Poor Little Rich Boy

Chapter 1It was time to read the will. Ted was grateful for the numbness that had spread through his heart and soul over the last few days. This wasn’t going to be pretty. A handful of board members filed into the conference room, spectators on behalf of MAC Superior, plus MacTaggart cousins, aunts, uncles, and other curious parties. Race MacTaggart had requested each person be present, though none expected he’d left them anything. Except his sons. Ted, the eldest, settled quietly into the seat at the right hand of the attorney—his seat for the last few years of his father’s life. Wally, the middle child, threw himself into his seat across the table and smirked at his big brother like this was some kind of party. He probably thought it was. For all Ted knew, Wally had reason to celebrate. Over the course of the last week—first, when it became clear Race MacTaggart wasn’t going to live much longer, then when he actually went and died, and then as arrangements were made, memorials were had, and burials took place—Ted had tried to prepare himself for this moment. The moment where he’d find out for certain whether his father had valued his hard work, sleepless nights, careful study more than he hated the fact that Ted was gay. Finally, Ted had reached the conclusion that there was no preparing for such a revelation. He used to drink in moderation, but for the last week, he’d self-medicated like a champ. It was the only thing that let him focus. As the lawyer, Mitcham, started talking, Ted wished for a scotch. Alas, it wasn’t that kind of party, if it was to be one at all. “Mr. MacTaggart’s will is over a decade old, but we discussed it a few days before his death, and he assured me it still held with his wishes.” Mitcham offered up a thin smile, weak and watery as Budweiser. He began to read the usual blah-blah-blahs, this and that. Ted sat, gaze fixed to Wally’s. Wally shifted his own from Ted to every other person around the table, but his infuriating smirk remained fixed. Ted wished the board members weren’t there. At least then he might’ve gotten away with smacking the smile off Wally’s face after this was over. Possibly, that was why Race had insisted board members be present. He knew his kids well enough to predict that much. Wally got these stocks and this thing. Their younger half-sister in New York, Becca—who hadn’t bothered to come—got this and that property. But after much long-winded bullshit, Mitcham came to the important bit: “I leave all my stake in MAC Superior to my son, Theodore Ansel MacTaggart—” Ted began to let out a long-held breath, but was interrupted by the rest of the sentence: “—providing he marries by his twenty-fifth birthday. The board will hold his shares in trust until he’s been married for ten years, at which point they fully revert to him. “Upon Theodore Ansel’s twenty-fifth birthday if he remains unmarried, or upon his divorce before ten years of marriage have passed, my stake in MAC Superior passes to my younger son, Wallace Reid MacTaggart, to be held in perpetuity.” Ted’s blood rushed in his ears; his face went cold. Wally laughed so loudly Mitcham had to pause in his reading to let him finish. Whatever else the will said, Ted had no idea. He couldn’t hear over the sound of his own blood. He wasn’t sure if it would’ve been better or worse if their mother had come. He couldn’t help being glad she hadn’t, all the same. * * * * “Well, we can’t contest the entire will. He made sure his mental state was noted as unimpeachably sound.” Ted heaved a sigh into the phone. “Find something. There’s no way this is legal. It’s some feudal bullshit Dad read about in a Sir Walter Scott novel or—or whatever.” “I’ll look into loopholes,” Taisha, his lawyer, replied. “I’ve seen clauses less ridiculous get overturned, but it’s a long, long, uphill battle, and your father left a lot of people on retainer. I’m not sure you know what you’d be getting into.” Yes, Ted did know what he’d be getting into, and that was about the size of it. It’d be just like Race to leave behind a team of high-paid lackeys to carry out his whims from the grave. Ted had long since gotten his own legal team, seeing as his father’s were so far up his ass they could’ve talked through his mouth. It’d mean a long legal boxing match, while Ted had a lot of more important things to worry about—like stabilizing MAC Superior in the wake of Race’s death. He had employees to reassure, production to carry on with, orders to fill all over the country. “Talk to the board, see what they need from you,” Taisha said after a moment. “They have to be satisfied it’s a real marriage and ratify it with Mitcham.” Ted felt sick. “Real marriage? What does that mean?” “As in, you legally wed yourself and really intend to live with this person and make a family.” “I don’t want kids.” “I didn’t know that.” “They’re sticky all the time.” “A family of two, then,” she said, quiet and careful, as if talking to a child. She repeated, “Talk to the Kinneys.” The board. Of course, Race couldn’t just make it easy. Of course he had to go all Bible Belt. The Kinneys, one