MORE THAN HE PAID FOR

Chapter7: Ashford

“I don’t know why you don’t come and visit me more often.”

I look around my brothers solemn, black and slate-themed office, twenty floors high. CEO of his own investment firm. “Because you insist on having an office like a super-villains lair.”

Sol laughs, slapping his black onyx desk. The huge, platinum designer watch and his beaming smile the only brightness. “Well your face is hardly cheering the place up! What’s the matter?”

“I’m fine.”

I’m not fine. It’s Monday. Almost three days since I slept with Cora. Paid and left Cora.

Yet I cannot get her off my mind. Not because I want another night like Friday. But I know now, I shouldn’t have left. Seeing her cellphone just sent me spiralling.

Her beaming smile, snuggled in with a man as her lock screen. The anniversary so many messages mentioned. Why was she willing to sleep with me if she had a perfect life already in place?

Too many questions. I shouldn’t want the answers but my brain won’t stop churning it over. How sad she looked in the bar even though she was dressed like pure temptation. How her honey-coloured hair felt like silk through my fingers.

How I want to be dragged into a room by my f*****g belt strap a lot more often.

“Ashford?” Sol checks.

“I said I’m fine.”

My brother points a finger accusingly. “No. You’re brooding.”

“That’s what you’re meant to do in a lair isn’t it?”

Standing up from his desk our resemblance is clear. I’m taller, dressed in a slate gray suit, tailored around my wider shoulders with a white, open-collared shirt.

Sol, his dark eyes just as fierce and mine, sporting a bit more designer stubble wears all an all black suit around his narrower build.

“So,” Sol says, leaning against his desk, fussing with his glass of water. “I’ve got some news.”

“Is it Dad? I saw on his notes they were trying him with a new drug?”

“Whatever they’re giving him now, he claims it’s taken nearly all the pain away. He’s nearly always lucid too. He recognises Lucinda.”

“That might not be a good thing,” grimacing at the memory of him shouting how he would never tolerate another woman living in his house. Not after losing our mother. A vow he’d stuck to for twenty years.

He had not anticipated a, feisty, fifty-year old nurse with a perm the size of a beach ball who forced him to eat, dress and keep active. “I thought I brought you two up to be no-nonsense,” he grumbled to us privately the last time we were all together. “I’m being railroaded into my own grave by that woman.”

“Dad…she’s caring for you.”

Our father, doing his best to be upright and proud, sat in bed wearing red silk pyjamas during the day, just stared at his wedding photo.

“We’ve all got each other,” I offered, rubbing Sol’s shoulder.

“Of course, always. Three of us. In this together.”

My dad just shook his head, the gray streaks in his black hair breaking my heart all over again. I’d never considered him being old. Now I’m having to adjust to the idea he never will be. “No, I mean where are your partners, your wives! Your soulmates.”

“Dad…” but it’s a topic he’s only gotten fiercer about. With fire in his dark eyes he’d waved his arms, slapping the bed sheets.

“I’m serious. I nursed your mother and it was a privilege. It was love! And I know she would have done the same for me. Without question. Now Lucinda is…an employee. It’s not the same. You boys need love in your lives.”

Furrowing my brow, the space between Sol and I loses its friendly vibe.

No doubt we are bothe both silently replaying that f*****g awful meeting with the quiet, spectacle-wearing specialist. The one who recommended hiring the loud, always singing, overbearing Lucinda as his live-in nurse immediately.

Our father, a titan of a man. Overruled at every turn now. The source of our drive and ambition and dark eyes. Our sun, sky and shining star is dying. There was no sugar-coating his diagnosis. Less than a year, the specialist said, after just a few clicks of his mouse.

A cancer that spread its way through him without detection until far beyond the point of rescuing.

I’m not ashamed to admit Sol and I drank the bar dry that night after Dad told us to leave him to think things over. Headed to a dive bar and drank until words failed, tears fell and we collapsed. One night of utter desolation and despair.

But not a moment more. We picked ourselves up, manned the f**k up and haven’t let our father down for a second since.

Shaking my head, I drink the ice-cold water in one go, hoping it will shock my brain back into reality. “Sorry, I interrupted you,” I say, holding up a hand. “You had your own news?”

“It’s a good one,” Sol says. And it must be, the smile is creeping back up his face. His dark eyes twinkle with excitement. He’s got a face that makes investors feel like they’re in for a hell of a time.

I’ve never had as much daring as Sol. My career in risk management couldn’t suit me more. Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to not have a care in the world.

