“If you don’t come in now, you’re going to miss the call,” Connor’s father, Greg, called from the conference room.
“I’ll be there in one second,” Connor called back.
He wasn’t in the mood to spend time with his mother and father right now, but his brother had big news. He had a very good feeling that his brother and his wife were about to announce a pregnancy. His brother had gotten married a year and a half earlier. Honestly, he was surprised it had taken them this long to start their family. He finished up the email he was writing and then went to sit with his parents.
Connor sat in one of the plush seats in their home conference room. It was really his father’s home office, but he barely used it. Instead, they used it whenever they needed to have big family announcements. It always helped to set the mood.
His mother squeezed his hand. “Be a baby. Please, Jesus, let this be about a baby.” She said a prayer and grabbed his father’s hand before saying one more.
“Calm down, Stephanie,” his father said. “They’ll have a baby when they’re ready to have a baby. Don’t pressure them.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m dying for grandbabies. I’ve waited more than a hundred years for this moment.”
It was incredible to think that just two years ago, this whole thing would have been impossible. Beckett was Connor’s half-brother, and he hadn’t liked Connor’s mother since the moment their parents had married.
Beckett had moved as far away as possible as soon as he was old enough. He could never forgive Connor’s mother for what he saw as seducing his grief-stricken father. His father had hired Connor’s mother as a nanny after his first wife died. He needed the extra help. He’d never planned on marrying her. Stephanie, Connor’s mom, had been married before too, and had lost a mate. It was a happy accident when they fell in love.
It had taken a long time for Beckett to come around. The catalyst had been him finding his own mate. His marrying Lenni had changed their entire family dynamic for the better.
Lenni got along great with Stephanie and saw her as she really was. It was impossible for Beckett to keep hating his stepmom when she was so kind to his wife. Lenni helped him see that while Stephanie and his father loved each other, they hadn’t set out to fall in love.
For her part, Connor’s mother had never stopped loving her stepson. There were times that Connor could have sworn that Beckett was really her favorite. She loved him like he was her own. Connor had assumed that if Beckett ever had kids, it would rip his mother’s heart out. Not being able to see her grandbabies would have destroyed her. Now, that would never happen. She and Beckett had a great relationship, and Connor was eternally grateful to Lenni for her good influence on his brother.
The only problem with the wonderful turn of events was that since his mother’s attention was no longer on winning Beckett back over, she had so much time left over for Connor. She had now set her sights on getting her second son hitched. At least if Beckett and Lenni had a baby, it would take some of the spotlight off of him.
“We’re all here,” his father said into the phone.
“Hey, brother,” Beckett’s voice came from the box.
“Hey, Lenni and Beckett,” Connor said. He always felt a little silly on these group calls. He wished they could video chat like a normal family. It would be so much easier, and they wouldn’t all have to gather in one spot to talk.
“Now that you’re all there,” Lenni said, “Beckett and I would like to tell you that we’re soon going to be adding one more to the Hansen clan.”
Stephanie squealed and threw her chair back. “I knew it! I’m going take the first flight out tomorrow morning. You just tell me, and I’ll be there. We need to have a party.”
“Calm down, dear,” Connor’s father said good-naturedly. “Congratulations! I’m going to set you kids up with my accounting team. You need to get familiar with the trust fund process and have your wills updated as soon as the baby is born.”
“I don’t have any financial advice, but congratulations, you two,” Connor said.
He was going to be an uncle. He wondered if it would be a little bear, like Beckett. But with the way that shifters’ genes worked, there was as good a chance that it could be a leopard like their great-grandmother. It was all so exciting. He didn’t care what kind of animal his niece or nephew was, or if it was a shifter at all. He hoped for a happy baby.
“Okay, I won’t come now, but I’m doing the baby shower,” Stephanie said. “I don’t care if you don’t want to have one. You don’t even have to stay for long. We’re having a shower. I can’t wait to tell the whole world about this.”
Beckett groaned, but he was obviously happy. He always pretended to hate family parties, but he had the most fun and was always the life of the party. “If you insist on it. But you can’t have it until she’s seven months. That’s the proper time, right?”
Lenni made an affirmative sound. “I’m already three months along, so that’s not too much time to wait.”
“Three months?” Connor’s mother said, aghast. “All right. I’ll start planning immediately. I can’t believe you guys were able to wait three months.”
