Page 60 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“It’s fine,” Nathan told him. “Just bring a new one, please.”

“Go,” Carrick ordered. “And tell the kitchen to hurry up with our food. I don’t have all damn year.”

The server stumbled away while Nathan turned back to his brother. “Macallan Eighteen is your favorite drink. I’m assuming that’s what you got, considering you drank it all. More games?”

Carrick shrugged, confirming his suspicion.

Nathan sighed. He’d be sure to leave an extra-large tip. The members of the Union Club paid well to do things like toy with the staff, but it was honestly one of the reasons he avoided the place. Men just like his brother. Men didn’t actually say what they meant, spoke in veiled terms, and enjoyed the misery of others.

“Anyway, that’s my point,” Carrick continued once his drink had been replaced, and their food appeared shortly after. “When Mom is salivating over some random chick handing you her digits, you know she’s getting desperate. They want you home for good. And you know the old man wants a grandchild before he finally croaks.”

As always, the idea of returning to Virginia tensed Nathan like a pulled string on a bow. He sat up straight, then rolled out his large shoulders, trying to release the stress. It was very uncomfortable.

Virginia had never felt like a home, even when it technically was for the first fourteen years of his life. To many people, growing up on a horse farm might have seemed idyllic. Snowy winters and sun-blanketed summers spent roaming the fifteen hundred acres would have been a dream for most children.

But they didn’t have Radford and Lillian Hunt as parents. For every hour spent on horseback, he had to spend two with tutors, occupational therapists, and etiquette consultants. When they came of age, all three brothers were sent to a boarding school during the week in Alexandria, an environment that was as overstimulating as it got. And yet the weekends under his mother’s forceful thumb offered no reprieve.

“It would be easier if you just did what they want, you know,” Carrick continued as he cut a piece of his steak and loaded it onto his fork, along with some potato and carrot. He was always putting too much food into his mouth at once. “Think of it as an investment. Once you’re CEO of Huntwell, you’ll make more money than you ever could at this little hobby of yours.”

“Surgery isn’t a hobby.” Nathan paused as his fork pierced a piece of broccoli. “People don’t do three years of medical school, six years of residency, and a two-year fellowship as a hobby. It’s my profession. My life.”

My brother shrugged. “A life that you should have never had in the first place. I never understood why you wasted your time with all that.”

Nathan ground his teeth. He wasn’t going to justify that choice to his family for what had to be the thousandth time since he’d announced as a college junior that he intended to go to medical school instead of Wharton. “I attend the monthly board meetings.”

“And I smile in pictures. It doesn’t make me a nice guy.”

Carrick took another bite and continued speaking with his mouth full. Nathan knew it wasn’t because he didn’t know his manners. It was to bother his older brother even more.

“Face it, Nate. We’re from a long line of hacks who give money to the people doing righteous things. We’re not the ones who actually do them.”

Nathan scowled. He couldn’t really argue with him, but that didn’t mean he liked it. Or was planning to change.

“Anyway, Mom told me to tell you that Isla’s tuition won’t be paid if you don’t come home this spring. Or find yourself a real relationship. She said it’s time.”

“Why don’t you or Spencer start procreating?” Nathan asked. “You’re already there. If Dad needs an heir so much, why does it matter which one of us produces it?”

“BecauseIam not the firstborn,” Carrick said, his acid tone undercut with a layer of danger. “Iam not the one whose name they want at the head of the company when Dad finally retires.”

The brothers stared at each other. Nathan’s grip on his fork tightened to the point where his knuckles turned white. The metal bent. Carrick glanced at the now-deformed utensil, then raised his hand. Bobby came jogging over.

“We’re gonna need another one of those,” Carrick said, nodding at the bent fork. “Preferably one that my brother won’t Hulk out on.”

Bobby had the good sense not to react. Nathan set the fork on the table, where it was promptly scooped up, then replaced it with a spare set of silverware from the server’s apron pocket.

“Thank you,” Nathan said, feeling his cheeks heat. Unlike Carrick, he didn’t like losing his temper in public. “Please put it on my bill.”

Carrick swallowed another noisy bite of steak as Bobby walked away. “You know, it wouldn’t be an issue if you left her in the gutter where she belonged.”

Nathan glared. “Don’t talk about Isla that way.”

“I’m just saying. I’ve never understood why you care so much about a seventeen-year-old girl you hardly know. Whatever went down between you and her mom happened a thousand years ago, and she’s been in and out of boarding schools ever since. It’s ancient history. You could just leave it in the past.”

“Isla ismyresponsibility.” Nathan shook his head. “I may not be fit to be in her life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon her. If meeting our parents’ ridiculous demands on my personal life means she is cared for the right way, I can deal with them. I have up until now.”

Unbidden, Joni’s face flashed through Nathan’s mind. The porcelain skin with a hint of olive surrounded by the dark hair she usually wore in waves. The high cheekbones that made her tilted green eyes look almost feline. The knife-straight nose and rose-colored mouth that always seemed to be in a perpetual pout when she wasn’t smiling.

He had, as promised, found another roommate, though he hadn’t informed them who it was. Until now, all of the other short-lived denizens of the guestroom had been three primary things. They’d been financially solvent. They’d been quiet. And they’d been male.