“Good. I gave her the afternoon off.”
“You don’t think it wouldn’t have been better for her to keep busy instead of pondering what just transpired?”
“No. She’s cooking me dinner. That will keep her mind off things.”
Dylan cocked a brow. “Dinner? Really?”
“It’s nothing,’ Seth said.
“I doubt that. But can I give you a suggestion?” Dylan asked.
“I don’t need any lecture about not mixing business with pleasure. Or that she is Sofia’s friend so not to hurt her. Or let’s see what else. Oh that I’m almost ten years older than her and how we’ve got nothing in common. I already know all that.”
“Funny, I was going to say bring antacids. She’s a horrible cook,” Dylan grinned. “But I’m glad to see you’re not putting much thought into any of it.”
Fuck you.
The last thing Seth needed was his kid brother busting his balls. Not after the day he just had. Of course, it was far from over, and antacids were the last thing he was worried about.
“Do me a favor. Don’t tell the others.”
“About Sheen or Charlene?”
“How about neither. Now if you don’t mind, I think we both have a lot of work to do.”
“Yeah. I need to land another contract to replace Sheen.”
“Hey, I’m really sorry about this,” Seth said. He knew contracts like that took a lot of time and energy to pull together. Dylan was backing him, but it still sucked that it was all lost. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“Seth, go back a few generations, and our great granddad wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Hell, he was probably doing the same thing Sheen was, and worse. I’m glad we’re nothing like them. And I’m sure our brothers would all agree with how you handled it today. We’re so much better than that.”
“I sure as hell hope so,” Seth said as he left the office.
Seth had tried blocking out everything they had learned about their families so called legacy. It sickened him. Maybe that’s why Sheen had set him off. Dylan nailed it. The thought of anyone they cared about being mistreated, was now magnified by the hatred they carried about the past.
Charlene wasn’t innocent, but she sure in hell was sweet, and in many ways, naïve. Seth never wanted her to know anything about what had transpired years earlier between the Lawsons and the Hendersons. She’d never look at any of them in the same way. He knew that to be true, because he couldn’t look at himself at times.
So keeping his distance with Charlene wasn’t strictly due to their business association, but more about his personal life as well. His brother’s might have been able to move past what they learned, or maybe they were all just better at acting like they had. Seth dealt with it like everything else in his life. Bury himself in his work
Just before he turned into his office Ethan shouted out, “How did the meeting go?”
Seth wasn’t getting into it again. “You’ll hear the update in the morning. I have a few things to attend to first.”
“Saw you leave earlier with Charlene, but she’s not here now. Tell me you didn’t fire her,” Ethan said.
“Not today,” he replied. There might come a time when he did. It’d only make things more complicated than they already were if they became too friendly. He was going to need to remember that tonight at Charlene’s.
If cancelling was an option, Seth would take it right now. She’s already dealt with one asshole today. No need to make it two.