"You eat like that and you'll be as big as a house," Mavis muttered under breath.
"I ran six miles this morning, and I'm going out to find a gym. Mom's one, three, and five-pound weights in her cardio room aren't quite enough to put a strain on my biceps." He bent his arm and kissed the bulge while waggling his eyebrows at her.
"Child, you used to be precocious, now, you're borderline pretentious." She whapped him on the shoulder as she set a plate of three, over-easy eggs, toast, a side dish of fruit and three more slices of bacon in front of him.
"Pretentious? Me? No way. I'm just that good." He ducked out of the way of her hand again and laughed.
"It is good to have you home. How long are you staying?"
"I'm home for good."
"Well, no kidding, I meant in this house. My goodness, do you think I've lost my mind? I'm not that old."
"Ah, I'm hunting apartments now. I have to have one by the first. That's when the shipment of my household goods arrives. If the contractor doesn't do a point to point delivery, they'll throw it into storage, and it could take forever to get my stuff." He sliced into the eggs and sopped up the yolk with his toast. He put a huge bite into his mouth and about lost his vision rolling his eyes in delight. "Damn woman, why couldn't I marry you and take you around the world with me?"
"Because Mr. Mavis would have come and hunted your scrawny ass down."
Rio laughed, covering his full mouth. Mr. Mavis was, maybe, a buck twenty soaking wet. "That's right, I was in fear for my life."
"Damn straight." Mavis chuckled as she shuffled across the floor.
"Your mom has a dinner planned on Friday night." Mavis closed up the carton of eggs and headed to the refrigerator.
"Friday?"
"I reckon she didn't tell you."
"Nope, but Dad did."
"Nothing ever changes, honey. Nothing ever changes."
"What time do I need to be here?"
"I'm serving at seven thirty."
Which meant he was required for drinks at six-thirty. It was a damn good thing Meg had other commitments on Friday, otherwise his mom would have been disappointed when he didn't show. Rio took a sip of his coffee before he spoke again. "It is just family, right?"
"Mason and that woman of his."
"Deanne?"
"That's the one."
"You can say her name."
"Nope."
"You've never liked her have you, Mavis?"
The woman stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. "It ain't none of my business."
"Since when has that stopped you?" Rio smiled at the way she scrunched her face at him.
"That woman is as fake as a three-dollar bill." Mavis sniffed and shook her head with a stern look on her face.
"She just has different priorities than we do, Mavis." Rio used his toast to mop up the last of his eggs.
"I've worked for your family for twenty-six years. Not once have I ever been treated with disrespect—except by that woman. She's rude, demanding and a hoity-toity snob." Mavis headed to the stove to collect the cast iron frying pan she'd fried the bacon in. Rio watched as she strained the bacon fat from the skillet into a jar. She capped it, and put it in the fridge. That bacon fat made its way into her hushpuppies, hash browns and so many other delicious, fried, southern specialties.
"Well, I love you, Mavis. I'm telling you, just leave Mr. Mavis and come away with me. Your life would never be boring." When she turned to the sink he trotted up behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her off the floor. Her feet dangled two feet off the floor as he spun her around.
"Good Lord almighty, child, put me down!" Mavis' laughed reprimand only encouraged his display of affection. He spun her one more time before letting her get her legs under her. He kissed her cheek and jumped away, dodging the dishtowel she'd pulled from her shoulder and snapped at him. She was deadly accurate with that towel.
"Get yourself out of here and go do something productive. Dinner is on the table at six-thirty tonight. Don't be late or you won't eat."
Rio gave her a chuckle as he grabbed the keys to his new SUV and headed out of the house. The drive to the trustee's office was easy, and he made it with twenty minutes to spare. He put the vehicle in park and left the air conditioning running. According to the thermometer displayed on his dashboard it was already close to ninety degrees outside.
He pulled out his phone and smiled.
>Good Morning.
