Trusting the Billionaire

Chapter Eight: The Bet

"That is bullshit." Donald blurted out.

"Language," Evelyn said, sharp and automatic, the reflex of a mother who'd been correcting Donald's mouth since he could talk and had never quite managed to break the habit.

Donald didn't even look at her. His eyes were fixed on Marshall, something bright and disbelieving in them. "Nobody hides a genuine relationship. Nobody. Not for months, not from their own family."

"I am not hiding anything" Marshall said, unbothered, reaching for his water like the accusation weighed nothing at all. "I just don't owe anyone an explanation."

"That's wonderful," Evelyn managed, her voice caught somewhere between delight and the sudden, sinking awareness that she'd just spent twenty minutes praising another woman's grade-six patience in front of a girlfriend she hadn't known existed. She recovered quickly, leaning forward with the particular hunger of a mother finally getting somewhere. "What's her name? Where's she from? What does she do?"

The questions kept coming, one on top of the next, before Marshall could answer any of them.

"Mom, calm down." He almost laughed, if he'd had it in him to laugh at this table. "You'll know her name when I invite her over."

"That's because there is no girlfriend," Donald said.

"Donald, let it rest." Logan said

"No." He said it with something close to satisfaction, like he'd finally cornered something he'd been chasing for two years. "If it's not bullshit, prove it."

Everyone at the table went still everyone except Angie, who had gone pale somewhere in the last minute, her fork resting untouched against her plate. She murmured something about the restroom, pushed back her chair, and left without waiting for anyone to answer.

Their parents seemed to be reaching for words and finding none. It was Laura who tried first, her hand still on her husband's knee, her voice pitched low and careful, the tone of a woman who'd talked him down from worse than this. "Honey. Why don't we take a deep breath—"

"No," Donald said, already wearing the look of a man who believed he'd won something.

Marshall watched his brother across the table, satisfied his lie had riled him up. He never wanted to play his game of putting the other person in a bad position, but at this moment it just felt right to give back what he had been dishing out. This is where it had always been heading.

Donald want to point out that Marshall is not perfect the way the world painted him, he needed a way he could actually accomplish that, and apparently tonight has brought the opportunity.

"Thanksgiving's next month," Donald said, jabbing a finger toward him. "Bring her to family Thanksgiving. If she exists."

"Marshall, do you really have a girlfriend?" Evelyn asked, her voice softer now, almost pleading. "Angie is a lovely girl."

"I do, Mom." Marshall wiped his mouth with the table towel, slow and deliberate, and stood, and walked towards his mum pecking her on the cheek. "Thank you for dinner mum" he had lost the appetite the aroma of the food had instigated.

"And I'll bring her for Thanksgiving."

He let that sit a moment before he turned to his brother.

"But if I bring her," he said, "you step down as COO, Don."

The nickname came out strange in his own ears — he hadn't used it in months, not since it had started sounding less like affection and more like something he was clinging to out of habit, a leftover from a version of them that didn't exist anymore.

"Marshall!" Evelyn's voice cracked across the table. "We do not bet in this family."

But Donald was already on his feet, chair scraping back, meeting his brother's gaze at eye level. They were close enough in build that non could intimidate the other, although Marshall looked more muscular— same shoulders, same jaw, and an inch taller, the kind of difference you'd only notice standing exactly where their mother now stood, looking between them like she was watching something break that she couldn't put back.

"Deal, but if you fail, you step down as CEO," Donald said.

There was nothing brotherly left in his eyes. Just the flat, sharpened animosity of a man who had spent two years waiting for a fight and had finally, finally gotten one.

"Get ready to lose, little brother," Marshall said, and brushed past him toward the door.

.......

Marshall walked out to his car, keys biting into his palm, wondering if he'd played that right, or if he'd just walked straight into his brother's paws.

They'd been close once. Before the CEO position. Before every family lunch turned into a slow bleed of resentment dressed up as jokes. Donald knew he dated, casually, the way most men his age did, dinner here, a weekend there, nothing that survived past the third date. Donald did also know that Marshall had never once come close to committed. That is why he is so competent in his stance that Marshall should introduce his girlfriend at Thanksgiving next month. And now he had less than a month to conjure a woman out of thin air and make her look like the real thing.

God, how he hated relationships.

He could have just told the truth. Could have stood in that dining room and said, 'there's no one, Donald, I made it up because I was tired of you and Mum treating my life like a problem to be solved.' It would have been so much simpler. But simplicity had never once worked in his family's favor, and there was, if he looked hard enough, a bright side to the mess he'd made: his mother would stop parading candidates through the good china for at least a few weeks. Small mercies.

He got into the car and sat there a moment without starting the engine, watching the house through the windshield. Through the front window he could see Donald's silhouette, still standing, still talking, probably to their mother now, probably still furious.

The maddening thing was that Donald was good at his job. Genuinely good. COO wasn't a title their father had handed him out of pity; Donald had earned it, had the instincts for logistics and people that Marshall sometimes envied. But for two years now that talent had been leaking out of him a little at a time, corroded by the fact that the prestigious title and office had gone to his elder brother, who is already accomplished and didn't need it, instead of him. Marshall had watched it happen in the quarterly numbers before he'd ever seen it at the dinner table, deals that used to close in weeks dragging into months, a team that used to run itself now needing Donald's hand, held through every decision. It wasn't incompetence. It was distraction, dressed up as competence, running on fumes.

Marshall finally turned the key. He had four weeks to solve two problems that had nothing to do with each other and everything to do with each other: find a woman who could survive a King family Thanksgiving, and figure out how to save his brother from himself, assuming Donald would even let him try.

He pulled out of the driveway without looking back at the house.