The Scion: A Billionaire Romance (The Holbrook Cousins Saga Book 3)

by Alina Jacobs

Wes ignored her and sat in the too-warm interior of the car, slamming the door behind him. The snow picked up as the car drove down the block to Liz's building.

  She was waiting for him in the doorway. He almost couldn't believe it was her.

  Liz was wearing a golden dress, and her hair was pinned in an elaborate updo. The dress had a slight train, and the fabric was soft and supple against his hand as he helped her into the car.

  "You look so handsome," she said, her eyes shining.

  "And you look gorgeous and elegant as usual," he told her.

  She laughed. "I never look this good on my own. I had my hair and makeup professionally done." She looked in the mirror as the car pulled away. "Do you think it's too much?"

  "It's perfect," he told her. He couldn't top staring at her.

  The valet opened the door when they arrived in front of the venue. Liz stepped out of the car, her dress unfolding around her.

  Her lips were stained a dark red. He wanted to kiss her but knew she would kill him if he ruined her makeup. Her lips parted slightly, and he leaned in to press their mouths together. He couldn't help himself.

  "You look like a billion dollars," she said, smiling up at him and slipping her hand into the crook of his arm.

  51

  Liz

  Liz was giddy with excitement as she walked with Wes into the large room. He looked dashing in the tux. She felt people's eyes turn to look at them.

  "You made it!" Nancy exclaimed, coming over to them. She handed them a piece of paper. "Here is your list."

  "Excuse me?" Wes said.

  "She's putting us to work," Liz explained. "We have to schmooze with people and make them feel good about spending thousands of dollars on a ticket."

  "You're the talk of the town," Nancy said to Wes. "Everyone's going to want a piece of you!" She winked.

  Liz pointed out people and introduced Wes around. She saw her parents and waved to them.

  "You look wonderful, Liz!" her mother said, admiring Liz's dress.

  "Wes." Liz's father did not seem pleased to see her with Wes.

  "Mrs. Davenport. Mr. Davenport," he said.

  "Mrs. Burbank's elderly mother had been complaining again about your bringing strange men into your condo at all hours of the night," Florence said.

  Wes looked up at the ceiling then back to Liz. "What strange men?"

  "She means you," Liz huffed.

  "You don't want people to talk," Liz's mother chided.

  "You better have honorable intentions with my daughter," Adam Davenport said to Wes.

  "Dad, stop it," Liz hissed. Fortunately, Jack came and pulled Wes away to introduce him to other wealthy donors before her parents scrutinized him further.

  "I need a drink," Liz said.

  "Lucky for you, I have you covered," Anastasia said, coming up behind Liz. She greeted Liz's parents then said, "I must steal Liz away. We'll catch up later!"

  "Thanks," Liz said once they were out of earshot of her parents. "I can't believe them."

  "You should hear my parents," Anastasia said. "They're complaining that I don't have men sneaking up into my apartment."

  She and Liz paused by a highboy table and sipped their drinks and watched the Holbrook men take pictures from across the room.

  "They look scrumptious. Don't they?" Anastasia asked, bumping her hip against Liz's.

  Liz watched Rhonda slink up to Mark. "I can't stand her," Liz huffed. "I don't know why."

  "She's helping you with the baby shower," Anastasia said. "She's intelligent and pretty. What's not to like?"

  "Wes always acts odd around her," Liz said. She wasn't able to expand on that thought because Wes waved her over.

  "You should be in this picture," Nancy said to Liz as she walked over, hoisting her dress up.

  Liz posed next to Wes. "Is this going in your scrapbook?" he murmured to her as he leaned over her, one hand in his tux pocket.

  "Beautiful," the photographer said.

  "Thanks for coming, Liz," Jack said after they finished with the pictures.

  "I love coming to these things!" Liz gushed. "It's a chance to dress up."

  "I know we can always count on you," Jack said, hugging her.

  Wes smiled softly at Liz. "She's definitely the best thing that's happened to me in a while," he said. "I don't know what I'd do without her."

  Liz saw the elder Mrs. Burbank with her daughter, Marge, and her grandson, Finn, heading toward them.