Meghan had sent him a meme of a kitten yawning beside a huge cup of coffee. Shit, she'd sent the text at five-thirty this morning.
> Good Morning. What were you doing up at the ass-crack of dawn?
>*snorts* Working out
Rio tapped his knee and debated his next text. He finally bit the bullet and typed it out, hitting send before he could clear the message.
>Meet me for lunch
>I brought my lunch
Okay, well... he tapped out his response and hit send.
>Fine, let me come eat lunch with you
>Here?
He laughed imagining her expression at his suggestion. He responded,
>I don't care where
He watched the bubbles form, disappear, form, and disappear again. The screen stilled for a minute and then the bubbles reappeared.
>Ok
A bark of laughter escaped him.
>What time?
>Noon. I'll send you address?
>I'll be there
>I'm
He lifted a brow at the text and watched the bubbles going crazy again.
>Sorry, I hit send by accident. I'm looking forward to it
>Me too. Got to go to appointment. See you soon.
Meg dropped a pin for him, and he tapped on it, bringing the office building up on his maps app. Damn, the woman was like an addiction, and he couldn't wait for his next hit.
"Excuse me?" Thank God he was sitting down, because for the first time in his life he felt like he was going to fucking faint. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Fuck, it wasn't working. He leaned forward and ducked his head between his knees.
"Are you all right, Mr. North?" The old solicitor's concern reached him even in his doubled-over-fucking-going-to-pass-out pansy position.
"Yeah, not really." His words hit the carpet and stayed there. After a few minutes of making sure his lungs were in fact working, he straightened slowly. Okay, the world was once again in balance. He swallowed hard. "Say that again. Slowly."
Mr. Dobson chuckled. "According to the trust your grandfather set up, when you reach the age of thirty and if you are actively employed in any facet of the company, you will inherit one hundred million dollars. When he passed away five years ago, he also left a provision for you, to be delivered on your thirtieth birthday. You will receive his remaining fourteen percent of the shares of the parent corporation of Northern Nova Enterprises. Since his death, the shares have been managed by your father as directed in your grandfather's will."
Rio leaned back in his chair. Yeah, fuck him, he'd heard that right. "How many shares do Dad and Mason have?"
"Well, as it is a matter of public record, your father owns seventy-six percent of all shares. Your grandfather gave him all but twenty-four percent. I'm not breaking any confidence by telling you Mason was given ten percent of the shares by your grandfather. I will not be able to tell you his monetary settlement, as that is confidential."
"But he got one, right? A monetary settlement?"
The man nodded. Rio stared at him. "But not as much as me."
The man shrugged. "I can't disclose that information without your brother's permission, Mr. North. Suffice to say your grandfather did have his favorite. Now, there are several steps we need to go through to transition this money to you on your birthday. Your father's office has sent your employment notice to me, which indeed checks the most important box. However, we do need your signature on several documents to start the process." The solicitor pushed a paper
across the desk so he could read it.
Rio pulled his chair closer and followed along as the lawyer explained principal taxation, exemptions, qualifying shelters, and the pros and cons of the offshore accounts some of the money was being held in.
His brain was a gelatinous blob by the time the man closed the three-inch thick file on his desk and slid an identical folder across the walnut inlaid desk toward him. Two hours later, that was all he had left. Cranial oatmeal. "This is for you to take. It has all the documentation we discussed. You will want to consult a lawyer and go over the items I touched on, but you have time to make sure you’re comfortable with the inheritance’s standing before the transfer commences."
"Thank you. It is overwhelming. I wasn't expecting..." He lifted the folder, lacking the words to describe the enormity of what his grandfather had given him.
"The monetary settlement is only a fraction of the value of the shares." The trustee shrugged. "You are indeed a fortunate heir."
That keyed a question he'd lost in the midst of the discussion earlier. Rio leaned forward, put his file on the desk, and drilled down to the page he wanted. "Here. Can you explain to me what the significance of the fourteen percent is? I mean, I don't know if you meant to do it, but you stressed that percentage every time we went over a document with the shares listed. Why wouldn't my grandfather split the division of shares equally?" The question had been eating at him.
