“Is that how you’ve been selling Holbrook Enterprises?” she asked him silkily.
He gave her a lopsided grin.
“Half a billion, baby!” he said and struck a bodybuilder’s pose.
She pursed her lips and turned back to the bath. The water would only gush out lukewarm. It was probably for the best—
“Ahh!” she screamed as Grant picked her up and dumped her in the tub, jumping in after her. “It’s freezing.”
“It’s good!”
They could barely fit, their limbs splaying out of the small tub. They scrubbed off as best they could then dressed.
“Stop it,” she said as he picked her up, then he nuzzled her hair, set her on the bed, and tucked her in. Listening to his footsteps go down the stairs, she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 48
Grant
“You seem happy,” his father said wryly.
Grant didn’t want to tell him about Kate. She seemed so convinced Walter would fire her. He wanted his position in his father’s world to be solidified first. If he could just land those international contracts, he would be golden, and the Holbrooks would probably let him do whatever he wanted. He reached down to pet Gus.
His father was studying him. He wasn’t a stupid man. He probably knew exactly what was going on with Kate.
“I heard about your impressive sales record,” Jack said to him, coming in the room while Nancy poured another round of drinks. “But the question will be if you can keep it up consistently.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was an awkward pause, and Grant looked around the room at the pictures on the wall. He recognized his deceased siblings. There were also pictures of two boys at various ages to adulthood.
“Why’d you let your kids go into the Marines?” he asked Jack and Nancy. “You could afford to send them to college.”
Nancy looked sad. Jack scowled and said, “Carter flunked out of college, so I cut him off and made him enlist. Mark wanted to be an officer for some reason, and he went through college and joined.”
“Hmm,” Grant said. “Boot officers don’t do so well.”
“He’s fine,” Jack shot back. Grant held up his hand in a conciliatory gesture.
“Yes, he’s fine, dear. Carter’s the screw-up,” Nancy said. “I mean,” she amended, “we love him dearly, and he has great qualities, but he doesn’t do so well with authority.”
“So I’ve I heard,” Grant said. “Did they see combat?”
“Carter did two tours in Afghanistan. I think most of that was on base, though, or fairly uneventful patrols. Mark went in for information technology and wasn’t deployed overseas.”
“So he’s a POG,” Grant stated.
“Yes, I think that’s the lingo,” Jack replied. “He wanted to see combat, but they needed people who could program.”
“Yeah,” said Grant. “Everyone needs programmers. So when are they out?”
“Almost another two years for Carter. Mark said he wanted to stay in, though,” Jack said, standing up to pour himself another drink.
“They’re transitioning to a peacetime corps, so I hope he has a backup plan. Wait, what am I saying? Of course.” He motioned around them. “Of coursethey’ll be fine.”
“Mark will,” Jack said, taking a sip of his drink. “I don’t know about Carter.” Jack glared at his brother. “You were a bad influence on him.”
“Oh, here we go,” Walter said.
