Mace frowned at me. "It's nice to have everyone together. You should set a better example." He looked meaningfully at my rumpled appearance.
"I thought you were helping him lighten up," I said to Josie.
"Not right now. I have to go into Manhattan to help your brother, Liam, with his marketing plan. And I had food stockpiled." She glared lovingly at Eli, Tristan, and the rest of the cohort. "But they ate everything!" Josie said as she grabbed a large casserole pan out of the oven. My mouth watered. "It's already gone. All of it!"
I slowly took a bite of the popcorn.
"What are you eating?" Arlo asked, looking up at me with big eyes.
"You guys are like pigeons," I said as several of my younger brothers crowded around me.
"You made popcorn?" Mace asked disapprovingly as I chucked pieces of the snack at my little brothers.
"I got it from a bar."
"I thought you came to Harrogate to work, not go barhopping," an annoyed voice said behind me. There was Greg, the ever-present look of general disapproval affixed firmly to his face. He was followed by Mike, my business partner at Greyson Hotel Group.
"I need to hire someone to play villain music every time Greg walks into a room," I said. "You want a job, Henry?"
"I want a job," Eli said. "You should hire me and Tristan. We're almost done with college."
"Um, no. I'm not a babysitter."
Mace frowned. "I'm taking in several of our younger brothers as interns at Svensson PharmaTech. You need to take a few of them on at Greyson Hotel Group. Family should support each other."
"And look how well that worked with Adrian," I scoffed. Adrian glared at me. "Did you ever get the money back?"
"He made a mistake," Mace insisted.
I snorted.
"You were a mistake," Adrian shot back at me. "Mace should have eaten you in the womb."
"Gross."
Greg turned to Hunter, the oldest, who was handing carafes of coffee to the kids to take into the dining room. "Is this what you allow to go on over here? This place is a zoo."
"Right? I can't believe how disorganized this place is," I said to Greg, knowing it would rile up Hunter. I enjoyed irritating Greg. Sometimes when I felt like really flying close to the edge, I would try and set him and Hunter against each other. Bonus points if I could set Mace off as well and let the three of them spiral into chaos. I snickered to myself. They should call me Loki.
"Maybe if you did more than breeze in here, throw your weight around, and then leave," Hunter growled.
"Are you going to let him talk to you like that, Greg?" I asked, hugging the popcorn bowl to my chest in mock shock.
My older brother's eyes narrowed. "This type of behavior is not inspiring me to invest in your conference center."
"You were supposed to butter him up," I complained to Mike. "You know, make a really nice spreadsheet and show him how much money we're going to make."
"I'm not even sure Harrogate can physically hold a conference of the size you're talking about," Mike said, rolling up his sleeves. "The old Mast Brothers' chocolate factory is huge, yes, but we need hotel space, and the city of Harrogate will not allow us to demolish any of the existing historic brick buildings to build hotels."
"We have enough space. Svensson Investment owns all that land in Harrogate," I said as Mike cut up fruit.
"I will not allow you to build hotels on every single parcel I own," Greg said, setting down his briefcase and jacket on a stool.
"There's the strip mall next door. Buy that," Hunter said.
"We need to talk to the city about it," Mike warned. "I think they own it with the Mast Brothers' chocolate factory site. They may not want to sell it."
"The bigger issue," Hunter said, "is that you don't even have a marketing plan to attract conferences large enough to justify such a large complex of exhibition halls. You need to bring tens of thousands of people here several times a month to make a profit."