"I would only be speculating." The man leaned back in his leather chair. His mouth was closed tightly.
"Dude, look, I'm not going to hold you to anything you say. As you can tell by my rather rudimentary questions on these papers, I am not a businessman. I've spent the last twelve years serving my country in shitholes the likes of which you'll never understand. Pops knew that. He knew I didn't go to college. He knew I loved being a SEAL. Why would he leave me fourteen percent and Mason ten?"
"I would assume it’s a matter of who controls the shares and thus the company."
Controlling what? "At the risk of sounding completely stupid, what?"
The man drew a deep breath and pursed his lips for a moment. "I knew your grandfather very well. He was sharp as a tack to the day he died. My assumption is he didn't want control of Northern Nova to fall into Mason's hands. When your father passes, the logical assumption made by your grandfather was his son would split his fortune, fifty-fifty between you and your brother. If that were the case and your grandfather had left equal shares to you and Mason, neither of you could act independently of the other. As it stands, you own the controlling shares."
"Why wouldn't he want Mason to have control of the company?" Rio couldn't comprehend a scenario where Mason wasn't a better choice to be at the helm of the company.
"Mmm… a very good question. What do you know about prenuptial agreements, Mr. North?"
Rio jolted back in his seat. "Nothing. Why?"
"No reason. Do you have any other questions for me?"
Rio scrubbed his face before he spoke, "Only about ten thousand, but damned if I can think of even one right now."
The man reached in the breast pocket of his suit and removed a silver case. A flick of his fingers opened the small container and he thumbed out a card, handing it to Rio. "I know this is a tremendous amount of information to assimilate. I'm here everyday, Monday through Friday. Please feel free to call or email. Both my private line and email account are listed on that card."
"Thank you." Rio took the card and ran his finger over the heavy stock. Engraved. Damn.
Sometimes the bombs that explode closest to you are the ones you don't hear. The concussion does something, and you go deaf. You feel the percussive wave. Your body is thrown, and you have no control over how far you fly or what you crash into. That was how he felt right now, like the blast of a bomb his Pops had detonated had pushed him into a place where he had no control. For some reason, he glanced down at the clothes he was wearing. His broke-ass combat boots, jeans and t-shirt didn't fit in this world any more than he did.
One thing he did know how to do was to fight. He wasn't going to let the incendiary device his grandfather had planted push him into a conflict, because he could see the battle lines being drawn. Things sucked with Mason as it was. If he added in the information he’d received over the last couple of hours, it could be bad. Hell, this inheritance could be nine-inch coffin nails on his and Mason's relationship. Fuck that.
Lifting the card up, he tapped it against the folder he'd picked back up from where he'd dug through it earlier. "Thanks. I appreciate your help and guidance. All of this is a huge surprise."
"I noticed, and in my personal opinion, that's one of the reasons your grandfather did what he did. You didn't expect any of this, did you?"
Rio looked down at the paperwork in his hands. "No, sir. You know I was happy being a SEAL. I had a good life, but I saw a way that I might be able to make a difference, and I decided to roll the dice. I thought maybe I could support a shoestring operation if I was careful. What Pops did? The money and the shares? No sir."
"You'll do okay, son. You ask the right questions, and you need to give yourself some credit. Intelligence has nothing to do with education.”
Rio turned to walk out of the office but stopped at the door. "Before I go, what would happen to the shares if I said I didn't want them?"
"They would be sold publicly. You would be given the proceeds of that sale."
"We are a family owned business. We don't have investors." It was a point of ultimate pride for his father and his grandfather. Selling shares publicly? Damn, his grandfather really didn't want Mason to have control.
"Your grandfather was a very smart businessman. He made sure his wishes would be followed." A small shrug of the man's shoulders told him it was out of both of their hands.
