Wilder

“Well, let me know when you’re in charge of Wilder Enterprises, and then we can have this conversation again. Until then, I have a contract with Dad.”

His eyes widened.

“You didn’t know?” A childish thrill of victory brought a smirk to my face. “I assumed that was how you discovered what we were up to.”

“Your asinine zip-line got posted to YouTube. Once I saw that, all I had to do was inquire as to Bobby’s whereabouts to find you.”

“How many hits do we have?” I asked. Please be over a million. We needed the boost to market the film.

He shook his head. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about. Your stupid fucking tricks, and medals, and video games, and the Renegades.”

“Sorry you don’t have your own video game yet. I’ll let you know when they come up with Corporate Asshole Three, okay? I know a couple guys who will slip you in.”

“Grow the fuck up. Dad indulged you with every stupid thing you thought would be fun, and he looked the other way with the tattoos, the piercings, the women, even dropping out last year—”

“Hey, it was only one piercing, and I took it out.”

“But now you’re blowing how much money on this project? Risking how many lives? For Christ’s sake, Dad had to buy the ship. You couldn’t finish college like a man, you had to make a movie out of it?”

My fingers dug into the upholstery on the chair, wishing just once I could beat the shit out of my straightlaced, clean-cut, Wharton-Business-graduating older brother. But I loved the asshole, so I kept my shit in check. “Why are you really here, Brandon?”

He leaned back. “Dad is passing the company to me.”

“Bullshit. There’s no way he’s stepping down. He’s given up way too much for that company to walk away.” Things like his marriage.

“The signs are there. He’s shifting assets, buying property.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You came all the way over here to tell me that there are signs he’s passing the company to you?”

“No, I came because I was already in London,” he said with a slow smile. “And you may be a jackass, but I miss you.”

“You’re not going to fight to shut me down?”

He shook his head. “Not if you have a contract with Dad. That’s beyond even my control. Want to share the terms?”

“A little annoyed that you don’t already know them?” I guessed.

“Yes.” He sighed and loosened his tie, then ran his fingers over his hair, jacking up the professional gel job. Now he looked more like my brother and less the corporate stooge he’d turned into these last few years.

“The boat, getting UCLA to sponsor the Study at Sea program…we had different goals.”

“Dad’s is to get you through college.”

I flinched. “Yeah, I know, and I used that against him to get what I wanted. I’m not proud, but it was the only way I could get the movie made. So we both gave what we didn’t want to get what we needed.”

“So you have learned the art of business,” Brandon said with a salute of his glass. “Why is this movie so important to you? It’s not like you’re hurting for money or fame.”

“Nick is. And it’s not about the fame or the money. It’s about the team, and Nick still being crucial to it.”

Brandon’s breath left in a hiss, and he took a long pull of the beer. “That’s not your fault. It wasn’t your fault when it happened, and it’s not your fault now.”

“Fault and responsibility are two different things.”

He stared at me the same way Dad did when he was making an assessment. “Okay. And your grades?”

“If I fail my classes, he pulls the plug.”

“Harsh.”

“It’s harsher for my tutor. If I fail my classes, her scholarship is yanked.”

“Now there’s responsibility for you. Anyone I know?”

I hesitated. Leah was mine. Not in the possessive sense, but in simply knowing about her. What we had—whatever it was—was ours. The minute I told him who she was, Brandon had something to use against me.

Trust him.

“The girl on the beach,” I answered. “Leah.”

I had to applaud his poker face; he didn’t even blink. “The one I saw you kissing? Do you think it’s smart to fu—”

“Watch it,” I warned softly. Damn it, that’s why you should have kept your lips to yourself. But she’d kissed me, all soft and happy, and that first touch was enough to break me. I’d almost succeeded in keeping that wall between us, but she’d tasted so damn good.

His head tilted slightly. “Okay. Well, is she qualified? I mean to tutor you, not the other stuff.”

“Very. She goes to Dartmouth, and she’s brilliant, stubborn, and driven.” And mine. Damn, that was the second time my brain had gone all primal about Leah in the last five minutes. When had that instinct kicked in?

When you decided to say fuck the consequences and kiss her back. Or maybe when you protected her from the cameras, or when she first agreed to the zip-line.

The only thing I knew for certain was that it didn’t matter when—it only mattered how I was going to convince her to take a chance on us. Us. Yeah, I’d just thought that. Us. I thought it again to try it on for size.

Shit, I was ignoring Brandon.