Only a Millionaire_A Sinclair Novella

by J. S. Scott

  Brooke had told me enough about how she was raised for me to understand the hell that Noah must have gone through when he’d had to take on the responsibility for a half-grown family when he was barely old enough to vote. They’d all seen it, and in return for Noah’s sacrifice, they’d all tried to help as much as they could.

  Not very many people could do that and have their family come out as good as Noah’s had.

  His face was grim as he replied, “You have no idea. I knew if I couldn’t support them, I’d lose them. I had moments when I thought they’d be better off with a foster or adopted family. But I couldn’t see that happen.”

  I understood. Adopted or foster kids didn’t always have a happily ever after, and they didn’t always end up with a good family. It would have been hit or miss, and like Noah, I doubted I could have taken that chance with Tessa if I’d had to make that call. “They’re all grown now, man,” I said in a calmer tone. “You did it, even without the help of the Sinclair name or money. You need to own that.”

  I’d met everyone this morning except for Owen. Brooke’s youngest brother was out of state doing his residency.

  Jade looked so much like Brooke, but they weren’t identical. And they both had their own distinctive personalities. But I could sense the same inherent kindness in Jade that I did in Brooke.

  Okay, Seth and Aiden were both assholes, but I knew they were trying to protect their siblings in their own obnoxious ways.

  Against all odds, the California Sinclairs had turned out to be somewhat normal, even if they were a little rough around the edges.

  Noah ran a hand through his dark hair as he looked at me with a frown. “I think I have post-traumatic stress from raising them all. It’s hard to let go.”

  I imagined that giving them all some space now to make their own mistakes was difficult. Noah had been an older brother and stand-in father for many years. I’d seen the way he listened to everything his brothers and sisters said and did, and then stepped in with advice. He reminded me of myself with Tessa. “Sometimes they have to figure things out for themselves. I have a sister who went deaf at a very young age. Our parents died in an accident, so I was all she had.”

  Noah swallowed some of his beer. It took him a minute of thought to answer, “If that had happened to one of my sisters, I’m not sure how I would have reacted.”

  “She got her hearing back with a cochlear implant, and she married one of your cousins, Micah. She’s happy, but the protective instincts stay with a person even after they aren’t needed anymore.”

  “I think Seth, Aiden, and I will always feel like we have to watch out for Brooke, Jade, and Owen,” he told me unhappily.

  I shrugged. “It’s never going to go away. But it gets better with time. Eventually you realize that they’re all grown up and able to take care of themselves.”

  “I doubt that,” Noah answered.

  I had my own misgivings about Brooke’s brothers ever seeing her as an adult, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to mention it to Noah. “I’ll take care of her,” I said.

  “You better,” he grumbled. “I see the way she looks at you. You could hurt her worse than any other guy on the planet.”

  “She has the same power to hurt me,” I replied. “I’ve known that since soon after she came to Amesport.”

  “I don’t want her to move to the East Coast,” he mumbled.

  “That’s going to be her decision,” I said, not willing to let her family try to sway Brooke. “I’m good with staying here.”

  “What about your restaurant? Evan said it’s been in your family for generations.”

  I shrugged. “Priorities change.”

  If Brooke wanted to live on the West Coast, I was more than willing to relocate. She was my priority. I’d miss running Sullivan’s, but I had the money to start another place. Several places, if I wanted. And there was only one Brooke.

  “You’d leave your home and your sister for her?” he said carefully.

  I nodded sharply. It had taken me a while to come to the conclusion that it didn’t matter where we lived. I just wanted to make sure it was always going to be together. “Tessa has Micah, and she’s independent, even though I tried not to notice it. My sister has a ton of friends and the Sinclair family she loves in Amesport. And it’s not like I couldn’t get to her if she needed me.”

  “And the restaurant?” Noah questioned.

  “I’d hire a manager. I like running it myself, but in the big picture, it doesn’t really matter. Brooke is a hell of a lot more important to me.”

  “Evan said you’re wealthy,” Noah said, studying me like I was a specimen under a microscope.

  “Not as rich as Brooke is with her inheritance, but I don’t think the money is going to matter much. It’s never meant much to me. But if she loses everything tomorrow, I can take care of her for the rest of her life.”

  Noah grunted. “I suppose. At one time, I would have been thrilled if she’d found a guy with a good profession. Now we’re splitting hairs about being a millionaire or a billionaire. It seems fucking ridiculous.”

  Brooke’s brother still appeared to be struggling with coming into so much money. “You’ll get used to it,” I advised. “It doesn’t change who you are.”

  He gave me a grim look. “But sometimes it changes the people around you.”

  I shook my head. “Not if you hang around the right people.”

  “Are my half brothers and sister in Amesport the right people?”

  I knew that Noah was trying to ask me what they were like. He was obviously curious about his second family. “All of them are good people. You already know Evan, and even though he’s an asshole, he cares about the people he loves.”

  Maybe Brooke’s brothers and sister were a little rough around the edges. Maybe they’d grown up without the influence of money, but they’d probably appreciate being wealthy a whole lot more because they’d lived poor.

