by R. R. Banks
"I married that boyfriend," she said. "That's what happened to me."
"Well, I don't think that should be an excuse. Why should getting married make both of you boring as hell and apparently afraid of the entire world?"
"You'll understand one day," she said.
"I hope not," I said.
I talked a big game, but the truth was I was probably even more boring than I was accusing Skylar of being. I might be burly and brave enough to park behind the building and come in through the backdoor, but that pretty much ended the excitement of my life. I didn't have a boyfriend. I hadn't had one in two years and including that one the longest relationship that I had ever had was just under a year, in high school. That ended when the head cheerleader set her eyes on my boyfriend right before prom.
Pep rallies were far less peppy after that.
When I wasn't at the shop making and selling chocolates, I was at home either sleeping or thinking about the next day at work. Even the extremely infrequent days off that I allowed myself were filled with things like grocery shopping and trying to keep the dust bunnies under my couch enough at bay that I didn't need to consider myself a professional breeder. It sounded dull, but the truth was I was actually happier with my life now that I had been in a long time. I might not be making the cover of pastry magazines and catering celebrity baby showers or anything, but at least I was doing what I had always wanted to do. A little bit of professional buzz and maybe a slightly less nonexistent social life would be nice perks, but I figured they would come eventually.
"How's business been today?" Skylar asked, moving on from the conversation.
"It's been OK," I said. "A few people came in this morning and I've gotten a couple of phone calls about Valentine's Day orders."
I was trying to sound as optimistic as possible, but I knew that my sister could see right through me. Her husband was the businessman of their relationship, and she had been right there beside him when he had decided to jump ship from the powerful company where he had built his career and instead start his own business. Of course, he had started his business to great acclaim and with the support and encouragement of not only other people in his industry but also previous clients who came along with him. That was a slightly different experience than my blaze of glory, but I knew that there had been plenty of days when she had been worried that his new venture wouldn't be successful and that they would have to struggle to get their feet back under them. In that way, she understood what I was going through.
"Have you talked to Mom and Dad?"
I slid my eyes over to her.
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"They might help you," she said. "Even just a small loan to keep you cushioned."
"Let me ask you something," I said. "Do they know that you're here helping me?"
"Oh, dear Lord, no. You know that this thing is the shame of the family. I'm not going to bring dishonor on them by letting them know that both of their daughters are working in a chocolate shop."
She said it with laughter in her voice, but I knew that the humor was only covering up that she was partially serious. My parents have been very sympathetic when they heard about what happened with my boss, but that sympathy had pretty much disappeared when I told them about my shop opening. They were horrified that I would take the money that I had been given in my severance package and open the shop rather than investing it or keeping it in savings while I looked for what they referred to as a real job. They made it abundantly clear that they adored me and would do everything that they could to support me emotionally, but that they had already knocked me out of the nest at last and wouldn't be supporting me financially.
"Isn't mom taking care of the babies?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "But she thinks that I'm in a support group for mothers of multiple toddlers."
"But the babies aren't multiples," I said. "I mean, the last two came so close together that I'm still not entirely convinced that they didn't share quarters for a little while. The research is still out on that one. But they were all born by themselves."
"I know that," Skylar said. "Trust me I am well aware of that. I told her that the group is for mothers that have more than one child aged 3 and younger. Even if she didn't entirely believe me, she knows that I need a break every now and then. Taking care of the three of them is the most wonderful thing in my life, but it is also damn exhausting. Sometimes I just need to either be all by myself or around other people who can actually carry on a full conversation."
"At least they think that you're super mom," I said. "You went for wife and mother. That's like the best career ever."
"Don't think of it that way," she said. "They don't compare us. I made a different choice than you did, that's fine. They don't think that I'm better than you because I got married and had babies."
"They think that I'm wasting my life," I said.
"They don't think that you're wasting your life," Skylar said. "You know how they are. They just think in order to be respectable and successful you have to either work in an office building or have a bunch of letters after your name. They just don't understand. But they love you. You know that."
I nodded.
"I know. I almost wish that they would love me a little bit less though," I said.
Skylar looked at me with confusion.
"Why would you say that?" she asked.
"Because them loving me so much kind of takes away from my street cred if I want to segway into an Emo music career."
Skylar laughed.
"Well, that's certainly one to add to the pool of options."
I took a breath as I headed back into the kitchen to get another tray of truffles to put into the display case. I knew that she would never say it, but part of my sister agreed with our parents. She had been the only one of the family that had been entirely encouraging and excited for me when I started my shop, but when the business didn't start pouring in, she started to get nervous. Now I could see that she thought I should be looking around for other opportunities. That was something that I wasn't ready to do yet. There might come a time when that becomes necessary, but I figured that I had a few more months until even considering it was something I had to do.