  Wes and Finn shook hands.

  Mark told Wes, "Finn's supposed to be leaving the military and coming to work with me."

  "Soon," said Finn. "Next fall I should be done."

  "You must be proud of him," Wes said.

  Marge Burbank sighed. "Finn has always been a handful. He was adopted, you know."

  "His mother was a loose woman," Liz's elderly neighbor said, hunched over on her cane.

  "Mother," hissed Marge, but the elderly woman ignored her daughter.

  "And you!" Mrs. Burbank said, waving her diamond-covered clutch in Wes's direction. "I know you Holbrooks; you're a shiftless bunch. You're going to land that poor young girl in trouble. The next time I see you sneaking into the building, I'm calling the police. The doorman shouldn't even let you in without an escort."

  Marge tugged her mother away.

  "That's my family," Finn said flatly. "Don't you feel better about your situation, Wes?"

  "I seem to be in good company," Wes replied. Finn snorted, then he and Mark drifted off into the crowd.

  "Would you like to dance?" Wes asked.

  "You know how to waltz?"

  "I was my sister's dance partner for all her dance classes," he said.

  Liz was impressed as Wes twirled her around the room.

  "You're stunning," he said to her. She felt like a princess, and she spent the rest of the evening on Wes's arm. It was everything Liz had ever dreamed.

  52

  Wes

  Wes never liked Christmas much. Hank had been laid off a few months before the holidays, and it had made that Christmas tense. His family couldn't afford presents, and his father drank away the little money they did have.

  Even later, after his mother started her cleaning business, Christmas was still a contentious time in the Walsh household.

  Wes threw himself into work that week, and on Christmas Eve he decided to take Kal with him to his Connecticut townhome to wait out the holiday. Dana was off doing some sort of Christmas special, and Liz was with her family. Wes ignored the messages from his mother; he didn't want to deal with her. He planned on wallowing in his Christmas depression.

  On the drive up, his phone rang, and the car system answered.

  "Hey, Wes."

  "Grant."

  "What are you doing for Christmas?"

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "We're not doing anything either. You should come by. We can have a terrible Christmas together."

  Against his better judgement, Wes decided to go. He could at least swing by the Holbrook estate. If it was as terrible as he thought it would be, he could always leave.

  As he drove through the historic New Cardiff downtown, it was like a postcard—the snow lightly falling, the wreathes hanging from the lamp posts, the lights draping in the storefronts and from the street trees.

  Wes expected the Holbrook estate to be similarly decorated for Christmas. But when he drove up, the house was dark. Kal took off running in the yard when Wes opened the door. The Akita had a thick fur coat—he would be fine outside for a little bit.

  Stefan opened the door. "Welcome home, Mr. Holbrook," he said is a low tone.

  "I'm not—never mind. Where is everyone?" Stefan pointed him to the large sitting room a ways down the hall. The room was dark; the only light came from the snowy sky outside.

  Carter was lying on a couch. The room reeked of alcohol, and Allie was scrubbing at the floor.

  "Thanks for coming, bro," Grant said, hurrying over to him.

  "You look tir
ed. What's wrong? It's like someone died," he joked. Then he remembered. "Your half-siblings died in that fire that your mother started. I completely forgot," Wes said in a rushed voice. "I knew that from my research… I don't know how I didn't remember…" Wes realized he was rambling. "I should go," he said abruptly and turned on his heel.

  "They were your half-siblings too, Wes," Grant said, holding out an arm to stop him.

  "Yeah, I guess they were. Weren't they?" Wes sat down on a tufted bench tucked in an alcove.

  "It's hard to grieve for people you didn't know," Grant said.

  "I should feel something, but I don't," Wes admitted. "I guess that makes me a monster."

  "Then I suppose it makes me one too," Grant said.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  "I'm really here for Carter and Mark and my father," Grant said. "Carter especially takes it hard around this time of the year. He was really close to the kids."

  "Right, of course."

  "Sorry it's not a fun Christmas celebration," Grant said.

  "It's okay," Wes said. "That's not something I really wanted anyway." He heard footsteps coming down the hall.

