One night stand with my daddy's best friend
73

Dane

I wasn't settling in very well running the family company. Not that I wasn't doing a good job. No, the problem was that I was out of my element.

Being a Navy SEAL involved a great deal of working out to keep up my strength, learning new tactics and tools to keep the country safe, and deployments abroad, including some behind enemy lines.

Wearing a suit in my new job wasn't so odd, as I'd simply exchanged one uniform for another, but the sedentary aspect of the job, along with employees who looked at me sideways as if they expected me to fail kept me on edge. The only exception was Lane Eliot, my dad's and now my administrative assistant. I always had the feeling she was looking out for me.

But everyone else, watched and waited for me to fuck up. I couldn't help but wonder what my father told them about me. The bigger question was why he wanted me to take over after his heart attack.

While he'd expected me to take over while I was growing, when I left home at eighteen, I severed my ties with him. Today, I was the last person he wanted running his precious company. He and my mother never forgave me for enlisting in the Navy instead of joining the family business. Maybe this was their way of winning. Since I was on my way to their house, I supposed I could ask.

I was a few miles from their obnoxiously large home nestled in the hills outside of Los Angeles when my phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID on my car's console, I saw it was Troy. I pressed the pickup button on my steering wheel. "Troy, hi."

"Dane. How are you? Drowning in real estate?"

I laughed. He knew I was out of element. "Treading water, my friend.

What's up?"

"Listen, there's a talented young woman who's looking for a marketing position and I don't have one for her. Maybe you have a spot for her?"

I thought about the marketing department but couldn't be sure if there was an opening. "I can check."

"Great. I forwarded her resume to you. She goes by Bridget Franklin."

Goes by? That was an odd way to say someone's name. "I'll check when I'm in the office again."

"Thank you, Dane. I hate not being able to hire her."

"No problem." I ended the call with Troy and as I made the last mile to my parents' house, I refocused on the task at hand - deal with my parents.

I pulled through the gate and up to the house. I'd grown up here, but when I left, I was sure I wouldn't be allowed back. My parents raised me to take over the family business. It was expected. No one asked what I wanted, except me. My answer was adventure. I didn't want college and then a lifetime of wheeling and dealing. I wanted to do something important.

I was surprised my parents hadn't disowned me. The scene when I left at eighteen was filled with anger and vitriol on both sides.

I stepped out of my car and stared up at the house. I grew up here, but it didn't feel like home.

Taking a deep breath, I approached the house. Should I walk in? Deciding this wasn't my home anymore, I knocked.

An elderly woman with a tightly pulled back bun answered.

"Mrs. Shipman?" Good God. She wasn't still working as the family housekeeper, was she? She had to be over eighty. Surely my parents would let her retire.

"Dane. Your parents are in the parlor." She looked older, but her absent affect hadn't changed in the last twenty years.

I followed her to the parlor where my father sat in a chair reading a newspaper and my mother was checking the fresh flowers strewn in expensive vases throughout the room.

When I entered, she looked up. "Dane. You made it." She walked over to me, giving me a hug. I knew my parents loved me, but they didn't have the warmth and joy I saw with Troy's family.

"Everything looks the same. Even Mrs. Shipman. Shouldn't she retire?" I said.

"Don't tell her that. We've brought it up, but she doesn't want to stop working," my mother said.

"She knows the value of doing a good job for the family," my father said, setting his newspaper aside.

My father had a way of speaking that made me feel like I was being put down or judged. When I was a kid and teenager, it was like a stab in my soul. Now that I was forty and had over twenty years away from it, I ignored it. "Dinner is ready," Mrs. Shipman said from the parlor entryway.

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"Good. I'm starving." My father rose from his chair, but he did slowly, tentatively. As I watched, I realized it was the first time I'd ever seen my father look vulnerable.

"Let me help you, dear." My mother went to him, putting her hand under his forearm.

He yanked it away. "I can do it." My mother stiffened. "Of course."

I held out my arm for my mother. "Shall I escort you?"

She held her head up as she slipped her arm through mine. "At least you still have your manners."

This was going to be a long night.

We sat at the table that could seat twenty with dad at the head and mom and I across from each other.

"I don't like what I'm hearing out of the office, Dane," my father said as wine was served.

"I'm sure you don't." I put my napkin in my lap and then took a long gulp of my wine. I wondered what my parents would do if I asked for a stiff drink. They'd probably think I was a lush. Wasn't there something about a drunken sailor? My father's eyes narrowed at me. "What does that mean?"

I sucked in a breath. "It means that I feel like eyes are on me all the time, reporting to you everything from how I drink my coffee to when I take a shit during the day."

"Dane!" my mother hissed, looking horrified.

Okay, so that was too much. I needed to get myself sorted.

"When I worked there, I never took a shit," my father said. "There's too much to do. You can shit at home."

My mother glared at him. "We're having dinner."

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We were silent as our plates of prime rib were set in front of us. Once the servants were out of the dining room, my father poked his fork into a potato, stuffed it in his mouth, and then pointed at me with his fork.

"I'm counting on you to close the deal with Bran Erickson. I'd do it myself but doctor's orders, no work."

I nodded as I cut my prime rib. "I'm working on it." "Don't work on it. Do it."

I chewed my meat slowly giving myself time to settle my nerves.

"All that running around the world and killing people has made you uncivilized." My mother looked at me in pity.

So much for still having my manners. I considered telling herself I killed people who wanted to kill her, or at least Americans. Or I could say that the business world was as cutthroat as a front line of a war. But what use would that be? "What you need is to settle down. You need to replace a good woman to help you re-enter polite society."

I didn't respond. Instead, I focused on my dinner.

"I want you to attend the children's society charity event with me. Your dad isn't strong enough to go and I need an escort." Like usual, she wasn't asking. She was telling.

The last thing I wanted to do was hobnob with the rich and snobby, but I recognized that it was part of the job and I'd agreed to do it until my father recovered.

"I'm happy to escort you," I said, glad she wasn't talking anymore about me replaceing a good woman. I turned my attention to my dad. "When do you think the doctor will clear you to return to work?" "Not soon enough."

I couldn't be sure if his comment was a statement about his concern I'd run his company into the ground, or his own frustration at being stuck at home. Probably both.

It didn't matter. I agreed with him. The sooner he could return to work, the sooner I could set off on my own path. I wasn't sure what that would be, but I knew it wasn't in running the family business.