Rio grabbed the doorknob but hesitated a moment before he spoke again, "Mr. Dobson, what would I need to do to ensure Mason retains control of the company? I mean in a way that wouldn't violate Pops’ wishes?"
"That is an easy answer. You give him your proxy for the shares. You retain ownership, he controls how the shares vote. If he does something that you don't like, you rescind that power."
Rio glanced over his shoulder and held the gentleman’s eyes. "Then I'll definitely be accepting the shares."
Mr. Dobson laughed, "Mr. North, I would say you will make a damn fine businessman."
Chapter 12
Meghan nearly levitated through the morning. She was physically exhausted and flirting with a headache, but nervous energy skittered under her skin. Connie had noticed it when she'd stopped on her morning visit. With Voldemort out of the building, the mood of the entire company changed, as if his employees were no longer afraid to smile, and Connie took advantage of the time by talking to the people. Her job in HR made her a hammer sometimes, particularly when N.R. was in hatchet mode, but Connie was a people person and made it was part of her job to know all of the thirty employees that worked for the company.
She drifted in and flopped down on the chair next to Meg's desk. "Girl, what’s going on?"
"I don't know what you mean." Meg could feel the blush of excitement heat her neck and cheeks again.
"Right, and your nose is growing."
"I'm just having a good day. It is easier when he's not here."
"Yeah, but this is something different. You're almost glowing." Connie leaned in and her eyes grew wide. "You've met someone, haven't you?"
"Maybe?"
"How can you maybe meet someone?" Connie laughed and did a little hop move in her chair. "Dish, every last detail."
"Wow, okay, not going to do that." Meg pushed back from her desk and glanced at the time on her computer screen for the ten thousandth time in the last hour. He would be here soon.
"Why not?" Connie waved her hand in the air. "Nevermind, don't answer that. What is his name?"
"Rio."
"Rio? Oh, my gawd! His name is sexy!" Connie giggled like a little girl. "Is he? Sexy?"
"He is! I'm so happy for you, Meg! You so deserve this!" Connie bounced in the chair and clapped her hands.
"It’s still new. We've only gone on two dates." Meg couldn't meet Connie's eyes. In all honesty, it was scary to talk about Rio with anyone. Almost as if when she said anything out loud, he'd disappear like a dream.
"Where did you meet him?"
An embarrassed laugh fluttered out of her. "Remember that date my sister set me up with?"
"Oh, my gawd! No! He was your blind date!"
"No... but I thought he was. I marched over to his table, introduced myself and sat down. My blind date was sitting on the other side of the restaurant."
"No! Shut the front door!"
"Yep."
"What? I mean, how?" Connie's wide-eyed excitement made her laugh.
"He asked me to stay for dinner. It was..."
"Kind of magical."
Meg nearly jumped out of her skin, and Connie shot out of her chair at Rio's voice.
"I hope you don't mind if I'm a couple minutes early." All six feet, five inches of deliciousness stood about a foot inside the office door. He lifted a bag from a fast food restaurant and smiled. Connie sighed, just like the waitress had that first night.
Meg stood up. "Hi, no, that's fine. Rio, this is Connie. Connie who is just now leaving."
"I am? I mean, yes, I am. It was great to meet you, Rio." Connie darted past him as he walked forward. Behind his back she made a frantic motion drawing Meg's attention away from her prince charming. Connie mouthed 'Oh my gawd' and fanned herself.
Rio set the lunch bag on her desk and turned in time to catch Connie smiling like a loon. The woman froze, then waved in a spastic kind of way before she darted out of the door.
"Friend of yours?"
"One of my best friends. Believe it or not, that nut is the center of our HR department. Have a seat, I'll grab my lunch." It took her five steps to reach the little refrigerator she shared with her boss. She grabbed the small container, a plastic fork and a bottle of water, giving herself a moment to catch her breath because the man sitting at her desk had stolen it the second he walked in the door.
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