Page 13 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)

LIAM

“ I just want the two of you to know that I’m getting the raw end of the deal here.” My youngest brother, Connor, dropped into a chair across from me with a sigh that was part exhaustion, part exasperation. I rolled my eyes, already familiar with the routine.

“You complain about this every time,” Finn—the middle brother—cut in, staring at the menu even though he ordered the same thing every time we ate here.

“Yes, but I want you to acknowledge it,” Connor said, his voice carrying the dry edge he’d perfected over the years.

“Complaints acknowledged, received, and filed away for next time,” I said, deadpan.

“I don’t think you two appreciate that I have to fly to LA twice as often as you fly up to San Francisco for me.”

“Those are the breaks,” Finn said, clapping Connor’s shoulder. “You’re the one who chose to set up shop three hundred and fifty miles away. ”

I met with my brothers once a week, rain or shine, to grab lunch and catch up.

It was a long-established tradition at this point.

The one appointment on my calendar that was never moved or rescheduled, no matter how busy I got.

How busy all three of us got, because Lord knew we all had plenty on our plates.

Finn handled the movie-making arm of Nexus Media, Connor ran the video game branch, while I held down the fort at VeriTV Studios—the branch of the business that had started it all and that I’d founded back in college.

Three brothers, three branches, all part of the same media empire we’d built from the ground up.

We traded off who got to pick the restaurant, which meant that any time it was my turn or Finn’s, we were in LA, only schlepping up to San Fran every third week, when Connor gave us no choice.

“But do we have to get tacos nearly every time it’s your turn?” Connor complained.

“They’re reliable,” I said. I’d chosen Sharkies today, as I often did. From the outside, the place looked like a questionable dive. Inside? Best tacos in all of LA.

Finn hemmed. “You just like that it’s close to work.”

Okay, yeah. It was only a few blocks from the office, which meant lunch was a quick affair for me. I liked convenience almost as much as I liked reliability—so sue me.

“How’s Grace?” I asked, catching Connor’s eye. I hadn’t seen my seven-year-old niece in almost a month, and I knew Connor’s ongoing divorce was wearing on him and his daughter, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

Connor gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Missing her favorite uncle.”

Finn snorted. “As if. We all know I’m the favorite. ”

“It’s currently Liam,” Connor said with a hint of a smile. A hint was the most we got out of him these days. “Since he comes over and plays that ridiculous farming sim with her.”

Finn wrinkled his nose. “I don’t understand the appeal.”

“We’re raising an army of sheep,” I said. “Don’t question our tactics.”

“I got that damn cat she insisted I get.”

I snorted at that. After visiting Uncle Finn’s place for the first time, Grace had declared that he needed to have a pet. And not just any pet, the hairless variety. “Complete with wardrobe.”

“Lord Meowington gets cold,” Finn informed me and I laughed at that. Grace had all of us wrapped around her little finger and we were fine with it.

Connor’s barely there smile faded. Outwardly, he was playing it cool, trying to keep things light for our sakes, but the cracks were there if you knew where to look.

And as the oldest, I did.

The way he rubbed his fingers together as he talked, a stress reaction from childhood, the extra shadows under his eyes…Divorce was like being forced to walk over glass, history shattering into a million pieces, and Connor was walking barefoot.

Finn flagged down our waitress, shooting her his typical flashy smile.

The kind that could have sold water to a drowning man.

Finn “The Face” Lockhart had come out of the womb oozing charm, and he wielded it like a weapon.

My mother said that even back then the nurses couldn’t stop fawning over him.

He was the king of networking—the guy who could turn a board meeting into his personal fan club.

“Can we do the trio platter?” Finn asked the waitress, his voice smooth. “And a round of horchata for everyone?”

“Will that be corn or flour tortillas?”

Finn swept his hand back through his hair, and the poor girl’s eyes glazed over like she’d just walked through a cloud of pheromones. “Why don’t you surprise us?” he said, giving her a wink that should come with a warning label.

