Page 33 of Forever with the CEO

She scoffed. “What a good word to describe this.”

“I have no doubt that they’d be supportive, no matter their opinion. But lying to them would be hard.”

“It’s good that you can count on your family’s support.”

I blew out a heavy breath. “It wasn’t always like this. For the longest time, there were two separate groups: my brothers and me and our half brothers. Two of them preferred to pretend we didn’t exist, and I don’t blame them. They were older wheneverything started. They had a front-row seat to the whole thing and what it did to their mother.”

“Oh,” Allison whispered. “Did she ever recover? Is she okay now?”

“Unfortunately, she got sick and passed away shortly after.”

She winced. “That’s terrible. Poor boys.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask... but how is your mom?”

I grinned. “She’s living her best life, actually. She’s traveling the world, doing odd jobs, mostly teaching yoga and Pilates. My brothers and I do take care of her financially, but she insists on having at least some income of her own.”

“You’re good sons.”

“We try to be. She deserves the world. Things were difficult for her even before things came to light. Actually, I think they might have been even more difficult before because she was struggling to keep up with all our expenses.”

“What do you mean? Your father wasn’t contributing?”

I shook my head. “Only minimally. He gave her a bullshit story about his father, our grandfather, controlling the finances of the company and him being on a very strict leash. So she worked two jobs.” Her own parents had cut off contact with her because they didn’t approve of her having children without being married.

“But your father is aWhitley.” The way she said our last name made me feel funny. There were pluses and minuses to the legacy for sure.

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. “Unfortunately. Thankfully, he lives in Australia now. We don’t deal much with him. You know, when you first mentioned that you’re willing to go to any lengths to get custody of the kids, I started thinking about my own parents. The whole situation. How my father lost interest in all his sons after the scandal. How he just up and left.”

“Oh, Nick.”

I had no idea why I’d even brought this up. She didn’t need to know. It had been a long time ago.

“So, you grew up without him?” she asked.

“Yes. In retrospect, it was probably better. Things were tense with everyone even with him out of the picture. But as a kid, it felt terrible. Like we weren’t wanted, didn’t matter, and no one was in our corner.”

Her shoulders dropped. “That’s a really terrible thing to do to your kid.”

“We’ll make sure the twins never feel that way,” I said, deciding to stop bringing up negative stuff. What was up with that? I rarely spoke about the past. It just made no sense. It was part of the past, and it wasn’t affecting the present in any way.

Allison smiled from ear to ear. “This is batshit crazy. We can’t think through every scenario and foresee everything that can go wrong. But for the first time since I got their email about trying to get custody, I’m feeling hopeful. And I should tell them that we’re...”

“Engaged.” The word felt completely foreign. “You should definitely tell them.” I shifted on the couch so I could lean closer. I put a hand on the backrest, bringing my mouth almost to her ear. “I promise you, Allison, we’ve got this.”

“You’re awfully sure of yourself!” She was back to teasing me, which was a good sign. She’d been so tense in Hugo’s office that I wasn’t certain that she’d relax at all today.

I flashed her a quick grin. “Always. It’s the secret to my success.”

“What is?”

“Blindly believing in my ability to achieve something. It’s served me very well, and I’m sure we can apply the same strategy here.”

“Nick, this isn’t a business project.”

“Nah, it’s far more than that. But we’ve got this, Allison,” I repeated. “You and me. We’ve got this.”

---