  "Oh, Wes!" Nancy said when she saw him. She ran to him, crying as she clutched him to her chest. "Thank you for being here."

  "Sure. Anything you need." Wes wasn't the best in sad situations. He wanted to problem solve, but there wasn't anything to be done.

  "I'm sorry Dana isn't here," Wes said. "She's finishing the editing on her holiday show."

  "That's good," Nancy said. "No one should be alone."

  "Jack is with Walter. He's somewhat calm, maybe—Oh, hi, Wes." Kate had spoken the words in a rushed tone as she came out of the sitting room, a tray of soup and crackers in her hands.

  Nancy motioned Wes to take the tray. "Why don't you try to see if Walter will eat? He hasn't had anything since yesterday morning."

  Wes took the tray and followed Grant up the wide curved staircase.

  "Is it always this dark?" he whispered. He could see Grant half smile in the dark.

  "No. Everyone is just hungover."

  Grant led Wes down a wood-paneled hallway to a set of solid oak doors. He knocked softly, listened for a second, then opened the doors.

  There was a sitting room with a cold fireplace that faced two large, stuffed wingback chairs. A painting of Walter with three small children hung on the wall above the fire place. The snow thwapped against the large windows that looked out over the dormant garden.

  "I don't think he's going to eat that," Wes heard Jack say to Grant from the doorway to what Wes assumed was the actual bedroom. Jack looked at Wes sadly. "That was nice of you to stop by," he said.

  Wes held up the tray. "Your wife said Walter should eat this."

  "You can try," Jack said, motioning Wes through.

  Walter was lying on the bed. There was a half a bottle of whisky beside him on the nightstand.

  Wes sagged slightly. This was a familiar sight. His father, after he lost his job, went through a spell of several months where he started drinking at ten in the morning and didn't stop until he had passed out on the floor. Even though he had been a young child, Wes hadn't wanted Dana or his mother to have to deal with Hank, so he had appointed himself as the one to help his father sober up.

  He couldn't fix the Holbrook's' grief, but he could start leaching some of the alcohol out of Walter's bloodstream. That was a problem he knew how to solve.

  "Walter," Wes said. His biological father—Wes still couldn't think of him as anything more than that—grunted. "Walter," Wes said more forcefully.

  Walter opened one eye and slurred, "Grant."

  "It's Wes."

  "Oh."

  "You're drunk," Wes said. "You need to eat something."

  "Not hungry."

  Wes set the tray down on the night table.

  "Sit up," Wes said. "At least you're conscious and not puking everywhere." Wes picked up the bottle of whiskey and took it into the bathroom.

  "Hey, that's expensive!" Grant said as Wes poured it down the drain.

  "He's had enough," Wes replied. He put the drain in the large bathtub and turned on the cold water. He was settling into the familiar routine.

  Wes returned to the bedroom and dragged Walter into an upright position. The last thing he needed was for Walter Holbrook to die of alcohol poisoning.

  "Here," Grant said, putting pillows behind Walter's back.

  "The kids," Walter mumbled, his eyelids drooping.

  "I'm really sorry for your loss. It's a terrible tragedy," Wes said, trying not to gag. Walter reeked of whiskey.

  Walter reached out for Wes and pawed at his head.

  "You need to eat," Wes reiterated. "You're pretty drunk." Grant handed him the bowl of soup.

  "Open your mouth," Wes ordered, then he force-fed Walter the soup. Satisfied that his biological father had eaten enough, he stripped him down to his underwear, hauled him up on his shoulders, and carried him into the bathroom to dump him in the now-full bathtub.

  "Fuck, that's cold!" Walter yelled.

  "It's good for you," Wes said. "It makes your blood circulate." Walter looked a little green. Right on schedule. Wes held a trash can under Walter's mouth while he retched.

  "You're a pro at this," Jack remarked.

  "Had a lot of practice with drunks," Wes said curtly.

  "Your father, Hank," Jack stated.

  "It wasn't his fault," Wes said. "He lost his job. It ruined him."

  Wes dumped the contents of the trash can then turned on all the lights.

