Rika didn’t know where her mother really was. I did.

And when my father joined my mother, Rika would have zero support around her.

My parents always left in the fall for several weeks to visit various friends and business partners out of the country. And while my father traveled extensively throughout the year, their annual excursion was always together. My mother was useful with her charm, wit, and beauty, so he insisted she accompany him when he made the rounds in Europe every autumn. It was the one thing I knew I could count on.

The house in Thunder Bay was currently empty, with my mother having already left and my father staying here in the city, at the private fuckpad he kept on the other side of town.

At the very least he had the decency not to keep an apartment at Delcour and flaunt his sluts in a building he owned.

“Have you spoken to Trevor?” he asked.

But I just stared.

He breathed out a laugh, realizing that was a stupid question.

A young woman came into the office with an armful of file folders. She smiled at me, looking sexy in her bright blue dress and perfect blonde hair.

Walking behind my father’s desk, she placed the folders on top and reached over it, taking a post-it and writing a quick note for him.

He didn’t even try to hide his leering as he reclined in his chair and gazed at her ass as she bent over next to him.

“So why are you here?” he broached, and I didn’t miss his hand disappearing up her dress.

She bit her bottom lip to stifle her smile.

I fisted my hands under my arms. God, I fucking hated him.

“To talk about my future,” I replied.

He cocked his head, narrowing his eyes on me.

I hated this. I didn’t want to deal with him for another second, which is why it’d taken me so long to deal with what should’ve been settled long ago. I hadn’t wanted to come here.

His lips curled. Pulling his hand out, he gave the girl a pat on the behind. “Close the door on your way out.”

She walked around the desk, casting one last glance at me before leaving the room.

He exhaled a heavy breath, peering over at me. “I seem to remember trying to have this conversation with you many times. You didn’t want to attend Annapolis. You wanted to take a full scholarship to Westgate.”

“They had a superior athletic program,” I reminded him.

“You didn’t want a future in this company,” he continued. “You wanted to play basketball.”

“I’m a professional athlete,” I responded. “I’ve been in more magazines than you.”

He snickered. “This isn’t about making better choices, Michael. This is about you consistently defying me. Whatever I want, you do the opposite.”

He stood up from his chair and took his glass of what I assumed was his usual Scotch and stood next to his floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. “As you grew up and became a man, I thought you’d be more agreeable, but you haven’t stopped. At every turn of the hand, you—”

“Back on topic,” I cut in, straightening my back. “My future.”

We’d had this conversation—or fight—several times. I didn’t need a rehash.

“Fine,” he allowed. “What do you want?”

“You were right,” I admitted, swallowing the bitterness in my mouth. “In ten—fifteen—years I’ll be looking for college coaching positions, and as I look ahead, my career loses its luster. It doesn’t have a future.”

He inhaled a deep breath, looking as if he liked the sound of that. “I’m listening.”

“Let me try something on for size,” I suggested. “Let’s see what I can do with some of your interests.”

“Like what?”

I shrugged, pretending to be thinking, as if I hadn’t come in here with plan. “How about Delcour and fifty thousand shares of Ferro?”

He laughed as my audacity, which is exactly what I wanted. I knew he wouldn’t go for it.

“Fifty thousand shares would make you a partner,” he pointed out, setting down his glass and taking a seat again. “Son or no son, you don’t get those kinds of perks just handed to you.”

He fanned out his suit jacket, leaning back in his seat and pinning me with a stare. “And not in Meridian City,” he demanded. “If you embarrass me, I’d like it less visible.”

“Fine.” I nodded. “What about…FANE then?”

Rika’s family had given their jewelry store the family name when it’d been opened years before she was born.

He pinched his eyebrows together, looking suspicious. “FANE?”

Shit. I’d moved too fast. He was going to say no.

I shrugged, trying to downplay it. “Everything is tucked away in Thunder Bay, isn’t it? Out of sight? Let’s see what I can do with the shop, the house, and the Fane’s holdings.”

“Absolutely not,” he answered. “All of that will be your brother’s someday.”

I stilled. Trevor’s? Not Rika’s?

In his will, Schrader Fane had named his daughter as his sole heir. Rika would inherit everything upon either, her graduation from college, or her twenty-fifth birthday, whichever came first. Mr. Fane had named my father, Rika’s godfather, the trustee until that time, which had been just fine with Rika’s mother. She took no interest in business, nor was she capable of even running her own household, let alone a multi-million dollar estate.