Page 2 of A Billionaire Gentleman

“You’re fucking my wife!” He turned around in a circle, clearly enjoying the audience. “Do you all hear that?! Jude Holden is a fucking cheater! He’s fucking my wife! My! Wife!”

“I’m not sleeping with Heidi, Mark,” I said mildly. I put my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t be tempted to do anything stupid. The last thing I needed was a picture of me in a tabloid, hitting someone who was in the process of accusing me of having an affair with his wife.

“Right. I believe that.” He glared at me as he stalked forward. “Heidi’s always whispering on the phone, and then I see the two of you talking, and it stops when I come in the room. Don’t tell me there’s nothing going on between the two of you.”

He was literally spitting as he talked, but I didn’t step back. I needed to maintain a calm, steady presence. Too many people were watching, and I had worked too hard to build my business to let this idiot tear it down or make me look weak. Besides, often the best defense against a bully was to make them look foolish by comparison.

“Put down the bat.” The voice came from behind me.

One of the security guys. Delbert, I thought his name was. I carefully schooled my face not to show my relief. At least things wouldn’t get too far out of hand.

Mark sneered at us both, then tossed the bat to the ground. “I don’t need a bat to fuck up an old man.”

That was all the warning I got before his fist connected with my jaw.

Two

Deklin – Present Day

Even with thesun getting ready to set, the temperature was sweltering, but that didn’t mean any of the Holden family would acknowledge it by taking a dip in the Olympic-size swimming pool several yards to the right of the party pavilion where we’d gathered.

This was no picnic. This was a celebration for me graduating with my MBA, and as such, there was more drinking wine and scotch while discussing business than there was levity. We had a reputation to maintain, after all.

Of course, part of that reputation was the reason we’d been waiting around for the past hour. Dad and Davin were late. As Holden Enterprises’s CEO and CFO, respectively, they rarely worked regular hours. My oldest brother, Davin, was the worse of the two. Dad, at least, took Sundays off since he still attended church every week.

My brothers and I had cut back attending services to just Christmas and Easter. Well, Davin and Damon did only those two, anyway. I still lived in the house where I’d grown up, so I had to put up with more of Dad’s day-to-day complaining than my brothers did. That meant, when I was home from college, I went to church at least every few weeks, and that was enough to appease them. Now that I’d graduated, I’d be looking for a place of my own.

Finally.

I turned toward the house as I heard Damon call out to our brother. The three of us were twenty-three, twenty-six, and twenty-nine, our birthdays even in the same month – March – but Davin had always seemed much older and Damon much younger.

Me, I was the baby. Dad and Grandad both had been only children, and my mom’s sister was a nun. Literally. All that meant that my brothers and I had grown up without cousins. Which meant I always was and always would be the baby.

“Congratulations,” Davin said as he held out his hand. With his golden blond hair, athletic build, and perpetual tan, he would’ve looked right at home on a beach, getting ready to catch some waves.

Those of us who knew him, however, knew that was about as far from my brother as it could get. The fact that he was still wearing a suit and tie even though he could’ve taken both off on the way over just reinforced the serious businessman image.

“Thanks.” The slight nod of approval I got told me that my handshake had met the Holden family expectations, and I hoped that meant that he was finally ready for me to come work at the family business. I’d never been passionate about business – or real estate – but I was passionate about my family. And the businesswasfamily.

“You don’t like the wine selection?” Dad gave a pointed look to the dark bottle in my hand.

I gave him a tight smile. “We didn’t want to open the wine until everyone was here.”

“And that meant you needed a beer while you were waiting?”

My grip on the cold glass tightened. I wondered if his problem was that I was drinking or that I was drinking beer, but I wasn’t going to ask. This was a party, and I refused to ruin the occasion by getting into a debate over alcohol consumption. I was over twenty-one, and I wasn’t drunk.

Besides, this was my party. I could have a beer if I wanted.

“Walter, Davin, glad you’re here.” Grandad saved me from having to figure out a tactful way to change the topic. “I’ll let Cynthia know to have the caterers bring out the food.”

I didn’t have to look at Dad to know he’d stiffened as soon as his stepmother’s name was mentioned. I liked Cynthia, actually. She was nice and really loved Grandad, but it was hard for Dad. He’d been fifteen when his mom died, then nineteen when Grandad married Grandma Rachel. I remembered her, and she’d been okay, but I’d liked Cynthia from moment one. The fact that she was only ten and a half years older than me kept me from seeing her as a grandmother, but she’d never tried to make us view her that way.

Dad, however, would never forgive her for being younger than him, or Grandad for marrying her.

Family gatherings could be awkward.

“Deklin.” Grandad put his hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you come with me. This is your party. You should be mingling.”

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