Endeared (The Accidental Billionaires #5) - J. S. Scott Page 0,37

do all of the things you’ve always wanted to do.”

“I’ve decided that I’m going to overhaul the clinic,” I informed them. “We don’t have enough free and low-cost medical access around, so I want to make those services available in the community for people who don’t have insurance and can’t afford regular healthcare.”

Seth was close enough to slap me on the back. “You’ve always been the most altruistic male in this family. That doesn’t surprise me at all. But let us help set it up with you. You know we’re all in to donate and help you with fundraising. Eli can help with all the resources you need for that, since he’s pretty heavy into that kind of thing. He’s helped me a lot along the way.”

“Thanks,” I said, grateful that I had such an amazing family. “I think I can use all the help I can get.”

“So tell us about this vacation,” Aiden encouraged. “I totally agree that you need some time off, Owen.”

“I want to take Layla to Paris. We used to talk about traveling the world when we were kids, but of course we never really thought we’d have the funds. Not for a long time, anyway.”

Aiden pulled his line in and tossed it back out once he’d checked his bait. “That’s the beauty of having money. There are very few things that are out of reach for us anymore. Maybe that’s the hardest part to accept, too, since almost nothing was in our reach a few years ago. Maybe it sounds weird to say it’s difficult to go from rags to riches, but it takes a long time to change a mindset you’ve had your entire life.”

“So this thing with Layla is more than a friendship?” Seth probed.

“For me, I think it is. But she still sees me as just a friend. I’d like to change all that, but I’m not sure that I can.”

“Of course you can,” Seth scoffed. “Be a persistent pain in the ass like I was with Riley. She’ll have no choice but to give in. And I had no choice but to change Riley’s mind, since I couldn’t imagine living my life without her.”

I didn’t miss the note of complete vulnerability in Seth’s voice. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t around to see that,” I said regretfully.

Sometimes, it was hard to look at my older brothers as simply . . . men. Noah, Seth, and Aiden had been like father figures to me, and had been bigger than life when I was a kid. I never bucked their authority because I’d hero-worshipped all three of them. They’d never been capable of making a mistake when I’d been seeing them through a child’s eyes.

Now, I could see they were just as vulnerable and fallible as the next guy, but I’d always look up to and admire them. Even if our relationship was shifting more toward brothers than a father-son kind of relationship, all three of them were pretty damn exceptional men.

After all, they’d taken on a huge responsibility that wasn’t theirs to handle, and they’d done it without a single complaint for years.

“Be grateful you weren’t around,” Aiden said dryly. “Seth was pathetic. I was grateful when Riley finally decided to take his ass on permanently. I was sick of watching him mope.”

“Do we really want to get into the lunacy of being in love?” Seth asked in a warning voice. “You weren’t exactly a bundle of fun to be around, either.”

“That was different,” Aiden grumbled. “I was a father and I never knew it.”

“There was Maya,” Seth agreed. “But you fucking lost it over Skye, and you know it.”

As I watched my two older brothers banter back and forth, it really hit home about just how much I’d missed. Sure, I knew the whole story of what had happened with Skye, Aiden, and the child he’d never known about until years later, my incredible niece, Maya.

I also knew that Seth had inadvertently been at fault for Aiden losing his daughter for all those years.

There had to have been a hell of a lot of pain involved for both of them, but you wouldn’t really know it now. The two of them still bickered like brothers, but when they really needed each other, they were steadfastly loyal.

Somehow, they’d worked everything out, and it was pretty clear to me that they were tight now.

When they finally stopped their good-natured insults, Seth turned to me. “Please don’t tell me we’re going to have to go through this