Chapter Two
Talon
It's been five years and the old man is still controlling us from beyond the fucking grave.
I grabbed an apple out of the cut crystal bowl that sat in the middle of the table and bit into it. As far as I knew I was the only one of the four brothers who actually ate the fruit that our cook put in the bowl. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought that it was just a decoration and that it magically changed every few days just to keep things interesting around the house.
"Why don't you try to show a little bit of respect?" Jackson asked. "He was our father."
"I'm aware," I said. "Remember, I knew him longer than you did."
"Only because you were born before me," he said.
"Exactly," I said. "So I have years on you when it comes to being pissed off at him."
"Are you seriously getting into this again?" Lucas asked as he came into the room.
Jackson and I looked up at our brother.
"And I suppose you're going to say that none of this bothers you at all?" I said.
"Of course, it bothers me," he said. "It pisses me off as much as it does either of you, but there's no point in us arguing about it. It's not like we can change it. We can't go pry dad out of his casket in the mausoleum and expect him to change his will."
"Well, that's a lovely way to start my morning. Thank you so much for that visual."
Aiden, the fourth brother, and the one who was still young enough that most people considered his sarcasm charming, ambled into the room. His hair was tousled and he had a decidedly lazy smile on his face. I know exactly what that meant.
"Aren't you going to ask her to stay for breakfast?" I asked.
Aiden dropped down into one of the other empty chairs at the table and
shook his head, folding his fingers behind it as he leaned back.
"No need," he said. "She got quite the belly full last night."
Just then I heard the front door open and close. It was the hurried maneuver of a dismissed one nightstand trying to slip out of the house before any of us noticed that she was there. That told me that she was probably one that another of the three of us had already brought home and who was trying to avoid what she perceived would be an awkward encounter. The truth was that none of us would have cared. In fact, it was more likely that we wouldn't have even recognized her, or been able to pinpoint when she had been warming our bed rather than our brother's, than it was that we would feel even slightly uncomfortable. We weren't exactly known for being chaste. Most of the women who made their way into the house were already fully aware that the four of us shared women much more readily than we had shared toys when we were children. The best women were the ones who not only knew that we liked to share, but were willing to indulge in some playtime with some or even all of us. The worst were the ones who somehow managed to avoid knowing about our reputation and became clingy on any one of us, expecting to be showered with attention the next morning or even beyond. Somewhere in the middle were the daughters of other prominent families trying to be a little bit rebellious or the members of the staff at the Club who we scooped up at events, who not only understood that they were nothing more than our entertainment for the night, but that when they walked into the house they were more or less auditioning for the other brothers as well.
"When's he supposed to be here?" Jackson asked.
"Who?" Aiden asked.
I resisted the urge to chuck the apple at his head if for no other reason than to shake his brain out of the post-fucking fog and actually get him involved in reality.
"Dad," I said sarcastically. "We can't go pop him out of his casket, but when he feels like it he's planning on making an appearance. Unfortunately, he couldn't time it so that he'd be able to be here for my birthday, but you know how busy the afterlife can get around this time of year."
He blinked at me a few times.
Before he could say anything else, Lucas looked at him.
"Mr. Dandridge is supposed to come over this morning," he said. "So, of course, that means that Talon and Jackson are arguing about Dad again."
"We're not arguing about Dad," I said.
I knew that was bullshit. It was the same argument that had bubbled up every few weeks in the five years since our father's death. His death has been unfortunately expected. His illness had hit him quickly and within a matter of weeks had completely ravaged him until the bold, vibrant man who raised us was reduced to skin and bones, barely able to interact with us from the hospital bed that we set up in his bedroom at home. That was something that we had promised him. When the time came that the doctors knew there was nothing more that could be done, we wouldn't leave him in some cold, impersonal hospital. Instead, we would bring him home so that he could live out whatever time he had left surrounded by the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed and by the four sons who he had worked hard to provide for.
What hadn't been expected was what we discovered when the will was read two weeks after we closed the mausoleum doors. We fully anticipated, as did everyone else who knew anything about our family, that the four of us would inherit everything that our father had. He did work extremely hard his entire life, but the reality was that he could have never worked a single day and still would have been able to provide for all four of us with nothing less than abundance and excess. The family's money had been established long before he was even born, but he had done spectacularly well at growing it even further. He had been the only child of his parents and had been the only grandchild to those parents. Our mother had died when Aiden was just a baby, which meant that we were the only ones left in the family. That meant that we fully expected that we would inherit everything. We would get the money, control over the businesses, the real estate, and the house that we all still lived. Along with that would come the power and prestige that my father had enjoyed and that had only rubbed off on us.
