“Out with it.” She squeezes my shoulder.
“It said he was a roof—ruthless person who was a womanizing, patronizing, unscrupulous man who puts the profit before all else.”
“Well, you sure got those adjectives right.” She laughs loudly and presses a kiss to the top of my head, completely unfazed by the things I just said that I know aren’t good.
“You’re not mad?”
Mom turns and brushes my hair off my forehead and runs a hand down the side of my face. “Buddy, I’m not mad.”
“Why not? You’re mad when Callahan calls me a douchebag.”
“You’re right. I am. But that’s completely different.”
“How? Why aren’t you mad at those people who called Dad those things?”
“I am mad because they’re not true. But I don’t care if they say those things because they don’t matter.”
“Why don’t they?”
“Because the only comments, criticisms, and words that should matter to you are those that are spoken by your family.”
“You say a lot when you’re angry,” I say and then wince. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.
But my comment is met with a laugh and a ruffle of my hair. “True. I do. Most times, words spoken in anger are hurtful. I’m not talking about those kinds of words. I’m talking about ones your family says about you. How they’d describe you to a friend. It’s those kinds of comments that matter. Everything else is just noise.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“In this world, there will be a lot of people who say things about you. Good. Bad. True. Untrue. You’re a Sharpe. We’re successful, and it’s easier for people to criticize than to admire what we’ve accomplished. But at the end of the day, when you’re old like Grandpa is and are looking back at your life, it’s only what the people who you love say that matters. It’s what they think of you—as a person, as a man, as a brother, as a husband, what have you—that is important and shows the true measure of the man you are.”
“Shouldn’t you care what everyone says?”
Her smile is soft. “You can, but if your family has nothing good to say about you, if they can’t say you were a good, kind person who helped better their world, then was the way you spent your life worth it?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ford
She smirks at me from behind Roddy’s back.
Smirks at me, because hell if he didn’t almost catch us this morning.
Note to self: take away all keys from contractors. That way you won’t be caught in the act. Just finishing the act. Enjoying the act.
And Jesus, what an act it was. Her lips around my dick. Her cheeks hollowing out. Blue eyes looking up at me beneath a thick set of lashes.
There are perks to having a partner. I just never thought this might be one of them.
“Are you hearing me?” Roddy asks. I give a quick shake of my head as if to clear it from stray thoughts. But they aren’t stray at all. They’re right where I want them to be . . . despite how distracting they are.
“Yeah. Sure.” I chuckle. “We have so much going on at once, sometimes my brain goes a little haywire.”
“No shit. I’ve never seen a site trying to do so much in so little time.”
“Time is money.”
“It is, but I’ve got to hand it to Sinclair. She keeps a tight ship with her schedule and makes sure no one’s running into each other.”
“She does. We’re lucky to have her coordinating everything. This project would be chaos without her.”
Ellery flashes me a huge grin and waves her fingers before walking down the hallway.
“Yeah. Man,” Diego says as he walks up, completely oblivious to the fact that she just walked away. “What I’d do to have a piece of that. Fuck. I bet—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Roddy says, slapping the drywaller’s chest just as I’m about to say and do the same thing—or worse. Fury swims in my veins. “Bro. We don’t say shit like that. She’s not a piece of meat, and she sure as hell deserves more respect than that.”
“C’mon—”
“Diego.” My smile holds absolutely no warmth. Neither does my tone. I reach out my hand to him. “Fordham Sharpe. I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
Diego’s jaw falls lax, and his handshake needs some serious work to reflect confidence. Then again, it could be the look on my face that says I want to murder him that’s making his hand limp and his grip weak.
My last name tends to do that at times. And thank fuck for that right now.
“Sir.” He finally finds his voice and clears his throat.
“Listen. I don’t know about you, but I was raised to respect women. To admire them. To enjoy their company. Not something you ‘get a piece of.’ So, let’s make something very, very clear here.” I lean in closer, my voice low, my hand still squeezing his hard enough that I’m sure his blood might have a problem flowing to his fingertips. “If I ever hear you speak of my partner like that again, I assure you that your company will cease to exist.” His eyes widen. “Yes, I have that influence. Understood?”
Diego stares at me, his lips lax, his head nodding. “Yes, sir,” he says just above a whisper.
“Great. Glad we got that cleared up. You can go now,” I say and release his hand, which he spreads and clenches as the blood flow returns. I lift a chin toward it. “And you should probably get that circulation checked. It’s not looking too good right now.”
Diego forces a swallow down his throat and nods again as he trips over a box on the ground, then he scurries away from the balcony bar where we’re standing.
“Poor kid needs to check his drawers right now. You scared the shit out of him,” Roddy says with a chuckle. “Hopefully that will set him straight.”
“One can hope,” I murmur. “Thank you, though, for standing up for Ellery.” He just earned major points in my book.
Roddy clears his throat and his cheeks flush pink. “She’s something else.”
Um. Did I just read that right?
“She is.” I nod and turn back to the clipboard in my hands, the topic of Ellery Sinclair now over. “Now on the built-ins—”
“I figure if I can keep all the assholes away from her, maybe before I leave the project, I’ll finally shoot my shot and ask her out.”
I suddenly have a coughing fit.
Major points now completely erased.
They’re even falling into the negative about now.
Secondly, the phrase shoot my shot never sounded more fucked up than it does right now.
“Wow. Well, okay,” I say as stoically as possible while hating the fact that now one of my favorite guys on this site has now dropped rank to Diego status.
Maybe just a little above.
“Do you think I have a chance?” he asks, eyes eager, smile hopeful.
“About as good of a shot as I have”—I nudge him—“and that’s not much.”
The thought, the conversation, sticks with me the rest of the day. Through phone calls dealing with S.I.N. responsibilities. A call to our resort manager in Japan about our newest resort about to come back online after an extensive overhaul. A run-through of our new marketing campaign to see if a rebrand of our Aspen location is helping to pull in a new demographic. A check-in call with my brothers to make sure we’re all on the same page. Between hiring a new resort manager, dealing with a supply chain issue, and a possible union strike at the Napa property, this week has been challenging to say the least. It’s pertinent that we know what each other is doing or has done so we can step in for the other if need be.