  “Evan can be a jerk,” Noah replied. “But it’s not that difficult to see right through him. He didn’t have to include us when he settled our father’s estate. He didn’t have to bust his ass to make that fortune grow even larger. But he did.”

  “He should have told the rest of his family,” I said to Noah. “I can’t imagine any of them will be happy when they find out you guys exist and they didn’t know.”

  Noah shrugged. “I would have done the same thing. No sense in upsetting them when the half siblings can’t be found.”

  I smirked. Noah was a control freak, even though he didn’t want to admit it. He reminded me a lot of Evan, so it was no surprise that they understood each other.

  I changed the subject, getting back to his original threat of killing me. “Brooke will be happy wherever we end up. You can count on that.”

  “You sure she’s going to stay with you?” Noah asked right after he drained his bottle of beer.

  No, I wasn’t at all certain that Brooke was going to make a lifelong commitment to me, but I had to believe she would. I wasn’t going to be worth a damn if she didn’t. “I hope so.”

  I finished my drink and tossed it into the garbage. Noah tossed his bottle from a little farther away and hit his target perfectly. “You better bring her back often to visit,” he grumbled.

  “How do you know she’ll move back to Maine with me?” I asked.

  He gave me a knowing look. “I’ve known her for a lot more years than you have,” he explained. “Brooke was always the more sensible twin. But Jade could easily lead her into trouble when they were younger. When they grew up, they were . . . different.”

  “How?”

  “Brooke didn’t have much interest in men. If she did like a guy, the relationship didn’t last long. She always seemed to be calmly waiting for something extraordinary.”

  “Like me?” I joked.

  “Maybe for the right one,” Noah agreed, missing my joke entirely.

  “What about Jade?” I asked curiously.

  “She’s
completely disillusioned,” he answered unhappily. “She’s been burned, so she doesn’t trust easily. She’s still a romantic with other people, but not so much for herself.”

  “She’ll find somebody to trust eventually,” I consoled him. “Tessa was the same way.”

  My sister had been badly scorched, but she’d healed after she’d found Micah.

  “I want every one of my siblings to be happy,” Noah shared in a tense voice.

  “What about you?” I realized that Noah had been so concerned about his family that he probably had never taken the time to consider his own happiness.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he rumbled. “I had too many responsibilities to worry about myself.”

  “It matters,” I disagreed.

  “Not to me,” he said solemnly.

  I looked at his sober expression as I started walking back to the small living room filled with more Sinclairs than I really wanted to deal with at the moment. “It matters to your family,” I said quietly.

  “I noticed,” he answered in a graveled voice. “Jade is trying to hook me up with every woman she thinks would make me happy. She doesn’t understand that I’m married to my business right now. I want to be worthy of the money I inherited.”

  I snorted. “You were born worthy.”

  “Evan and his family are successful,” he argued.

  “They might not have been if they hadn’t been born into money. You can’t compare your situations.”

  “Maybe not,” he agreed. “But I’ve always wanted to be successful in my own business. I have that opportunity now.”

  The world was wide open to Noah now, like it never had been before. He could be whatever he wanted to be. Even though they hadn’t been raised alike at all, I could see so much of Evan in Noah. Evan’s half brother had the same ambition and drive as Evan did.

  As we made our way back into the crowded living room, I just hoped he didn’t become as big of a prick as his half brother.

  CHAPTER 17

  BROOKE

  “I know it was overwhelming today,” I said hesitantly as I walked hand in hand down Citrus Beach with Liam.

  My family was always a little bit too much when we were all together in one place, but seeing and talking to them all had been a relief for me. I wished Owen could have been here, but I knew it wasn’t possible.

  I sighed as I watched the waves crash onto the shore. There weren’t many people on the beautiful stretch of beach that I’d haunted when I was younger. It was too cold to swim, and it was overcast, but it felt good to be somewhere so familiar.

  Things had changed for all of my family, and nothing was quite the same as it was when I’d left, but they were positive changes.

  Noah was slowly building his own empire.

  Seth and Aiden seemed a little bitter about what our father had done to our mother, but I couldn’t blame them for that. I think every single one of us hated our father, and the bullshit he’d put our mother through by being a bigamist.

  Eventually, maybe we’d all see everything differently, but I doubted it. Someday, I hoped Seth and Aiden could at least be less angry about what happened. They were in business together now, and they seemed happy with their fates.

  Jade was the only one who seemed troubled, but she refused to share whatever was bothering her.

  Liam squeezed my hand as he answered, “They’re your family. I don’t have to love them all.”

  “They’ll grow on you,” I warned him with a smile.

  Liam was seeing my siblings at their worst right now. My brothers were overprotective. But when they joined forces for a common cause, they were downright dangerous.

  Liam stopped and turned to face me. My breath caught as I looked at him, his hair slightly rustled from the breeze, and his expression somber.

  “I haven’t really gotten to know them,” he explained. “But I want to.”

