Chapter One
Conrad
My brother didn’t understand why the bid in Distance was so important to me. Ron was all about the bottom line. Distance meant travelling, and travelling meant gas, per diem food, and lodging stipends, and less profit than if we worked with one of the big companies in the New Corbine looking to make their parking do double duty as both a lot and energy producer.
He was right. We could easily convince many lot owners to make the move. Land was at a premium, and adding solar panels was much more economical and potentially profitable in the long run than building a huge parking garage.
But letting money lead you—when your gut said you should be going the other direction—never panned out well. He of all people should know, given that he went from omega to omega, all of whom were interested more in his family name and bottom line than in his personality.
I’d have thought he’d have learned not to lead all introductions with his full name and many company holdings. True, it impressed the potential dates, but not with anything that mattered. And the harsh reality of their desire for his money and his desire to work all day every day to obtain such money never ended with a nice picket fence and 2.5 cubs. It ended up with him waking up alone and being a grumpy ass. A grumpy ass I was about to walk into a meeting with because it was Monday.
“Is he here?” I asked Natasha, his secretary.
Unlike me, Ron owned a ton of different operations. Technically, I owned a sliver of the solar energy division, but, in actuality, he was my boss. Something my younger brother of a whole entire two minutes liked to remind me of and often.
“He is. And Nick left him last night, so he’s super fun.” She rolled her eyes. I racked my brain for who the heck Nick was.
“Thanks.” I gave a quick knock at the door and was greeted with a growl. Fabulous.
“Hey, bro, just stopping by for the week’s update and all that jazz.” I had my happy face slapped on. If I thought I could make him less…well, Ron, I’d have teased him a little bit or possibly brought him some of those honey cakes the Bear’s Claw bakery was so famous for.
What he needed was a mate. A mate that could sate his tiger’s need to settle down.
“Hank sent us the numbers for last quarter, and the company as a whole is up 8 percent.” Then why wasn’t he happy?
“Those sound like excellent numbers, Ron. Well done.”
“Those numbers are overall. The solar power division is down 10 percent.” He crossed his arms across his chest as if he had asked a question he was waiting on an answer for. Had he forgotten I’ve known him since before we were born?
“Is that a 10 percent loss or 10 percent less profit than last time?” For there was a huge-ass difference, and the way he worded it, I suspected it was the latter.
“Less profit, but not really the point, is it? You are making decisions that hurt the company bottom line when you do things like lowballing the Distance project and hiring people like Jonathan.” He wasn’t wrong, but life was about more than the bottom line.
I walked over and slunk in the chair in front of him. I needed to get to the job site and wanted only 5 percent to see Jasper. Fine, like 95 percent to see him. Not that he noticed me. Why should he? He was carrying someone else’s young. Sure, they were dead and, from the way Travis spoke, it was a well-earned death no one mourned, but still, he was with child and not mine.
And if his is dead— I couldn’t call him a mate since he bore no mark, which was all kinds of not how the wolves usually did things. If his dead baby daddy was as bad as Travis implied, he was probably off men anyway.
My tiger wouldn’t listen to that message. Ever since the incident at his cabin, my tiger was in full-on protective mode, and being away, especially to get reprimanded by my brother, wasn’t helping my worry subside in the slightest.
“I don’t want to fight about this again.” I sighed. “You knew when I agreed to come here and work for you it was my goal to help provide a clean energy source not only to the rich, but those communities who needed it. This was never about profit for me, especially since you have almost as much money as the queen. You should feel good about this, not all Christmas Carol-like.”
I didn’t add it was what Mom would’ve wanted, not opening that wound. But it was true. Giving was what she wanted for both of us. To give back as we succeeded, just like someone had done for her when my father was killed by a drunk driver.
“One quarter. One quarter to increase profits or I will need to liquidate the division.”
I rolled my eyes. He’d threatened liquidation almost every quarter since I started. It might work with his other employees, but I was his brother and twice as stubborn.
“Noted.” No sense in arguing. Not when I had an omega to get back to.
Not that he was mine.
Mine. My tiger insisted. He was just going to need to pipe down. Even if Jasper was ours—which I desperately needed him to one day be, I could feel it in my bones—no one wanted to be wooed while they were a thousand weeks pregnant.
Crap. My cock started to fill at the thought of his belly rounded with child. I quickly thought of all the gross things I could, trying to will it away as my brother broke out in laughter.
“I see how it is.”
Fuck, the look in his eyes said he did, too.
“Who’s the piece of ass in Distance who has you so distracted you get aroused at a freaking business meeting—with your own brother?”
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I stood up, operation get rid of boner a success, thanks to my twin. “I was just—”
“One quarter, brother,” he chided as I walked out pretending to not have just been caught daydreaming about a sexy omega who wasn’t mine.
I ignored him, earning me yet another full-on belly laugh from my brother.
Brothers were fun.