I'm a fucking mess. Then again, spending the entire weekend drowning yourself in whiskey will do that to you. It doesn’t help that my entire day has gone from controlled chaos to out-of-control hot mess the second I step foot in my office.
I can’t actually believe what I’m hearing when I walk into the boardroom. Both of my asshole brothers are forcing me to get an assistant to help manage the workload for when Reed takes off for the birth of his son. I’m not one bit amused by it, not even as Reed stares at me, a stern look on his face, while Remy twirls a pen around his finger, neither of them caring how pissed off at them I am.
“This is for your own good. You skipped out on the funeral, and I can’t have you doing the same to the company while I’m gone. It’s business, nothing else,” Reed insists, trying to fool us both into believing the crock of shit he’s telling me.
“I didn’t skip out on the funeral,” I answer with a heavy sigh. “I just wasn’t going to stand around and mourn the loss any longer than I already had. Dad’s gone. What else do you want me to do?” Anger fills my words.
Reed sags down into one of the rolling chairs and looks out over the Chicago skyline. He’s grown quiet, and that kind of scares me. If he’s quiet, he’s thinking, and if he’s thinking, well shit is about to go down.
“You know Dad loved you too,” he says quietly.
Remy chimes in with, “You didn’t have to skip out on the dinner party after his funeral. We could’ve used your support.” His words practically pour salt into my wounds.
Reed doesn’t sound mad, but he definitely sounds disappointed, but I shake off the guilt trying to fill the empty space in my chest.
“I didn’t want to be there celebrating at some dinner party when we lost the most important person in our lives.” That’s the truth. The bottle of bourbon and the blonde bombshell, whose name I never did get, more than made up for the grief I was feeling.
If only she were here now.
Slamming a fist down on the table, Reed ignores the way Remy and I both jump. “I know you’re going through shit, but I need you to pull your head out of your ass and take this assistant position seriously. You don’t see the rest of us losing ourselves at the bottom of a bottle.” My head spins at how fast he changes the subject. And he thinks I’m being bipolar with my mood swings lately? I learned from the best.
“I don’t need an assistant,” I growl, but if I’m honest, I’m just pouting. I know I’m not getting out of this. They’ve already hired this person, it can’t be undone. “Having one is more of a hassle than I need, and I refuse to have some pain in the ass following me around while I try to get work done.” I can feel my molars grinding together. If they force this, I won’t make it easy for whoever they’ve hired.
“You might not need one now, but you will,” Remy announces, agreeing further with our brother, which only enrages me more. “It’s better to bring someone in now, so they’re ready when you do need them. You can’t expect to do everything yourself, Ryker.”
I roll my eyes, unable to hold back the insanity of these two any longer. “The answer is no, and that’s final.”
How do they expect me to deal with this right now? I’m still reeling from Dad’s death, not to mention the one-night stand I had over the weekend with a woman I can’t even try to find. I’ll be the first to admit my emotions have been all over the place due to my father’s death, and the fact that I let that woman walk straight out of my hotel room without getting even the most basic information from her has me off-balance. All I have is her memory, and that’s a bit blurry after all the whiskey I drank. I need to make better choices, that much is certain.
“The answer is whatever the fuck I say it is,” Reed informs me, like I’m a small child, his eyes glowing with disappointment. It doesn’t matter to me that he’s been running the company for a few months now, even before our father’s death. What does matter to me is the fact that he’s trying to