Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107639 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107639 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
He cleared his throat. I knew that trick. It was his way of shoring up and getting on with it. Here in England, it was famously known as the stiff upper lip. “No. I’m just ready to get home. It turns out I’m not particularly good at relaxation.”
“You don’t say?” I teased. “I figured you’d go through iPad withdrawal at first, but you’d rally and embrace the sunshine and fruity cocktails eventually. I half worried you’d decide to chuck it all and become an islander.”
“Not all of us have a billion dollars, Landry,” he reminded me. Thankfully, there was no bite in his voice. The Brotherhood paid him very, very well, and part of his compensation over the years had included stock options in our various lucrative endeavors. Kenji Toma was doing just fine, financially speaking.
I leaned back in my bed and stretched out, throwing one arm behind my head. “What would you do with a billion dollars if you had it?”
I half expected him to scoff and make a short remark before chivvying me off the call. So I was surprised when he actually humored me.
“Well, for one, I’d splurge on something ridiculous like the Pearl Royale chess set by Colin Burns. But then I’d have to have a room fitted out with custom lighting to do it justice. Which means I’d need to buy a place.”
Kenji currently lived in a small apartment between the park and Lenox Hill, which was very convenient to work, but it was also half-underground and didn’t have its own laundry machines. My fingers itched to buy him a nicer place and give it to him anonymously. But since he was neck-deep in all of my financial business—at least the non-Davencourt side of things—it would have been nearly impossible to pull it off, even if he’d been willing to accept an anonymous gift. Which… considering the Brotherhood’s history of trying to give him perks, would have been a disaster.
Not that I hadn’t decided to do something very stupid anyway. Something I’d probably never tell him about or show him. Still, it was nice to spoil him, even if I couldn’t tell him about it.
“You should buy a place anyway,” I suggested. Or move into mine.
“I’d send my grandmother a Birkin bag so she could show it off to all her friends.”
“No you would not,” I said with a bark of laughter. “You would never spend that much on a bag you know she’d never use.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “No. You’re right. But maybe I’d send her a good knockoff so she could still brag about her rich grandson.”
“She already brags about you,” I said without thinking. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I winced and prayed he wouldn’t read into it.
“And how would you know that?”
Fuck.
“I’ve met her, remember?”
“Landry, you met her for five minutes when I brought her by the office once to show her where I work.”
“I, ah… I…” The truth was I’d flown down to Florida on my way to London. At Christmastime in Majestic, Kenji had said he was ready to let his grandmother set him up with a nice man, and I’d be damned if I’d let her choose anyone other than me. I’d made a beeline for the Vista Bonita Active Seniors Community in Boca Raton, Florida, to plead my case. It had been a good visit—Kenji’s grandmother was nearly as quick-witted and sharp-tongued as her grandson, and spending a few hours with her had temporarily dulled the worst of my craving for the man—but the results of my efforts remained unclear.
“Don’t all grandmothers brag about their successful, handsome grandsons?” I said vaguely.
“Did yours ever brag about you?”
I thought back to my memories of my paternal grandmother. My mom’s mother had passed on when I was too young to remember her. But my grandmother on the Davencourt side had been a warm, loving type, even if she’d been a bit formal in public. “Yes, actually,” I said. “She once told the…” I stopped myself from saying Queen. “Lady in charge of our community that I had perfected the art of folding a napkin into a blooming lotus. The woman was very impressed. I, on the other hand, wanted to die of embarrassment.”
Hearing his chuckle released some of the tension in my shoulders. “I can just picture you now, all skinny and knock-kneed, folding napkins for your grandmother like a good lad.”
“I wasn’t always skinny,” I corrected. “And in that story, I was fifteen,” I joked.
The rich, dark sound of his laughter floated down the line. His voice still sounded warm when he asked, “How’s your dad? And don’t pretend everything’s fine. You wouldn’t be there comfort-snuggling the cat if it was.”
I grimaced at this reminder of how much I’d kept from him—not just my title but my father’s health, too. It had been easier to pretend I was off on an unidentified jaunt somewhere for fun than to explain I was visiting home because it meant fewer questions about my family, about where I was from. In reality, I visited my father quite a bit. I just… didn’t exactly tell Kenji and the rest of the Brotherhood about it.