Tell Me You're Mine (The British Billionaires #1) - J. S. Scott Page 0,1
starting to plague me was going to get worse. Much worse. “I’m headed to the States,” I said. “I’ll talk to Dylan when I get there.” As usual, my twin had fled across the pond to avoid any media attention after doing something incredibly stupid.
Leaving me to take the blame, and do the cleanup.
So far, I’d done a pretty damn good job of burying most of Dylan’s erratic behavior.
Like…the time he’d jumped up on a table in a popular nightclub with a microphone in hand, and tried to convince everyone that our current prime minister was trying to make England a communist country.
Or like…the time he’d gone to a poker game, and accused a well-respected championship poker player of cheating.
When Dylan got thoroughly pissed, there was no telling what would happen, or where his mind would go.
Luckily, most of my twin’s drunken romps had never even hit the gossip columns. If there was one thing people liked more than a scandal, it was money, so I’d been able to pay to keep most of the incidents out of the press.
Really, there were only a few such incidents that I’d had to claim as mine.
Luckily, the prime minister and I rarely traveled in the same circles.
Regrettably, my twin had taken bad publicity to a whole different level this time, and for the first time since Dylan had started all of his lunatic behavior, I had no idea what to do about it.
Mum frowned at me as she insisted, “You need to do more than talk this time, Damian. You have to refuse to keep taking the blame and cleaning up after him.”
“I can’t,” I said. “You know I made a promise to Dylan, and I swore I wouldn’t break my word. I said that I’d give him time away from Lancaster, and everything involved with our corporation, including the press, so he could get his head together after what happened. I have no choice but to let people think his actions are mine, or to make sure they get completely buried.”
The image of my twin pleading with me two years ago for time away from everything still haunted me. Dylan had been completely broken, and I hadn’t hesitated to give him my vow that he’d have the space and solitude he craved.
I’d done everything possible to wipe Dylan’s existence off the internet by hiring a highly skilled company who specialized in that type of thing. They’d even taken his name and photos off the corporation website so he could have his privacy. Anything that had come up in the last two years had been deleted as well. Granted, I’d taken the blame for a couple of things, but those articles had disappeared like they’d never happened.
Honestly, it felt eerily similar to that old Sandra Bullock movie, The Net, when her whole identity had been erased, like she’d never existed.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad. It was only his online fingerprint that had disappeared, and I still had a few business articles on there. I’d kept such a low profile that I’d never had much more than that in the news in the first place.
“Damian,” Mum said softly. “When you gave your brother your word, I know you never had any idea he’d end up like this. He wasn’t a drinker two years ago. You kept your promise, and he’s had enough isolation. Unfortunately, Dylan hasn’t used the opportunity you’ve given him wisely. He’s avoided and escaped instead of using that quiet time to heal. This latest stunt isn’t a good image for Lancaster International, and no decent woman will ever have you if you don’t stop taking the blame for Dylan’s behavior.”
Great! Here we go again…
I raised a brow. “What makes you think there’s a decent one who would have me now, Mum?”
I probably shouldn’t bait her, but I was desperate for a change of topic. I wasn’t prepared to lay out my plan to fix this current situation. Probably because I didn’t have one…yet.
She grimaced. “I’d really like to see grandchildren before I die, Damian.”
I loved my mother. I really did. But she was tenacious when it came to trying to marry all of us off so she could be surrounded by grandchildren.
Dylan certainly wasn’t about to find himself a wife anytime soon.
And my younger brother, Leo, was rarely in one place long enough to have a good chat with a woman, much less marry one.
So naturally, all of my mother’s matchmaking efforts had been put toward her eldest son.