When the will was read, however, we quickly learned that that wasn't going to be the case. The first thing that our father had noted was that we did immediately inherit possession of the house. It would be equally divided among the four of us, which worked perfectly in our perception. The house itself had been modified and developed over the years to fit in with our family's needs. While the center of the house was still the mansion that our great-grandparents lived in, additions and expansions had been added onto it until each of us brothers had our own wing that was fully customized and the rest of the home had been properly outfitted with features and technology that appealed to our lifestyle. It had been crafted around us and it would be equally divided among us. That, however, was where the simplicity of our inheritance ended.
The will stated that we would receive access to one of the vacation homes and a fund that contained a portion of my father's fortune. It was plenty for us to continue to live off of in luxury, but not anywhere near all of what he was worth. We would also be in control of the business, but would not officially own it and with the exception of our salaries, the proceeds from the business would be funneled into a trust account. The lawyer had been given instructions that the rest of the inheritance would remain controlled by the remaining portion of the will that would be read, if necessary, on the thirtieth birthday of the oldest son. That meant my thirtieth birthday, but when we asked the lawyer what it meant by "if necessary", he wouldn't reveal it. He said that he was under strict confidentiality agreements with my father and was bound to them until the final execution of the will.
Now my birthday was drawing close and the lawyer was coming to the house. I could only assume that he was going to tell us whether that final reading of the will was going to be necessary or if we would finally get access to the rest of the inheritance and come under full control of the business.
"What do you think he's going to say?" Lucas asked.
I shrugged.
"It's been so long now, I don't know what to think."
"He could at least tell us why we had to wait until your birthday," Aiden said.
"The will said that we had to wait until then if it was necessary. Obviously, that means that there was something that could happen that would make it so that we didn't have to wait."
"But is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Jackson asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Is the fact that we've had to wait this long a good thing or a bad thing? Did 'if necessary' mean that there was something specific that if we did it would disqualify us from the rest of the inheritance?"
"I hope that if that was the case, our father would be decent enough to actually tell us rather than just letting us kick ourselves in the ass without realizing it."
Even as I said it, I wasn't entirely sure. I knew what my brothers were thinking because I was thinking the same thing. We weren't exactly the poster boys for moral, upstanding gentlemen. In fact, we were known for being wild, with our family name being the only thing that guarded us from consequences that anyone else would face if they pulled the stunts that we did. It was entirely possible our father had put specifications into place that would ensure if we continued to carry on the way that we had, our family legacy would go to someone else. While I couldn't imagine who he would choose, there was nothing that I would put past him. Henry Griffin was usually a kind, compassionate, and generous man, but he was also not above a quick temper and sticking to decisions that he made with a steadfast stubbornness that bordered on cantankerousness. If he decided that he was going to block us from a portion of what was rightfully ours because of something that we did, there was nothing that would shake him from it. We might have already eliminated ourselves.
In the front portion of the house, we heard the deep tone of the doorbell ringing and knew that Mr. Dandridge had arrived. We exchanged glances and stood, walkin
g toward the study like a chain gang. The butler was showing the lawyer into the room as we stepped in and he looked at each of us with an indecipherable expression on his face. He wasn't giving away anything. We took our places around the study, each of us deliberately avoiding sitting in the massive green leather chair behind the desk. No one had sat in that chair in the five years since our father had died.
The lawyer walked up to the desk and placed his briefcase on it. He popped open the brass clasps and pulled out the thick sheaf of paper that I recognized as my father's will. I felt an unexpected quickening of my breath. He looked at the papers in his hand, using a small blue flag to open the papers to a specific point. I watched as his eyes scanned over the document, moving back up to the top and down to the bottom several times as if he were trying to make a dramatic presentation of his review of the terms of the will. Finally, he closed the papers and returned them to the briefcase. He lowered the lid and then looked over at us.
"I'm sure that you remember at the initial reading of your father's will there was a special circumstances clause in place that ensured the four of you only received a portion of your inheritance, with the rest to be held in trust until such time that it was decided whether you were eligible to inherit it or not."
The tone of his voice was much the same as the expression on his face. He was monotonous and rehearsed, sounding almost as though he had scooped the words off of the page that he had just read and was repeating them to us.
"Yes, of course," I said. "We remember. You said that we would hear the rest of the will on my thirtieth birthday if it were necessary."
"But you didn't tell us what would make it necessary," Aiden said.
Mr. Dandridge looked at each of us and then nodded.
"That is still the specification that is in place," he said. "Now that your birthday is only a matter of days away, it has become clear to me that the secondary reading of the will, will be necessary. I came here today to tell you that."