“Lenni is a human,” Beckett reminded them.
That sobered the room up quite fast. Humans sometimes had a difficult time carrying shifter babies to term. It was less of a problem these days, but miscarriages during the first trimester were still common. Of course they had to wait three months to be sure it was going to stick.
Connor was glad they’d waited. He would have been worried for Lenni and the baby the whole time, and there would have been no stopping his mom from going out to wait on Lenni hand and foot, though he imagined that Beckett’s housekeeper Ms. Potter treated her the same way. She adored Beckett almost as much as his own mother had.
“This is so exciting,” Stephanie said to the box. “I can’t wait to hug you guys in person.”
“We can’t wait to see you too,” Lenni said.
They all said “I love you,” and the call ended. Connor was about to get up and head to his private wing in the mansion, but his mom stopped him.
“What about the ball?” she said. “They have to be there. You think she’ll feel well enough?”
“There’s no way they’ll miss the ball.” Connor’s father pulled out his phone. “I’ll text him to be sure, but they would have mentioned it if they were going to skip it.”
His father was having a grand ball to celebrate the release of his new matchmaking app. They were finally going public. There was something about that that was unsettling for Connor, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He’d been excited about the app initially, but as time went on, he was seeing more issues that were popping up. Once the app was open to the public, there would be no way of ensuring that only shifter men would join. There was no way to make sure that people would be using the app as it was intended, either. Even with the beta, there were people signing up who just wanted to hook up and not get married.
It would also be discriminatory to say the app was for shifters only, but Connor wasn’t sure it would be good to have humans and shifters together on an app meant for shifters to find their mates. What if two humans were matched up? How would that work?
But there were great amounts of money to be made. Many of the current apps separated humans and shifters. You could say whether you wanted to date a shifter or not. But on this app, there was no segregation. Humans and shifters were going to be thrown together. You wouldn’t know whether you were going to be matched with a shifter or not. That didn’t make much sense to Connor, but people were really excited about it.
He was keeping an eye on the security side of things.
He had worked in private investigation with his father’s security company for many years, until his father made him give it up. It was too dangerous for the son of the CEO to be out doing the dirty work. Now, like his brother, he was relegated to office work only. It drove him nuts.
He was even thinking about finding a job of his own, maybe starting his own security company. That didn’t make much sense, since Hansen Security was the biggest shifter security outlet and it would all be his one day, but he liked getting to do the dirty work himself. Now, he was mostly sending emails.
“Connor, honey, I’m going to be dropping in to see you later this week,” his mother told him before he could leave. “Maybe clean up this time before I come?”
“Why?”
“Your place was so dusty the last time I came by,” she said. “I think you may need to hire a new cleaning crew. It seems that the girls don’t do a good job in your house. Should I send some new girls over?”
“I had to fire my team, actually.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” his father asked. “There’s no way you’ll be able to clean the whole place yourself.”
“I’m not sure I want another crew coming into my home,” Connor replied. “Being sure that my private things stay private is nice. It’s awesome not seeing my stuff for sale on eBay anymore or stories about me in the tabloids.”
“We’ll sue,” his mother said. “How dare they. They had a nondisclosure agreement. They can’t sell stories about you.”
“That’s never stopped anyone. And they leave the country and sell where it doesn’t matter,” Connor reminded them. “Our contracts don’t protect us everywhere.”
“We’ll send someone to clean for you,” his dad said. “I can send over some of our people.”
Connor shook his head. “I can find someone myself. I have to do all the interviews and take care of it on my own. That’s the only way I’ll be comfortable.”
“If you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask me,” his mom told him. “You want me to come over and do a little cleaning for you?”
Connor stood up and kissed his mom on the cheek. “Thanks for offering, but I can do it. I’ll find a new cleaning crew soon, I promise. I gotta go now, or I won’t be able to get this paperwork I’m working on filed in time.”
He walked out of the room before his parents could throw any more questions at him. His mother was worried, and she was going to try to talk him into letting her clean for him. She was a great mom, but he was too old for that. He could do the cleaning until he had time to hire people. It wasn’t like his place was that dirty.
He could start looking for the cleaning crew right away. He was going to need to collect recommendations from his friends. He didn’t doubt that he’d be able to find someone for the job, but it was going to take time. He wasn’t going to let just anyone into his home.