She wandered away, half dazed, to put our order in.

I shook my head. “Can you try not to flirt with everything that moves? ”

Finn turned off the charm like a light switch—a sight that never stopped being weird to me, no matter how many times I saw him do it. Though admittedly, him turning on the charm weirded me out even more, given that I knew what a grumpy type A brat he truly was at heart.

How he managed to tuck his true self away and turn into some kind of Prince Charming on cue baffled me, as if I’d watched him squeeze into a suit five sizes too small.

Part of me couldn’t help admiring how he’d pulled off something that seemed impossible…

but the rest of me couldn’t stop asking why the hell he’d even want to when it looked so uncomfortable.

“Well,” he huffed, “how long does it take to get your damn order taken? I’d like to eat sometime today.”

Connor’s lips twitched. “You should probably take Liam’s advice in case the paps are lurking around the corner.”

Finn’s jaw clenched.

“What?” Connor said. “Even you have to agree that starring in one tabloid scandal is enough per year.”

Finn huffed, but he massaged his eyes. I knew the pictures of him and that actress that had gone viral were still fresh enough to sting. “This damn story just won’t go away.”

“Tell me about it,” Connor said. “I’m dreading the day Grace finds one of those tabloid magazines, and I have to explain it to her.”

A different waitress reappeared with our drinks, and I shifted the conversation to semi-safer topics. “How’s Mom?” I asked Connor.

Ever since we were kids, he’d always been the best one to answer that question.

And it was truer than ever now that he was the only one of us who lived near Mom.

She and I talked regularly, but it was mostly just to check in—make sure she was all right, ask if she needed anything.

Connor was the one she really talked to.

“Actually, pretty good lately,” he said. “Nearly finished with her dissertation. Playing tennis with a ladies’ group on the weekends. And she’s taken up drawing.”

“She signed up for a nude drawing class, right?” Finn cut in, wearing a smirk.

My eyes almost bugged out of my head.

“ They’re not nude,” Connor said. “The model is.”

“Same difference.”

“Which part is Mom doing?” I asked, horrified.

Finn burst out laughing. “As long as she’s having a good time, who cares? She’ll probably end up flaking on it in the end, anyway.”

Connor frowned, annoyed. “She’s been doing really well lately, you know.”

“Sure,” Finn said with a dismissive wave. “She’s great. Until she’s not anymore.”

Connor didn’t have an argument against that. None of us did.

We all remembered what it had been like when we were growing up. Back then, we were happy just to have days when Mom could be considered functional—which meant she got out of bed without prompting, showered and dressed, and went to work. Those were the good days.

On bad days, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Sometimes didn’t eat.

According to Mom’s doctors, depression was probably something she’d struggled with her whole life. Low-level, quiet, easy to miss. But when Dad left? It detonated. She shattered, and it took years—decades—to gather the pieces.

Getting her the hell out of the house she’d once shared with Dad had been an important step—and her new house was the first thing I’d bought when VeriTV really took off and the money started coming in. First big check, first priority.

Psych care. Meds. Therapy. It all helped. It felt like we were finally getting the chance to see her bloom into the woman she should have been all along. The one buried under grief and survival.

She’d made incredible progress…but progress didn’t always move forward in a straight line. There were still plenty of things that could trigger her in exactly the wrong way, pushing her into another depressive episode.

So we were always watching.

Always waiting.

“The anniversary is coming up,” Finn pointed out, “so I’d rather her be in a good mood.”

That was fair. Her wedding anniversary was always a tough day for her.

“We should probably take turns checking in on her around that time,” Connor said. “Hopefully, we can keep her distracted.”

So there are no hiccups went unsaid.

“The last thing we want is Mom in a funk,” Finn said flatly.

The door opened, and a group of people waltzed in, chatting animatedly. I looked over, spotting Mia and the other writers. Shit .