Baewatch - Xavier Neal Page 0,27
life it was evident my father wanted us to have. He wanted us on the golf courses, learning the ‘who rubs elbows with who’ very early on, while I wanted to ride the waves. Mother wanted us knowing what wine went with which entrée. Hell, if it weren’t for being raised by Caterina, our nanny, I would probably be exactly who it is they always wanted me to be. Actually, Harrison and I would both be the soulless bastards they tried to groom us into if it wasn’t for our ballsy, bossy, black-haired, five foot nothing savior. She did a great job nurturing who we were rather than who we were told to be. She instilled in me the courage to chase that person and know that person and love that person. All things Father did not approve of.”
“He sounds like a joy.”
“Tell me about it,” Ax mutters under his breath. “Anyway, back in college when Shoreside Treasure Chest was just a little shack I rented with money I’d saved up from birthdays and Christmases and clever cuts I’d make to my college budget and all the money I got from bartending, I decided I wasn’t going to go finish out law school. I wanted to build my business. Grow it. Give it everything I could because it was everything to me. I’d come up with this brilliant proposal and was pitching it to Harrison when my father overheard. He told me no bank would give me a business loan. That I lacked experience, knowledge, and financial assets for what it was I wanted. That I would be wasting my time and theirs by bringing it to them.”
I can’t stop the gag that escapes as I reach for my tea.
“He waited until I had accepted defeat and had reached the lowest level of dejection I could before offering to help. All I had to do was finish law school, join the firm, and handle one case a year until I was forty. He would buy me the dream building for my shop and a beach home to be close to it. If I didn’t take the deal, he’d stop paying for college immediately, change the wording of my Trust Fund, and write me out of his will entirely.”
My jaw hits the desk.
“I was young and dumb and desperate, and my father wasn’t above exploiting his son’s weakness to get what he wanted like he did.”
I shake my head and have another sip of my drink.
“However, I wasn’t as stupid as he thought. Not only did I get the shit in writing, refusing a verbal contract, which would be harder for me to get out of, I also added in other clauses he wasn’t expecting, such as ownership of both my building and my home were to be transferred into my name, the day I graduated from law school regardless of how long it took me to pass the bar. That he would also purchase me a secondary location for the shop’s expansion closer to campus, which would allow me to bring a bit of the beach vibe more inland, though I closed up shop there a few years back, wanting to focus everything I had on this one. I also added that I always got to choose the case, which became how I manipulated taking on even less. By taking one on in December and finishing them up by April-”
“Off season months for the beach.”
He winks at my retort. “I completed what was asked of me. The words of the contract never said I had to sign a new client each year nor that I had to finish in the same year the case was originally taken. Just simply handle one case a year and if I started in Dec and finished in March or April, I still met all the criteria.”
“Brilliant.”
“You have to be to survive in my family,” the statement is proceeded by a sad smirk. “I struck the deal to save my shop. Sacrificed a portion of myself to protect the only dream I actually ever had.”
My shoulders melt at the proclamation.
“The number of people who I associate with and know that I conduct myself in the field of law is extremely limited. Outside of my immediate family there’s an ex or ex-ish person who is aware because I helped her husband out of a tight spot – it’s one of the only non-white-collar cases I’ve had in my career – another ex, who took it upon