Chapter Twenty-Eight

Harry

This was why I avoided relationships. I didn’t like how I felt at the moment. She had me twisted in knots. I wasn’t sure when I had let myself get into this thing so deep. It had started out as a way to secure my future. Then we had sex. Then I wanted more sex. Then more of her and more sex. When she had agreed to my wacky idea, I had felt a kind of satisfaction, a weird comfort I had never experienced before.

When we had been fake engaged and hanging out, I’d had no desire to run around or chase women. Hell, I hadn’t even gone to the bars or clubs in search of a woman. I only wanted to spend time with her. It had been a comfortable, although extremely brief, period of calm in my life. Then, she dumped my ass.

I had spent all night trying to figure out what was wrong with me. When had I let myself develop feelings for the woman? They were feelings. I wasn’t sure exactly what they meant or if it was serious or something that would go away in a day or two. I was not the kind of guy that did feelings.

William was a dick. I knew he was only doing this because he wanted to screw me over. He didn’t love Amber. He wasn’t going to marry her. She was a fool to believe he would. I had tried to tell her. It had probably not been the best approach, but I had been pissed. She was going to get hurt, and I didn’t want that for her.

My mom had called earlier and wanted me to talk with my dad. Apparently, he was going off the deep end over the whole William thing. It was only a little ironic that I was the one who was supposed to swoop in and help my dad. My mom had guaranteed me William would not be there. She didn’t ask why I wanted to know. That was going to be an entirely different conversation if William and Amber decided to make their relationship public. I did not want to be anywhere near that conversation. I would be hiding out on some tropical beach when that bombshell went off.

“Fuck!” I shouted inside the safety of my car. I hated the idea of William touching her, kissing her, making her cry out with an orgasm. That was my job. I wanted to be the one who swallowed her cries when she came.

When I finally got to my parents’ house, I was in a shit mood. I was not interested in making daddy dearest feel better about his favorite son fucking him over. I blamed him for the mess as much as I blamed William. Both my parents had pressured him to marry Tiffany, and it had blown up in their faces. It was their incessant need for him to be the perfect man and then the perfect husband.

“Hello, Mother,” I said, walking into the dining room where she was enjoying a cup of tea.

“Oh, Harry. I’m so glad you came by. Your father is in a terrible mood. The Warners are not handling the breakup well. They are spreading all kinds of rumors and allegations about us! Can you believe that?” she shrieked. “William has a case of cold feet. They’re acting as if he left her at the altar.”

I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. “They’re angry. Can you blame them? They thought they were unloading their daughter and now they’re stuck with her again.”

“Well, we’re not thrilled, but they don’t need to be so ungracious about the situation. They are threatening to destroy our reputation. Harry, they could hurt us financially. We have to do something!”

“Mom, I don’t know what I can do. You know I know little about the company. The family business is not my thing. I don’t know what can I do to help,” I said, regretting my choice to come to the house.

“Please, go to talk to your father. He’s in his office.”

“Fine. I will, but you know this will all blow over. Everything will settle down. Dad will smooth talk everyone and it will be okay,” I assured her.

I headed to the east wing of the massive house in search of my dad. I found him in his office in the midst of a heated argument over the phone. I waited until he slammed it down on his desk.

“I can’t believe this! What the hell is wrong with your brother?” he shouted at me.

“He doesn’t love her,” I said matter-of-factly. “They weren’t engaged all that long. I think it was rushed.”

“So? What does that matter? They got along well enough. He could have worked out their differences once they were married.”

I laughed. “Most people work out their problems before they get married. They don’t get married knowing they have unresolved issues.”

My dad shrugged. “He knew the stakes. He understood how important it was for this marriage to happen. We would have had an ironclad prenup in place. Even if they had separated or divorced in a couple years, it would have been better than this.”

I released a long breath. “Well, maybe he wanted something different. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“Like what?” He was still standing, looking me straight in the eye. “Do you know something? Do you know why he would do something so rash?”

“I don’t know anything. I know he was stressed.”

“This is so unlike him. He’s always done what he’s had to. He’s always toed the line.”

“Maybe he’s tired of toeing the line,” I replied. “Maybe he needs a break.”

My dad looked at me and then took a step back and really looked at me. It was the way he was looking at me, as if he were seeing me for the first time, that made me nervous.

“Dad?” I asked, suddenly worried about him.

“What about you?” he asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “What about me?”