  I searched his face. I knew he was trying to tell me something. “What are you saying?” I probed, my heart racing with anticipation.

  “I want to stay here with you, Brooke. I want to build us a beautiful home, and raise our children here if you want to have them.”

  My chest ached as I looked at his earnest expression. I wanted to have kids, I just hadn’t found the right guy, so I didn’t think much about it.

  I watched as Liam foraged in the pocket of his jeans, and then finally found what he was looking for.

  He flipped open the small box, and the breath I was holding whooshed out of my body as I saw the beautiful diamond inside.

  I looked from his face to the diamond, my heart thundering in my ears.

  “I love you, Brooke,” he grumbled. “I probably have since the first time I saw you, but I didn’t want to think about it back then. I hate what you’ve been through, but I want the chance to show you what real happiness feels like.” He paused before he added, “Marry. Me.”

  Time stood still for a moment as I tried to grasp what he was asking me.

  He was willing to stay here for me?

  He wanted me to be his wife?

  “I love you, too,” I said quickly, feeling relieved that I could finally voice how I felt.

  He suddenly grinned mischievously. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to hear that?”

  “N-no,” I stammered, still too astonished to comprehend what was happening.

  I knew Liam cared for me, but I hadn’t expected him to offer to leave Amesport to live with me in California.

  “I bought this in Boston,” he explained. “That’s why I didn’t mind going there.”

  He lifted the beautiful ring from its bed of velvet and stuffed the box back into his pocket.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I managed to utter.

  “Marry. Me,” Liam repeated, his tone demanding.

  “It doesn’t sound like you’re asking,” I teased, but my hands were shaking, and my heart felt like it was ready to fly out of my chest.

  Liam was always going to be demanding, but it didn’t bother me. I knew what was underneath all that bluster: The man who was always supposed to be mine.

  “I guess I don’t want you to have a chance to say no,” he said in a raw, guttural voice.

  “I’m not going to say no,” I advised him, my voice trembling as I answered. “I’m a definite yes.”

  I threw myself into his arms, relishing the feel of them wrapping around me.

  How was a woman supposed to react when she’d just gotten every single thing her heart desired?

  I felt free, but protected.

  Just like Liam, I’d always felt the way we connected.

  He was the guy I’d been waiting for, but the circumstances just hadn’t been right for us in the beginning.

  “I think I was always waiting for you,” I said with a happy sob.

  He pulled back and kissed me, our mouths meeting and mingling with a surreal hunger that had always consumed me whenever we were together.

  My body was instantly ready for him to rock my world, just like he did every time he touched me.

  Releasing my lips, he took my shoulders and pushed me back. “I want this ring on your finger.”

  I obliged by holding my shaky hand out, and I held my breath again as he fumbled to push the ring onto my finger.

  “It fits,” I said as I released a pent-up breath.

  “Of course it fits,” he said. “Did you think I was going to let you take it off? But measuring your finger with a string while you were sleeping wasn’t exactly easy.”

  I laughed, able to visualize how frustrated he’d probably become with trying to handle a tiny string with his large hands. It was as endearing as it was funny.

  “We can exchange it if you don’t like it,” he said, his voice revealing a little bit of uncharacteristic nervousness.

  I held my hand to my chest. “I love it,” I said adamantly, knowing I’d never exchange it for something different, even if I hadn’t loved it so much. I could tell he’d put a lot of thought into the select
ion, and it brought tears to my eyes.

  “I love you,” he said earnestly as he took my left hand from my chest and carried it to his lips.

  Tears trickled down my cheeks as I instantly replied, “I love you, too.”

  The tall, handsome man in front of me had become my everything. I’d probably known that it was possible from the very beginning, but we’d both shied away from it.

  In a way, the enormity of how I loved Liam was scary, but I was willing to take the risk.

  He pulled me into his arms and held me like I was the most precious thing in the world to him. “Jesus, Brooke! I never planned on you.”

  “Maybe that’s why it’s so special,” I said in a tearful voice near his ear.

  We were silent for a few moments, both of us absorbing the fact that we’d never have to be separated again.

  I didn’t let go of him as I murmured, “I want to move to Amesport.”

  Liam pulled back just enough to see my face. “What?”

  “I want to go back to the East Coast.” I’d come to love the small coastal town, and it wasn’t like I couldn’t get a job there.

  Hell, I could have my own business there if I wanted it. My inheritance opened doors for me that had never been possible to look inside of before I’d become filthy rich.

  “Why do you want to go back with me?” he said with an incredulous look.

  “I like having the best lobster rolls in the country,” I joked. “And I’d miss the coffee and chocolate.”

  “But your family—”

  “They’ll be here every time I come home to see them, and they can come see us in Amesport. All of my siblings are going to want to meet and get to know the Maine Sinclairs.”

  “Brooke, we need to talk about this—”

  “We don’t,” I assured him. “I love my family, but it’s time for me to do what makes me happy. There’s no guarantee that we’ll all stay here permanently. We all need to live our own lives. It’s not like we can’t hop on a plane anytime we want to visit.”