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SEVEN
Patrick
No one notices when Declan slips out of the room.No one except me. The crazy thing about him is that despite his size, Declan is easy to overlook when he wants to be. When we were kids, he was always the last one in from a game of hide & seek and most of the time he just got bored and let us find him. When we were teenagers, it was his job to sneak behind the bar and pinch beers from the cooler. He did it a thousand times and never got caught. So, when I see him leave it’s because he wants me to.
“Where did Dickhead go,” Conner says as soon as Cari and Tess go upstairs to retrieve Cari’s phone. I look at the corner where Declan was standing like I didn’t know he was gone.
“I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “Maybe Jess called. She’s been going pretty hard at this whole Bridezilla thing lately.”
Conner curls his lip at the mention of his brother’s fiancé. “I can’t wait until she finds out Da gave it all to you,” he says, sitting back in his seat, his sneer slipping into a smile. “She’s gonna shit a brick.”
Hearing Con mention the money reminds me of what Cari said earlier in the elevator. “Cari knows,” I say, sinking into the plastic chair on the other side of the desk.
“What?” Con shoots me a puzzled look while his fingers fly over the keyboard in front of him. “You didn’t tell her?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t tell anyone except Sara, and that was just to get her dad to draw up the papers.”
“Which I could’ve done, by the way,” he says, still pissed that his dad didn’t ask him. “It would’ve taken me about ten minutes, and it wouldn’t have cost five-hundred dollars an hour.”
“Talk to your dad,” I say, holding up my hands. “He wanted a 3rd party attorney.”
Conner muttered something that sounded a lot like fuckin’ stubborn old man under his breath before looking at me again. “So?”
“So what?” I say, even though I know what he’s asking me.
“So, why didn’t you tell, Legs?” he says, splitting his attention between me and the computer. I want to know what he’s doing, but I don’t ask, and I don’t look. I’m sure whatever it is carries a mandatory prison sentence.
“I don’t know,” I say, giving him another shrug. “I guess it didn’t seem all that important.”
Conner frowns but doesn’t look at me. “My dad gave you a couple hundred million in cash and real estate. That’s kinda important.”
Hearing him say it like that—put a hard number on what is now essentially mine—makes me a little sick to my stomach. “I never asked for it,” I tell him, even though he knows. Has to know that I never wanted it to be this way. “And I don’t want it.”
“Poor Cap’n.” Con laughs at me, shaking his head while his fingers fly over the keyboard in front of him. “It must suck to be so moral and uptight all the time.”
I’m suddenly angry. “Do you think I feel good about the fact that I took your inheritance? You and Declan don’t get a fucking dime—nothing.” It strangles me, the guilt I feel. “I feel like I robbed you and it’s a daily goddamn struggle just to look you, both of you, in the face.”
“You want to make it up to me? Take me to Vegas and buy me a pony.”
“Fuck you,” I grumble, slumping back in my seat. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Must be nice.” I mean it. I wish I could live like that. I’ve spent the last five days being an inconsiderate asshole, and I’m ready to shoot myself.
Conner doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s too focused on the computer to have heard me or because he’s trying to formulate a response. “Look—Da did the right thing,” he finally says. “Don’t get me wrong—it sucks donkey balls to get the short stick, but I get why he did it.”
“That makes one of us.”
“Seriously?” Conner shoots me a look before refocusing on the screen in front of him. “Declan and I can’t handle that kind of joint responsibility. We fight too much. We’d use it against each other, and he can’t choose one over the other.” He shrugs like it’s a fact. “You’re the buffer between us, Cap’n. Always have been. That’s why he did it. Because he knows he can count on you to be the voice of reason. To do the right thing. Besides, it’s the family fortune—it was never really Da’s to begin with. You have just as much right to it as the rest of us.”
I stare at him for a second, letting it sink in.
“Is that why you didn’t tell Cari,” he says, shooting me another quick look. “Because you were ashamed or some shit?”
“Yeah,” I say because I suddenly realize everything Conner just said is true. “I guess maybe I am.” I still am, but that’s not something I want to get into with Conner. Shame is a foreign, slightly distasteful concept where he’s concerned. “Templeton convinced her it’s because I think she’s a gold-digger.”
Con flicks a glance in my direction and shrugs. “Isn’t she, though?”