“You can’t really love that girl you’re with—Amber or whatever her name is. You rushed into this whole engagement thing. I assume you only did it because your brother was engaged. You’ll work. Yes!” he said, suddenly grinning.

“Or maybe I did it because you told me if I didn’t find someone to marry within a few months, you would cut off my allowance,” I quipped.

He waved a hand through the air as if that had all been a misunderstanding.

“So, you aren’t really hung up on her? You don’t love her. That’s good. Great, really.”

“What are you getting at, Dad?” I asked, suddenly on edge.

“Break off your engagement and ask Tiffany to marry you. It will solve all our problems.”

I stared at him for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. “Sure, Dad. That’s a great idea. Let me jump into a marriage with a woman I don’t really know and of what I do know, I don’t like.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not joking.”

I stopped laughing. “You’re serious? No way. Uh-huh.”

He nodded. “Yes, I’m very serious. The Warners don’t care which brother marries their daughter. They only want a Martin. You’re a Martin. You’re good looking. She’s two years younger than you,” he listed off. “You two would make a handsome couple.”

I laughed. “Well, I’m glad you acknowledge that I’m a Martin. I don’t think Tiffany would be pleased to be passed around from one brother to the next. She doesn’t like me, Dad.”

“Who cares? You can be charming enough. Charm her,” he insisted. “I mean, how do you get all those other women in your bed? You must have something women like.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was actually having this conversation. It was all so surreal.

“Dad, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You are out of your mind. I don’t want to marry Tiffany, and I know she doesn’t want to marry me. We don’t get along. I’m not her type,” I said. “And I can be very charming, but not with Tiffany.” I shuddered at the thought.

He took a deep breath. “I’m serious about this, Harry. Very serious. Sit. Let’s talk.”

I sat down on the leather couch. The man had caught me off guard. He was serious. I had no idea what the hell he was thinking.

“I don’t think this is a good idea. I am engaged, and I don’t think it would look very good if I broke off my own engagement and suddenly got engaged to my brother’s ex-fiancée. That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

He shook his head. “Nope. If you do this, I will make you the head of the company. You will be the one to inherit the estate if you agree to marry Tiffany and solidify our relationship with the Warners.”

I had heard a lot of crazy stuff from my family in the twenty-nine years I had been on the planet, but this had to be the craziest. When they learned the real reason behind William’s sudden decision to end the engagement, they were going to lose their damn minds. I felt bad for Amber. She was going to bear the brunt of the scandal if it ever came to light.

“Dad, I think you’re having a hard time. I don’t want to have this conversation. William is my brother—your son. You can’t possibly want to disinherit him over this. He’s following his heart. You can’t blame him for that.”

I was trying to be reasonable. I wasn’t feeling very reasonable, and I had no idea why I was defending William other than some strange brotherly love thing going on. At the moment, I really didn’t like him. He had moved in on my fiancée.

“I’m serious!” he boomed.

I stood to leave. “I don’t want to talk about this. I’m going,” I said and started to leave the room.

“Don’t go. Let’s iron out the details. We can make this work and minimize the rumors and gossip.”

I shook my head and kept walking. “I’m not doing it, Dad. I don’t even want to think about it. You just need to calm down.”

“I don’t need to calm down!” he shouted as I kept walking.

“Bye, Mom!” I yelled down the hall as I made my way into the foyer.

I got in my car and drove away. I hated how easy it was for my parents to write one of us off when we weren’t performing as they thought we should. William had always been the golden child. I couldn’t imagine how he would deal with being ousted from the throne. I was used to it. I didn’t think he would handle it very well.

What a fucking mess. Amber had no idea of the shitstorm that was headed her way. I almost felt guilty for dragging her deeper into the family drama. At least as William’s mistress, she would have had some anonymity. By making her my fiancée, I had unwittingly made her troubles that much worse.

I started laughing uncontrollably when I imagined the scene of my parents meeting William’s new fiancée, who happened to be my ex. I guessed we could do a fiancée swap. It was the premise of one hell of a reality show. It was too crazy to be real, and yet here I was living the horror story. People always assumed wealth was the answer to all life’s problems. If those people only knew that wealth opened an entirely new set of problems, they would think twice about dreaming of being rich.

“Here’s to another family scandal, Harry.”

Scandal and being on my parents’ bad side was nothing new to me. I thought I might kind of enjoy watching William squirm a little. Let’s see how Mr. Perfect held up when his own inheritance was being threatened.