Worth Waiting For
Authors: Vanessa Devereaux
Evernight
Publishing
Copyright© 2012 Vanessa
Devereaux
ISBN:
978-1-77130-112-1
Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor:
Melissa
Hosack
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal.
No part of this book may be
used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For
Kathleen
Devereaux
WORTH WAITING FOR
Vanessa
Devereaux
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
“I’m sick and tired
of waking up and seeing this crap in my newspaper!”
Brock had never seen
his father in this sort of rage…ever. If the overturned chair was any
indication, his behavior had finally pushed his dad over the edge of sanity.
Too much work, not enough play!
His father swung
around from the window and looked directly at Brock.
Holy shit, he’d never
realized his father had so many veins in his forehead. At this very moment all
of them were pulsating in sequence like some type of arcade game. Brock hoped
the old guy wasn’t on the verge of having a stroke or heart attack.
“So, what do you have
to say for yourself?”
Brock coughed while
looking at the paper again. The photographer hadn’t captured his
best
side. At four in the morning not even George Clooney
had one of those. He hadn’t been aware anyone had spotted him sneaking out of
the club alongside the woman in the photo with him, let alone that she was
famous.
He usually avoided
those types, knowing the consequences of being tabloid fodder, and hence his
father finding out he’d been club-hopping yet again. Perhaps it had been his
deer caught in the headlights look that upset the old man so much. Or maybe
that the tattoo of the family crest he’d gotten last year, also to his father’s
dismay, was plastered across the front page. If he remembered correctly his dad
had called it tacky.
And if all this
wasn’t bad enough, he’d somehow lost one of their key accounts last week. Brock
knew it wasn’t
all
his
fault because their competitors were offering better terms. However, trying to
convince his dad of the reason was an uphill battle.
“I’m still waiting
for an answer.”
I’m still waiting for one, too.
His father, struggling,
attempted to turn his office chair back to its upright position. Each time he
tried to straighten it, the chair fell over on its side again. Yeah, imported
Italian leather chairs were fucking heavy.
“You want some help
with that?” Brock stood.
“Sit right where you
are and answer my question.” He turned the chair to its upright position but
not without causing a heavy thud on the floor, shaking the glasses in the
nearby cabinet.
“I’m sorry, but I
wasn’t away the newshounds were
around.”
Can’t
come up with
anything better than that?
Wimp.
The veins still
pulsated and the redness in his father’s cheeks seemed to be deepening.
Shit, he
is
about to have a heart attack.
“When I was your age,
I—”
Here we go; soon we’ll be at the part about how he wished I was more
like my stepbrothers. Yeah, butter wouldn’t melt in their sweet little mouths.
“I’ve given you one
too many chances,” continued his father.
Hey, that’s a new addition.
“Your grandfather
would turn in his grave if he thought you were the future of the company he worked
seven days a week to get off the ground.”
Brock glanced once
again at the photo of himself splashed on the front page. He knew he had to
stop being the party-boy soon. He was almost thirty, and he couldn’t live his
life like this much longer. One day soon he needed to consider settling down
and getting serious about taking over for his dad. Even last night’s rendezvous
with this woman wasn’t as thrilling as it once was. She’d even informed him
that she’d not enjoyed an orgasm like she had with other guys.
“I’m giving you a
test.”
Test? Did I hear my father say the word test? Shit, I better pay
attention.
“Essay or multiple
choice
?”
His father glared at
him, and he sensed it had been an inappropriate time to inject humor into their
conversation. “I’m giving you six months to turn your life around. No more parties
and going home with women who will land you on the front page of this trashy
newspaper.”
“I can do it.”
His father held up
his hand. “I’m not finished yet. I’m giving you $5,000 as a start. With that
you’re to make your own way for six months. Find a job without any family
connections. You’ll also find a place to live, and hopefully both experiences will
teach you to get your act together. We’ll see how you do. Then you can come
back here and we’ll talk some more. Should you need to return for money, for
shelter, or anything even as trivial as a new pair of socks, you will never
step foot in this company again, and upon my death one of your stepbrothers
will become its CEO.”
It was Brock’s turn
to want to overturn that leather chair. His stepbrothers were not blood, and
he’d kill them before they got to run
his
company. Being CEO of his granddad’s furniture business had been his dream
since he was five-years-old, even if at times it seemed as boring as hell. Over
his dead body would someone outside the family bloodline run
it.
Hell, he could pass the old man’s test.
“It will be a piece of
cake,” he said. Brock stood as his father opened the checkbook.
“Prove to me you’ve
got some of your grandfather’s blood running through those veins.” He slid the
signed check toward him.
Brock stared at it. How
far would that amount take you in today’s economy?
Piece of cake
?
Maybe he’d been a
bit too confident in that assessment.
***
Brock had managed to
get a ride to
if he wasn’t mistaken the boat in question was the blue one that looked like…it
needed some work. However, that wasn’t such a bad thing because it meant he’d
have more wriggle room to negotiate a lower price.
He walked along the
dock until he reached the gangplank. “Hello. Anyone on board?” he shouted.
A few minutes later a
man in his seventies with salt and pepper hair and a beard appeared on deck. “Can
I help you?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m Brock. I
phoned you about an hour ago regarding your boat that’s for sale.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I take it this is
it?”
“The
one and only.
You want to come on board and take
a look around?”
“Sure, that would be
great.” Brock jumped up on deck and shook the old man’s hand. “My first
question is why are you selling it?”
Brock took a quick
look around. Yes, it definitely needed some TLC, which meant he could offer
much lower than the asking price.
“I don’t want to. I
love this old boat, but it’s my sister. She had a stroke last week. Doctor said
she’ll need to go into an assisted living home. Well, I can’t have that. I said
I’d sell up and move in with her.”
Brock suddenly felt a
lump in his throat.
Geez,
what a nice guy to do something like that for his sibling
.
“About
the price?” he began.
“I know it’s on the
high side for what she is, but I need all the money I can get to pay for my
sister’s hospital bill. She has Medicare, but that doesn’t cover even half of
it.”
Brock swallowed the
lump in his throat. Shit, if he was a hard-nosed business guy like his dad, sob
story or not, the guy would sell him this piece of junk for half the asking
price. However, Brock wasn’t his father. He was a softy, a pushover and…. “No
problem at all. I think she’s worth every penny.”
The old man held out
his hand. “Do we have a done deal?”
“We sure do,” said
Brock, shaking it.
***
Kate squeezed the
letter into a tight ball inside her palm. That act wouldn’t make it or her
problems disappear but it was nevertheless cathartic. The choice was simple: either
take
her frustration out on the slip of paper or march
over to her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s apartment and stick a knife in his back.
Moments later, she
realized the scrunching of paper hadn’t been quite enough to get it all out of
her system, so Kate gave into the inevitable. She burst into tears.
How could David do this to me? Walk out and
leave me with this sort of debt?