  "Good gracious, Wes," Jack said, squinting.

  "I have no idea how you all see in here," Wes said. After wrapping Walter in a thick robe, Wes guided him downstairs. Then he sat in the sitting room with his relatives, all in various stages of hungover.

  "You better sober up," Walter rasped to Carter. "Wes has a killer cure."

  53

  Liz

  Liz was glad Christmas was over. She had missed Wes, but her parents still weren't all that pleased about him, and she didn't want to press the issue by inviting him over for Christmas. She just had to show her family how perfect he was.

  "This trip is going to be amazing," she said to Allie. They had spent some time during the holiday finalizing the itinerary for the big winter weekend. Now they were all together in one big plane heading to Montana.

  "We should have taken two planes," Mark said. "That way if it goes down, there are people left to mourn."

  "Wow, that's morbid," Carter said. "If the plane goes down, I can't think of any other group of people I'd rather die with."

  "Please excuse their gallows humor, Wes," Allie said. "They all spent too much time in the military."

  "At least we managed to break them of their swearing habit," Kate commented.

  "Eh," Allie said, "Carter can let out a sentence that comprises of nothing but the F word."

  "It's very versatile," Carter said loudly.

  Liz looked over at Wes. He seemed relaxed, laughing at his family's antics. An hour or so into the flight he came over and sat next to her. She curled her feet up in the seat and leaned against him. She sighed happily, and Wes looked at her, his eyes twinkling.

  "This is going to be a great trip," she said.

  A few hours later, they landed and took three cars to the resort. The mountains loomed huge and jagged above them.

  "These are not the Appalachian Mountains," Wes said, looking out the window at the beautiful scenery.

  "We have this wing to ourselves," Kate explained when they arrived at the Limestone Club in Montana.

  Walter cleared his throat. "You lot." Wes and his cousins looked to Walter as he addressed them sternly. "Just because this is a vacation doesn't mean you aren't working. Grant, you know you have deals to make. Wes, I would hope you know what to do. Carter…" Walter pinched the bridge of his nose. "So help me, if you get blackout drunk and fall into the snow and suffocate to death, I will kill you. Mark, be you
r perfect self. That is all."

  "How am I singled out?" Carter protested.

  "Act professional," Walter said.

  An older man was sitting in a wingback chair. Liz hadn't noticed him until he stood up.

  "He's the one you have to worry about!" Carter shouted.

  Harris Holbrook, Walter and Jack's father, walked over to them, arms spread wide. "My family," he said. "And look. It's the newest member." He shook Wes's hand. "Where's your sister?"

  "She's busy," Wes said. "She couldn't make it."

  "And the lovely Rhonda," Harris said. "I've heard so much about you." Harris hugged all the girls.

  "He looks good for his age," Wes murmured to Liz. She wrapped an arm around his waist.

  "You have good genes," she said. Harris still had all of his hair, though it was a dark gray, and he had the same deep-blue eyes as the rest of the Holbrooks.

  "He's over seventy," Liz whispered to Wes.

  "Sunscreen," Harris said to Wes. "That's the secret to looking young. All of my friends said that I was crazy, but I still used it, and look at me now! I don't look a day over fifty, and they look like swamp creatures."

  Liz giggled.

  "I was in Asia on a retreat, my dear," Harris said. "The diet there was far superior. You all need to stop drinking so much. It dries out your skin."

  "Tea is the way to go," Wes said. "I try not to drink if I can help it."

  "I hope you didn't pick up a wife while you were over there," Jack said.

  "Never," Harris said. "I've learned my lesson. I'm thoroughly vetting my lady friends. Though I am back on the market."

  "Dad, no," Jack said.

  "It's a special dating app," Harris said, ignoring his son. "It's for interesting people. You know, intellectuals, creatives, and such."

  "At least use your own photo," Carter told him.

  "Should we find our room?" Wes asked Liz.

  There was a fire going in the hearth in their suite. They were on the third floor, and the room had a balcony that looked out over the picturesque mountains.

  "This is one of the most exclusive ski resorts in the world," Liz said.