of whom was the chairman, were right-leaning, like most rich assholes, and that wouldn’t bode well even if Ted already had someone lined up to marry. “f**k,” he muttered. “Sorry. Sorry, not your fault, Taisha. Thanks for checking it out. Just—keep looking, okay? Any loophole that might give us a shortcut, we take it.” “We will.” When Ted hung up, he collapsed into his desk until his forehead hit it, then stayed there. The clock in the corner ticked irritatingly—it had been given to him by a Chinese supplier who sold the steel MAC Superior used to make their rebar. Ted had brokered a new, extremely lucrative deal between MAC, the supplier, and a local factory to up their supply. Ted had brokered a lot of tricky s**t in the three years since he’d gotten out of business school and taken up his place at MAC, at his father’s invitation. And this was how the old bastard repaid him. Why couldn’t Wally be the one to carry on the family name, and Ted be the one to carry on the family business? Hell, Wally probably had a few kids already, scattered all over the country. “Ted?” a quiet voice came from the doorway. Ted looked up and tried to smile at Echo. They were a great assistant—a genius in their own right—and he didn’t want to take his father’s s**t out on them. “I like the suit,” he told them. They smiled, a sweet expression on a heart-shaped face. “Thanks. There’s a Ryan Costa here for you?” Ted sat up straighter. “Send him in. Thanks.” They nodded and ducked back out, and Ted ran a hand through his hair. It had flipped over when he’d face planted, and he must look like a total i***t. Not that Ryan would care—it was just Ryan—but it was still annoying. Ted might be a hot mess, but he’d be damned if he’d look like one. “Teddy,” said a familiar voice, just before a familiar face popped through the doorway. Brown-skinned, freckled, with bright, honey-colored eyes and wild curly hair that stood straight up, Ryan looked…good. Ted remembered him from high school as an irritatingly popular kid, devastatingly attractive in a teenage way. Only the word “teenage” had changed. “Come in.” Ted stood and beckoned. “What can I do for you?” “Oh, no, man, nothing like that.” Ryan came in and held out a hand. Ted took it, making a face at him. “Then…?” Ryan pulled him into a one-armed hug. Ted huffed in surprise but leaned into it after a moment. He patted Ryan’s back and hoped it didn’t seem awkward. “Been trying to get in to see you since I heard the old man died.” Ryan gave him another squeeze. He smelled of shaving cream. The skin of his cheek was baby-soft against Ted’s. Ted cleared his throat and pulled back, straightening his jacket. “Right. Well, it wasn’t exactly a surprise.” Ryan c****d his head and looked Ted in the eye. Ted’s belly did a backflip. Probably last night’s whiskey coming back to haunt him. Couldn’t be the effect of those piercing eyes. Surely not. “I know things were never great between you and him,” Ryan said, words slow and careful, as if he thought Ted breakable. “But he was still your dad. If you need anything, I’m here, man.” “Appreciated.” It was cold, too curt, but it was already out by the time Ted realized. He cleared his throat again, turned away and back to the desk. “When my dad died it was hell, but I mean, he wasn’t Race MacTaggart, either, so…” Ryan followed and settled into a chair on the other side of Ted’s desk. Ted barely repressed his irritation. Didn’t Ryan have work to do? He’d only been working at MAC for three months; surely, he had a director to impress, or something. Then again, Ryan had apparently already impressed the pants off everyone in Marketing so maybe not. Dammit. Ted sat in his own chair slowly, carefully, and tried to compose his expression. Tried to find that numbness that had gotten him through so far. “We weren’t close, no. But he still had some very specific ideas about who he wanted to inherit his empire. And it wasn’t me.” Ryan shook his head. “He didn’t leave it to Wally. No way.” It wasn’t even a question. “No, to me. But with stipulations. So…” Ted glanced at the door. “I have a lot of work to do.” “s**t. Right, sorry.” Ryan stood again. “I’ll get out of your hair.” “Thanks for stopping by,” Ted made himself say. Ryan smiled like he knew it was an act. He turned, looking strangely comfortable in the tweed blazer he liked to wear to work now the weather had gotten chilly. Born to be a professor—or a research nerd. He paused by the door. Ted followed the tilt of Ryan’s head to find what had caught his attention. The whiskey decanter. Empty. One glass turned upward, obviously dirty. Ted cleared his throat, face flushing hot. Ryan turned back. “I know we haven’t been close since, like high school. But maybe we could go out sometime. To memorialize or celebrate or catch up, or whatever? This weekend?” “Too hard to say, just now.” Ted kept his face still, his voice level. Ryan nodded. “Well, you know where to find me. I’d love to, though.” Ted believed him. It was a strange sensation, believing something said to him in this office. Unable to find the words, he just nodded in reply. When Ryan