“Family, yes—”
“Even more important than money. Even more important than a successful business, or making good cars, or finding the right buyers. Family is all you have at the end of the day, when everything else fades. You say you know that, you claim to understand it, and yet here you are, no grandchildren, not even a decent prospect of a future wife to show for it. How can I believe that you really value family?”
“I put up with you every day, don’t I?” I mutter.
Wrong direction to steer in. Dad’s face goes white, then red-hot. “I’ve made this too easy for you. I’ve let you waltz through business school and through the last ten years of working for us like you’re the heir apparent. But this company would never have existed without family, and it won’t exist without that support in the future.” Dad leans forward and jams his finger into my face. “Plenty of your cousins would kill to be in your shoes. Given the real respect and family-mindedness they show, I have a mind to name one of them as the heir at the reunion.”
“What?” I nearly shout. Other faces swivel in our direction, other people in the restaurant lean closer to spy. I ignore them, though I do lower my voice a touch. “That’s insane, Dad. I’ve been involved in this business from the minute I was old enough to understand what a car was. I’ve devoted all my spare time to working for you, putting in the hours, understanding how every inch of this company operates.”
“And yet you failed to understand the most important lesson—the most important thing—in the world.”
“This is ridiculous. What does having a wife and kids have to do with owning a business?”
“Everything, son,” Dad snaps. “That’s what you don’t see. That’s what I won’t wait around for you to wake up to.”
“So, what? You’re just going to sign Quint Motors over to my cousins, and that’s it?”
“You could change my mind.” Dad leans back in his seat. He eyes me now, cool once more, his expression composed.
Beneath the table, out of sight, I clench my fists. “How?” I ask through gritted teeth. I know I won’t like whatever’s coming next. But whatever I expect, it isn’t this.
“Find a woman.” He holds up a hand, forestalling my protest. Because it’s not like I can’t find women just about anywhere I go. “A marriageable woman,” Dad clarifies. “A wife. If you can find a wife by the time we all leave for Greece, then maybe I’ll believe you’re as serious about this company’s future—and more importantly, this family’s future—as you claim to be.”
“You sound like a crazy person. I’m not listening to this.” I wave a hand to get the waiter’s attention. I need the check. I’m out.
Dad lunges across the table and grabs my wrist. “All your mother and I ever dreamed about was having a big family.” His eyes bore into mine as he says it, as though he’s willing me to understand.
But I don’t. I don’t get it. I’ve never felt the way about a woman like he felt about Mom. I’ve never looked at a girl and thought, I’d like to have dozens of kids with her. I’m just not like him. On some core level.
“You’re our only shot at that now,” Dad is saying. “You’re our only hope at fulfilling our dream.”
“Exactly.” I stand, giving up on the waiter. “Your dream, Dad. That’s what you wanted. I’m different, okay?”
“Well.” Dad releases my wrist and turns his attention back to the table, unrolling his own silverware. Clearly he plans to stay and eat anyway. “If we’re so different, then you won’t care about my decision to hand the company over to one of your cousins instead. Maybe Alexander. He does always have good manufacturing suggestions…”
My blood boils. Alexander is half the salesman I am, I think. Last time we let him run a European business conference himself, he walked away without a single new buyer. Not a single one. You have to be completely incompetent to do that—Quint cars practically sell themselves.
“If you want to run this business into the ground, have at it,” I mutter as I turn to stride away.
“One month,” Dad calls at my retreating spine. “You have one month to prove to me you’re not a lifelong bachelor after all, or I drop you from the company roster.”
“I need a wife,” I tell Greg.
Once he finishes laughing, I scowl and snatch the stack of intern applications from his hands.
“I’m serious,” I say, fanning the pages of the applications, but not really paying any attention to the ink on the paper, what any of the words say. “Dad’s talking about giving Alex the company if I don’t get serious. Find someone to settle down with.”
“Alex?” Greg says in the same tone you’d use about a pile of manure you stepped in. “The same Alex whose accountant we had to fire because he was embezzling thousands of dollars that Alex didn’t even notice was missing?”
“One and the same.” I drop the stack of intern applications once more with a groan. “Dad thinks Alex will be more serious about running the company because he’s family-oriented. Him or any one of my other married-with-children cousins. He’s holding it against me that I don’t have a million grandkids for him to spoil yet.” I run my hand through my hair, teeth gritted in frustration.
Over and over, ever since lunch, I’ve replayed our lunchtime fight in my head. And over and over, I just hear his voice on repeat. If you can find a wife by the time we all leave for Greece…
Crazy. He’s crazy. That’s a month away. And I’m not going to just marry some random woman to please him, to do what he says. It’s my life. I get some damned say in it, don’t I?
“He told me I had to be married by the reunion,” I inform the ceiling. “Or he’s giving Quint Motors to someone else in the family.”
Greg laughs. Then he catches a glimpse of my expression, and sobers immediately. “But that’s in a month. That’s insane.”
“I know.” I roll my eyes once more.
Greg, on the other hand, gets a new expression. A tight-lipped one that I recognize.
His thinking face.
“Uh oh.” I side-eye him. “You only ever look like that when you’re about to suggest something completely batshit, you know.”
“Because I think I am.” Greg turns to face me. “You only need a wife for the reunion, right? Your father is stepping down, naming the new CEO at the retirement event they’re all planning on day, what, four of the weeklong reunion?”
“Something like that,” I agree.
“So you only need a wife for that long. Once he signs Quint Motors over to you, it doesn’t matter what he wants—the company becomes yours.”
I tilt my chair forward and tear my eyes from the ceiling, sensing where this is going. “Good thought, but unfortunately, it’s not quite that cut-and-dry. Once he makes me CEO, Dad’s still going to retain the majority share in the company stocks. Not to mention our family holds the rest of the stocks. He can bully and strong-arm them into ousting me the minute I ditch any temporary wife I show up with.”
“True. Unless your father approves of the divorce,” Greg says with a laugh, because my father, Mr. Family Man’s, favorite rant topic is about kids these days and how little they value lasting marriages.
But… “Hang on.” Lightbulb. I look at Greg. “Say that again.”
He frowns. “Unless your father approves of the divorce?” he repeats. “But, he never would, I mean, he doesn’t approve of that unless…”
“Unless it’s someone like the crazy cheating woman Luke left before his second wife?” I say, mind racing. “The one trying to get her hands on his inheritance. Or like the one Chloe split up with, the one she married when she was a teenager, he was a real trip, utterly classless…”