her home?”
With a sigh, Stephanie looked up at the large wooden entrance. “That was a long time ago. She’s eighty, and no matter what she says, she’s family. Plus, she means well. Try to translate everything she says to, ‘I care about your well-being.’”
