Desmond poked his head into the video frame. “I’m with Sean on this one. You’d never want your kids doing this, Jonah. You’ll understand when you have a kid of your own one day.”
I laughed out loud at that. I never even dated seriously, so the chances of my having a kid were as good as me falling in love tomorrow. I didn’t even know what to do or say around infants.
“It’s a pity you couldn’t join us,” Alex added, frowning. “We would have gladly waited a few extra days if it meant you could be there with us.”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t. I have something I need to handle for my dad.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “The man who never shows up for you?”
“Alex,” I warned.
He sighed. “The man only relies on you when he needs your expertise, Jonah. Not when it’s time for him to show up as family.”
“Well, I’m showing up for him as family should. I’ve got a party planned for his seventieth birthday, and it’s going to beincredible. Besides, you guys had to check out Cerro Negro. Desmond wouldn’t have been able to make it again for months since Ava is expecting their second child now.”
Desmond reached for the phone. “Yes, and she demanded I come back in one piece, or she’d have your head,” he added.
I chuckled. Ava was a riot.
“And Chloe,” Sean added, “asked me to inform you that if blisters on our feet were what you were aiming for, then we were welcome to join her in ballet.”
Scratch that. Both Ava and Chloe were riots. And Desmond and Sean were damn lucky bastards to have such women in their lives.
“Next time, I say we go for an activity that doesn’t involve losing toes,” Sean said.
Alex’s smirk widened. “Next time, we’re going racing.”
I hung up, wishing desperately I were with them instead of stuck in this sterile office. But not this week. This week was for Dad.
A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts. Derek Wei, my thirty-five-year-old CFO, stepped inside, looking sharp in a crisp suit with a tablet in his hand. He was a smart guy, even if he did goof off more than I could tolerate.
“It’s been one month since you took over as interim CEO, Mr. Walkers,” he said, bounding over and holding a pretend mic to my mouth. “Tell me, what’s the one thing you’ve failed to do?”
I stared at him for a long beat, wishing he could remember that it had been twenty years since he’d left a frat house.
“Well, I regret that I’ve failed to fire my goofball CFO,” I said in a deadpan voice.
Derek laughed and thankfully dropped the pretend mic as he glanced around the room. “Every time I’m here, I feel amazed,” he said in a more serious tone as he walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and looked down at Manhattan. “Not bad for a job you didn’t want,” he observed.
I pressed my lips into a line. “I’m doing this as a favor to my dad,” I reminded him.
Taking over as interim CEO of the family company wasn’t what I had planned, not when I’d spent years building a venture capital firm with my friends.
A muscle in my jaw ticked.
The previous CEO had mismanaged the company, and now my father’s business was in dire need of a turnaround. So when Dad had asked, I had agreed, pushing aside my second thoughts. I’d hoped to spend more time with the man who was the only blood relative I had left.
My phone buzzed with a text.
Reaching for it, I saw it was from my father.
Dad:Son, let’s cancel our plans for Friday. Cora has planned a surprise birthday getaway for me, and we’re off to Côte d’Azur. Let’s find another time soon, okay?
I froze. I had spent days planning an extravagant birthday party for my father, including renting out a luxury lodge in Montana and even booking Garth Brooks because I knew how much Dad loved him. Now, he was canceling at the last minute.
And of course, it was because of Cora.
Cora had been Dad’s wife when he’d had an extra-marital affair that resulted in me. Forty years later, she still resented me for it, going out of her way to override my plans with Dad almost every time. Maybe resentment was an understatement.
