“You’re damn right I am,” Griffin snapped. Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he rose, withdrew the copy of the deed and slapped it onto the desk. “Why?”
He didn’t need to elaborate. Joshua would know exactly to what he referred. His father’s legal claim on the property that Griffin had been negotiating to purchase for three months. The parcel of land behind a hospital in Florida that Joshua shouldn’t know about. And since the piece of property wasn’t large enough to build a high-rise or shopping outlet on, Joshua shouldn’t have any interest in it. But the deed with Joshua’s name on it rejected that belief. His father had somehow swooped in and stolen the land out from under Griffin.
Rage that hadn’t abated since he’d first opened the envelope and read the summons to return home, swirled in his chest like a tornado gaining power and strength with each rotation. A power play. He recognized it. Had witnessed Joshua employing it on his business opponents. Now he’d used it against him—his own son.
“It’s business, Griffin. Not personal.” His father tsked, the corner of his mouth curling into a slight sneer. “No wonder your,” a pause, “companyhasn’t maximized its potential if you can’t separate the two.”
“Bullshit.” He narrowed his eyes, not betraying the bright flash of pain Joshua’s jab at not just Griffin’s business, but his ability to run it caused to radiate in his chest. “This is as personal as it gets. Somehow you found out I was bidding on this land, and then decided to buy it out from under me.” The deed revealed Joshua had paid twenty-five thousand dollars more than Griffin’s offer to the seller. Fifteen thousand more than what the land appraised for. “I’ve never known you to make a deal that didn’t benefit you in some way. And after a week of pondering what you could possibly want with a piece of land behind a regional hospital in the middle of Bumfuck, Florida and coming up with nothing, your reason must have something to do with me. So what do you want, Joshua? Enlighten me so I can tell you to fuck off, and we can go back to our normal habit of pretending the other doesn’t exist.”
“Watch your mouth, boy,” Joshua growled, slowly standing, a muscle jumping along his jaw. “I’m still your father, and you will give me respect.”
Griffin snorted.Like hell. Respect was earned not commanded. And his father had lost his long ago. Aside from the very rare family obligation that dragged him to Houston, like his mother’s birthday celebration a few months back, he made it his personal ambition and goal to maintain at least a three-state distance between him and his father. They’d never gotten along. Even when Griffin had been a child, it’d been his older brother and “Irish twin”, Josh, who’d garnered Joshua’s attention. Griffin, the “spare” to Josh’s “heir”, had been an afterthought in birth and affection. Not to mention, Josh was their father’s mini-me in appearance and personality. Father and son drew people to them with their affability, flawless mannerisms and perfection. While Griffin, the only blonde haired and blue-eyed child, with his wildness, brooding and tendency to offend with his blunt honesty, had differed from his father and brother in everything but stubbornness. In that trait, they were identical.
Joshua had barely tolerated Griffin, and Griffin—desperate for his father’s approval and regard, but always hurt by seeming to fall short—had lived by the motto that any attention, even negative, was good attention.
Until the moment when he’d interrupted Joshua screwing his girlfriend, and Griffin just stopped giving a fuck.
The betrayal hadn’t been about the girl; at twenty-four, she’d been the latest in a long line of “latests.” It hadn’t even been about his father’s lack of fidelity to his wife, Griffin’s mother. Joshua’s affairs had been an ill-kept secret in their family—as in not a secret at all. But Griffin’s mother, Audrey, turned a blind eye to her husband’s infidelity and would never leave him, so Griffin had pretended to ignore them as well.
No, the pain, disillusionment and rage had been about his father’s lack of loyalty. His utter disregard for his own son’s hurt. Joshua’s countless sermons about the honor of being a Sutherland, about integrity and allegiance to family… It’d all been reduced to sugar-coated shit.
“That ship not only sailed, it was torpedoed and blown to hell and back.” Curling his lip in a derisive sneer, he leaned forward, his palms planted on the top of his father’s desk. “Now, how about we just discuss why you requested my presence. Because we both know that’s all this is.” He flicked the deed across the glass. “A way of getting me to come to Houston on your terms.”
“You’re wrong, Griffin.” The annoyed frown cleared from his father’s face, a calm, detached note entering his voice. Both sowed a kernel of dread in Griffin’s gut. “That property is beneficial to me. The hospital would eagerly pay me a monthly leasing fee if I cleared the land and turned it into a parking lot. Guaranteed profit for me and convenience for them. Win-win.”
With Herculean effort, Griffin schooled his features to reveal nothing. Not the panic that sizzled through him. Or the fury that clawed at him like a caged beast. Both would betray the importance of the land to Joshua. And only a fool would expose his vulnerable underbelly to a predator.
“Or…”
“Now we’re getting down to it,” Griffin drawled. “Or what, Joshua? What do you want?”
“Or you can agree to stay in Houston for the next month, and at the end of that time, I will deed the property over to you.”
“And if I don’t?”
His father cocked his head to the side, his dark gaze unflinching. Unrepentant. “Then I pave it over into a parking lot, contact the hospital and negotiate with them.”
A crimson haze hijacked his vision, a fist of suffocating rage tightening around his throat. For several seconds, he didn’t reply, attempting to rein in his anger. Or at least not let his father glimpse it. “Blackmail?” He arched an eyebrow. “That’s a new low even for you.”
“Bargaining,” Joshua corrected. “I have something you want, and you have something I need in return. How badly do you want this property?”
Badly. But damn if Griffin would ever admit that to him.
“Not enough to abandon my company and the people who depend on me for a month. You might think my business is second rate, but it’s mine. And I’m not going to be away from it for that long.”
A scowl darkened his father’s face. “You belong here, working with your family, not playing across the country. I’ve given you plenty of time to come to that realization yourself.”
“You’ve given me nothing. I’ve earned and worked hard for everything I have, and didn’t ask you for anything. And that’s what sticks in your craw, doesn’t it, Joshua? You thought I would come crawling back to you within a year.” He straightened, balled his fingers into fists next to his thighs. “What is it that you need? If you wanted me to come home more often, all you had to do was ask.” His father didn’t want him home any more than Griffin wanted to be there. The telephone worked both ways, and in the years Griffin had been gone, Joshua hadn’t dialed once.
“I’m running for governor, and though the election isn’t until November—five months from now—we’ve already started solidifying my platform, image and branding. Several informal polls have indicated family values is one of the most important concerns for voters. They want a governor who has strong morals—”
Griffin snorted.
“—is Christian and supports and exhibits the traditional, American family,” Joshua finished with a glare. “We have several important events planned in the next month, and I need my family to attend them.”
“So you want to dupe the people of Texas into believing the Sutherlands are one big, happy, loving family.” He shook his head. “This is fucking ridiculous. You’re blackmailing me into staying here so you can lie to the same people who would vote you into office.”
“Grow up, Griffin,” Joshua snapped, slashes of red staining his cheekbones.
