"For a billion dollars she might change her mind about that."
The brothers lapsed into silence. There was nothing more to be said.
When they arrived at Drummond Tower, they made their way to the top floor to meet with their father. After a brief wait, they entered his office.
Even after all these years, it was still an intimidating experience to be called before the old man. Mr. Drummond had been an authoritarian father and after the departure of their mother, the boys had been raised at a distance from their single parent. The most expensive foreign boarding schools, then Ivy League colleges, and finally, the most elite MBA courses in the world. The boys had finally gotten to know their father better when they were at last deemed ready to serve the Drummond Corporation in a business capacity.
"Alex, Sebastian." He said. "Please sit."
The two men sat before him in the teak, mahogany, and leather-bound surroundings of the owner and CEO's office. The old man looked like he had been carved out of a single piece of rain forest wood himself. At 101 years old, he showed no sign whatsoever of giving up full control of his empire. To his advanced age, his two young sons, barely in their 30s, still looked like children in short pants. Occasionally he had moments of despair when he thought of them and the future of the Drummond Empire. The thought of all those billions amassed over decades going into decline was unbearable to him.
When his personal assistant Larry had informed him of his son's indiscretion, he had been shaken to the core. Alex was the favored one. If disaster was to strike, he had always presumed it would be his more wayward son Sebastian, the 'younger' one. His third son Joshua, although in his mid-twenties now, was so young to his mind that he rarely gave him any serious consideration.
He looked at his boys now with heavy gloom and disappointment.
It was a look that both Alex and Sebastian were used to, but today they could sense something worse. Something big was about to occur.
The men sat in silence and waited for their father to speak, just as they always did, just as they had been educated.
After ten infinitely long, tense, and almost unbearable minutes, he finally spoke.
"Well?" A fit of coughing overtook him.
"Father..." Sebastian rose to help but he waved his son back until the fit was over and then turned his gaze to his older son.
"Alex. Is it true, boy?"
Only one person in the world could make the wealthy and powerful playboy Alex Drummond, Junior feel like a scared little schoolboy again, and he was sitting in right there front of him.