finally left and shut the door behind him, Ted slid farther down into his seat and picked up his phone. “Echo?” “Yeah, Ted?” “Please get me another bottle of Talisker. It’s going to be a long day.” “Sure thing.” * * * * By evening, Ted was wishing he hadn’t kicked Ryan out so quickly. His phone never stopped ringing: exes and old acquaintances and business associates, and mixed in with all of their condolences was the promise of something in it for them. Teddy MacTaggart is about to be the next CEO and owner of MAC Superior, the largest supplier of building materials in the Midwest. Better remind him he knows us and we’re friends. Ted didn’t have friends, though. He’d been bad at making them in school, and he’d raced through undergrad and business school at an accelerated pace that rarely allowed for socializing. Thank God. No, Wally had done enough for both of them in that department. Wally did whatever the hell he wanted. And now all he had to do to get it all, everything Ted had worked for, was wait for Ted to screw up. It’d be a disaster, and everyone knew it. Race MacTaggart had known it, the board at MAC knew it, anyone who’d ever met Wally knew it. He’d drive the company into the ground, leaving thousands unemployed in Dayton and even more in the satellite offices. Leaving families who’d depended on them for fifty years, in some cases, high and dry. Either that, or Wally would sell the whole operation to the highest bidder, some venture capital assholes who’d bring in their own people, turn out all of theirs, and sell it again at a profit. If Taisha and her people couldn’t come up with a loophole…maybe Ted would have to get married. The ten years he had to stay married—definitely a stipulation meant to produce babies—were a sacrifice he could make. He’d sacrificed everything else, after all. Why not a little more? Piling his time and effort on the altar of his father’s insatiable black hole of an ego was practically his job, at this point—why should it be different now Race was dead? No. It was unthinkable. He couldn’t and absolutely wouldn’t. That night, a whiskey-soaked sleep kept the usual racing thoughts at bay, if not the whiskey-ghost dreams. He dreamed of Ryan laughing at him, of Wally smirking at him, of Echo turning on him. He dreamed of Ryan hugging him, but this time, Ted held onto him. Reveled in the weird sensation of being touched, held. He jerked awake on his office couch, breathing hard. Race had made that will a decade ago, before marriage equality in the US. Ted smiled. The will hadn’t said Ted had to marry a woman. * * * * “Find me someone to marry,” Ted said, straightening his thin tie in the mirror. “Very funny,” Echo replied, holding their clipboard aloft. “Did you sleep here again, Ted?” “Yep. Lots to do,” Ted assured them. “I’m not joking. I need someone—not a woman, but any other gender or lack thereof will do.” “I thought you were into men?” they asked. “Yes, but this isn’t someone for me to love. This is someone who will marry me in return for a very large chunk of money now, and then another at the end of ten years.” Echo frowned. “That’s kinda sick.” “No sicker than forcing your son to marry in order to get his rightful inheritance.” Ted said it in the most upbeat, cheerful way imaginable. “Oh no. I hoped that was just a rumor.” Of course, it was all over the place by now. Wally would’ve run his mouth, and who knew what the rest of the family had said. The board were loyal to Race’s memory, but no one else who’d ever met him would be. The board were the only ones who got anything worthwhile out of him in life, and even then, it was only money. It wasn’t the money Ted wanted. It was the opportunity to do things right. To make the people who’d worked for and stuck by his family proud. To show everyone what he was really about—and that he was nothing like his father. Ted had worked too, dealt with his father’s emotional abuse and neglect day in and out for twenty-four long f*****g years. He wanted vindication. He wanted what was owed. And he was going to have it. “I’m serious. Five-hundred thousand now, five-hundred thousand after five years, another million after ten. I’ll sign a prenup and everything. But it can’t be a woman.” “Because that’s what your father intended?” “Got it in one.” “I don’t know…it feels so cold,” Echo said. “Money always is.” Echo rolled their eyes. “Easy for you to say. You have it.” “And I’m willing to spend it.” He turned from the mirror and looked them in the eye. “I need someone willing to marry before the end of April, then stay married to me for ten years. I’ll make it worth their while. They don’t have to do anything but show up to MAC events with me a few times a year—and I’ll get that in the prenup too. They can ask for whatever they want. Neither of us will be bound to fidelity or anything annoying like that. Pure business.” “Ted…” “It could be you,” he pointed out. “Want to get married?” They sighed. “No.” “Didn’t think so. Would’ve been too easy.” Ted shrugged and went to his decanter near the door. “Start brainstorming. We have four months until my twenty-fifth birthday.”