Page 26 of A Bossy Surprise

I sigh inwardly as he picks up the intercom on the counter in front of him and calls Lucas.

“Good evening, Mr. Wood. I have a Mr. Adam Grant here for you. He says you’re expecting him?”

Lucas says something over the phone and the young man nods and hangs up.

“Mr. Wood has asked me to send you up.” He points at the bank of elevators just over my shoulder. “Just take the elevator to the top most floor. It opens into the penthouse.”

“Thank you.” I smile then walk away.

I have to admit, I half expected Lucas to tell the receptionist to tell me to go fuck myself, but I’m glad he didn’t.

I don’t know what to expect when I get up there, but I hope he’s mellowed out.

When I get to the penthouse, the elevator door slides open and Lucas is standing right in front of it with his arms crossed.

“Are you going to attack me again?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. I see I didn’t do as much damage as I had hoped.”

I want to laugh at that but decided against it because I see he is still quite agitated.

I step off the elevator. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Listen, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. After it happened, I was so embarrassed by what I had done and I’ve felt guilty about it all these years.”

“Not guilty enough to confess and tell me what you had done.”

“Considering how you reacted the other day, do you blame me?”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I know it isn’t, but you have to know that I didn’t mean to hurt you, and this was such a long time ago.”

“What are you saying? That because it was a long time ago I should get over it?”

“No. What I’m saying is I was a kid back then. I took the promise I made you seriously, but things just happened this way.”

He turns around and walks into the living area of the suite. “Did you know about Brady?”

“Of course not. I didn’t know about Brady until you told me about him a few days ago. Lucas, you know me. If I had known about Brady, I wouldn’t have stayed away.”

He stares at me for a beat, then says, “Do you understand the chaos you caused in my family?”

“No, I don’t. Nobody told me about it.”

“Well, let me tell you about it now. Dad was furious with Kayla until Brady was born. They barely spoke during her entire pregnancy. Things changed once he was born and Dad fell inlove with him, but that was a hard time for both of them. I still think Kayla resents him a little for all that.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” I say.

“That still doesn’t change the fact that Mom had to move to New York and rent an apartment there for the first year of Brady’s life to help Kayla take care of him so she wouldn’t have to drop out of school. The financial burden was a lot on my parents. Although the rest of us kids did all we could, it was barely enough, and all this, because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.”

“Lucas, I am so sorry. I’m not trying to minimize my responsibility in any of this. I can make this right. I can repay all the money all of you spent.”

That is clearly the wrong thing to say. I know because of the look on Lucas’ face.

“We don’t want your money,” he spits. “We did what we did because we love Kayla and Brady.”