“Go on. You’ve bought another Bugatti? Won a poker tournament?”

“I’m getting married.”

Okay he wins. I am shocked into silence. His grin is a full smile of victory.

“I did it this weekend. Proposed to Blair, I mean. Yeah, did the whole down on one knee, speech. Took her on a hot air balloon at sunset, could see the whole city twinkling for her then pulled out a rock the size of a strawberry. She almost fainted.”

I bet she f*****g did. They’ve only been together six months. Blair Kennicks. One of his former secretaries.

“Sol-”

“I don’t want to hear anything but congratulations,” he warned. “Dad’s right. I’m going to be thirty in a few years. I want children, I want family. I want everything he’s taught us about. I’m ready. So is Blair.”

“She is?” Somehow the pouting, blonde who enjoys cocktails, shopping, towering stilettos and limousines doesn’t seem the settling down type. I haven’t made an effort to know her because I assumed she’d fizzle out like the rest once Sol realised they were shallow gold-diggers.

I stand up and look into my brother’s eyes. He’s happy. Really f*****g happy.

“She is Ash. It’’s the real deal.”

We share a tight, genuine hug.

My heart hurts. It’s a mixture of fear, surprise, jealousy and admiration that Sol, yet again just takes what he wants from the world and makes it work.

“Congratulations brother. I mean it. I want you to be happy.”

We part, holding each other’s shoulders. Sol winks. “Best man?”

“Damn right.”

“That’s my main job sorted then, just got to try on some suits now,” he chuckles. “And I know you and Blair haven’t had a chance to really get to know each other yet-”

Somewhere outside the office women laugh loudly. It’s enough to distract us for a second.

“You’re right. But I’ll make time now. ’ll make sure I’m at the Hamptons over summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Obviously everything with Dad-”

“That’s the other thing. Dad’s condition,” Sol says, gripping my shoulders a little tighter. “I want him there, I want him to see me take the step. So we’re getting married in two months. First weekend in August. Caribbean, somewhere.”

The ground still feels a little unsteady beneath my feet. Two months?

“So, get your ass back on those dating websites and bring a girl with you, yeah?”

The girls higyh-pitched laughter breaks through again. Before I can point out I intend to remain single for a while Sol pushe his double doors open. “What’s going on out here?”

Three women and half a dozen men are crowded around one young woman’s desk. One of the women, a platinum-haired ice queen in a minidress that would turn heads on a Saturday night has a face like thunder. Everyone else is bright pink with mirth.

“What is it? Tell me now,” Sol snaps.

“Sir, Mr Hawthorne…Matt Elliott missed his 9am meeting.”

“He what?”

“We got cover, but when we checked the voicemails we…I can’t say it….” blushing raspberry.

I stand behind Sol and watch as he slowly strides over, takes charge of the keyboard and mouse and selects the voicemails.

“Hey, uh, it’s Matt Ellis. I’m trying to get in touch with Mr Hawthorne, you see…I…oh god!” before a horrific noise like someone bought a fart machine rips through the air.

Sol raises an eyebrow but presses play on the next one.

“I NEED TO GET A MESSAGE TO MR HAWTHORNE! I’VE BEEN POISONED! LAXATIVES! I CAN’T STOP SHITTING! I found an old brick of a phone my ex forgot about so I can call you. Someone call me back! I don’t know this number…I don’t know anyone's number apart from your work line, Kayleigh! 911 thought I was a prank!”

The next message and even Sol is fighting a smile.

“Hey, don’t worry. It’s Matt again. I got out of the apartment. My ex…the b***h, she locked me in, she took my clothes. The toilet paper! Everything! But don’t worry I’ve stopped shitting now. It’s almost over. I mean…I need a shower, I need some clothes. But then, but then I’ll be at work. Okay! I know how important this meeting is and I will be there! I just need a cab to take me…fuck my wallet, I’ve no money! KAYLEIGH! I WILL BE THERE! Oh f**k…” before another sickening squelch ends the call.

“Jesus christ,” Sol mutters. “Call him back and tell him to take the rest of the week off to sort his s**t out. The man sounds deranged.”

“IT’S NOT FUNNY!” The platinum blonde shrieks before running out of the office. I’m guessing that’s Kayleigh.

Sol and I walk back into his office and let them laugh. “Girl took the toilet paper and his clothes? She sounds dangerous,” Sol chuckles. “He said ex, so that cannonball is single now, you never know, she could be your wedding date!”

“Can you imagine! I'll be staying single on purpose just to avoid her,” I laugh back.