Page 79 of The Rebel

“Don’t worry, Daisy,” He pulled me closer so my hip pressed against his. “I’ll protect you from the big bad alligators.”

We both laughed at that.

“Oh, I’d like to see you try,” I teased, then thought better of it. “Actually, you know what? I don’t want to see you do anything with an alligator.”

“Damn, you’re cute.” He kissed the side of my head before straightening up and focusing on the wheel.

“So, back to your grandfathers. Have they always liked fishing?”

“Yes. But I think after retiring, they made a conscious decision to seriously dedicate themselves to the sport, mostly so they wouldn’t be tempted to get involved with the conglomerate.”

“That would be bad?” I was confused.

“There’s an agreement in my family that once the next generation takes over, the previous one steps back—allthe way back.They did that decades ago so my father could take the reins. And my father completely stepped away when my brothers and I started working.”

“That’s smart.” It made sense to allow the next group to take the reins. Markets changed, and a new outlook on things was important.

He nodded. “But also incredibly hard. The thought of one day stepping away from everything is scary. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Handing over the key, so to speak, of the whole music branch to my kids would be a very proud moment indeed.”

“So, youhavethought about having kids,” I said, as at the jazz festival, Anthony made it sound as though he wasn’t interested.

“Not really.” He glanced at me, winking. “I’ve never felt pressured to think about it too much. I figure it’ll probably happen, but honestly, there are enough of us LeBlancs for The Orleans Conglomerate to have heirs who aren’t mine.”

“Would you be disappointed if you had kids and they didn’t want to work in the company?” I always wondered if my parents were put out that I didn’t want to be on the farm. I’d asked them a few times, and they didn’t seem to mind, but you never knew.

“Not at all. I’d be curious to see what else they’d want to do.” He smiled, then shook his head, as if he was having a silent conversation with himself.

He pulled me in front of him, putting my hands on the steering wheel and kissing my neck from behind.

“Until today, I didn’t even give any thought to having a family,” he murmured against my skin, and everything inside me went soft.

“You didn’t?” I whispered.

“No. This is the first time I’ve considered it. I’m a happy guy, doing… what I do best.” He smiled devilishly.

“Man-whoring?” I guessed.

He groaned. “I don’t like the sound of that, but yeah, I guess. Now here we are, talking about?—”

The sound of a phone buzzing interrupted us.

“That’s me,” he said, taking the phone out of his pocket, “It’s Grandpa David,” he told me, then put it to his ear with a frown. “Hey, Grandpa.”

I couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end, but Anthony started to laugh. “No one stole the boat. I’m out on it. I didn’t know you were planning to use it. You said you were doing something else this weekend.” He paused to listen. “Sure, I’ll be on the shore in about half an hour.”

My stomach lurched. I was going to meet his grandfathers. Oh man, what were they going to think?

After pocketing the phone, Anthony glanced at me.

“Sorry, we need to cut this short. My grandfathers changed their mind about fishing.”

“Are they going to be mad that I’m on their boat?”

“Daisy, relax. No one in my family would get mad about that. Besides, you’ve met my grandmothers. You really think they’d marry men who got upset over something like that?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “You’re right. They wouldn’t. But how are we going back in half an hour if it took us two hours to get here?”

“I’ll take a shortcut. You can’t tell unless you know the area well, but I’ve taken several detours to make our trip longer.”