“Oh, Jerri!” Lucy exclaimed. “This looks downright delicious!”
“You bet your bottom it is, sweetheart. Now you two eat up. If you’re taking a trip to the valley, you’re gonna need your fuel.” She winked at us.
Nothing got past the people of Cedar Grove.
CHAPTERTWO
WESTON
“Yes,Mr. President. I’ll make sure this situation is handled personally.”
My father slammed his phone receiver down on his desk. Dominic Myles was anything but cool-headed despite his attempt not to turn into the Hulk, bursting out of his three-piece suit.
He ran his hand through his salt and pepper hair and then slammed a fist onto his desk.
“When are you going to learn your place in this world, Weston?” He snarled.
I sat with my foot crossed over my thigh in the leather chair across from his desk, unflinching at his display of dominance.
“I’m sorry. Would you rather I not take the President’s daughter on a night on the town?” I played. “She was the one that asked.”
“We have a private contract with the White House. Do you know how many firms would give it all to have what we do? This is not a good look for any of us,” he yelled.
He took the last sip of his scotch and hurled the tumbler at the bookshelf behind me. The glass exploded dramatically.
I heard Jax grunt from the corner and take two steps toward me. I waved him off.
If my father wanted to whine like a little bitch, I was going to let him look like the fool that he was while doing it.
“I swear, Weston, between you and your fucking page-six party scandals and Lucinda running off with one of your meatheads,” he paused, looking behind me at Jax, who I could sense was fully flexed and ready to pounce on the fucker.
“I can’t leave this company to you…children.”
“Then don’t, father. Leave it to Jax. He’s more responsible than both of us combined.”
Knowing it would warrant a reaction from the man, Jax huffed behind me. That meant he thought it was funny.
“Always the fucking comedian, aren’t you, Weston,” my father hissed. “Do you take anything seriously in your life?”
He fell into his chair, exasperated.
“Yes,” I said matter of factly. “I take my party scandals very seriously. Only the best for the Myles name.”
I quoted his own words back at him so he could hear how ridiculous he sounded—his stupid slogan that I’ve listened to since I was in diapers.
My father fake-laughed. It grew more wicked the longer it went.
“Oh, Weston. You are so lucky you’re my only son,” he stood up and walked over to his window, gazing at the city below us, “or I would’ve disowned you years ago.”
Here we go.
“Since I don’t trust my partners as far as I can throw them not to run this company into the ground, and Lucinda is otherwise occupied, it looks like you’re the only option I have with some kind of semblance of desire to keep things afloat.”
He turned to look at me. “But I’m done funding your lavish drunken lifestyle, son. This isn’t the life of a respectable businessman in his forties.”
“I’m thirty-seven,” I interjected, knowing my father didn’t actually remember my real age.
“Shut up and listen closely! You’re either going to shape up, or I’ll invoke board voting rights to name a new CEO. I won’t have you tarnishing everything I’ve worked my entire life to build—what this family has spent generations trying to build.”