Page 48 of Filthy Rich Daddies
One step at a time, I tell the flutter in my belly—whether baby or butterflies—I’ve got work to do.
18
ATTICUS
We returnedfrom Colorado thirty hours ago, but none of us can dismantle our collective failure. We had created a cozy war room that should have reassured her, kept her safe enough to stay, but apparently we only trapped her while her fear metastasized.
I’m trying to be understanding, but when you’ve been ghosted, it’s damn near impossible.
I stand in the half-lit living room now, coffee gone lukewarm, bruise-colored dawn leaking through motorized blinds. Dean surfaces from the guest bedroom looking thirty percent alive. We acknowledge each other with a nod and resume aimless shuffling.
I replay every second between our arrival at the resort and her exit. The bruise on her cheek, the way her body melted when we surrounded her, the micro-smile when Colin pitched the blanket fort, her shy request—Stay, please—like a fragile treaty. We stayed. And she still fled.
Before sunrise. Not even a note or a text.
But that isn’t the point. Her emotional barometer fell below safe. We misread her. And now, we suffer the consequences.
My old morning ritual—journaling before sunrise—has been hijacked. My pen scratches lines about everything except why my stomach feels carsick whenever I picture her on campus, alone, pregnant, guilt-riddled. Arabella texted late yesterday, reportedly unbeknownst to Thalassa, to let us know she’s safe. She might hate us, but I will be forever grateful for that message.
Dean breaks the silence. “You sleeping?”
I mumble at my journal, “Do I look like I’m sleeping?”
He rubs his eyes. “Colin?”
“Coding. I’m gonna head home. You?”
“Work.” He shrugs. “What else is there?”
That’s the question that haunts me every day. I run through my options. We can’t fix her fear. We can’t change her mind about us. But we can fix our company. That’s the perspective my brain clings to. Numbers obey logic. Human hearts do not.
I shower, suit up—dark charcoal, no tie, the retired-but-in-control look—and drive to Copeland HQ. On the ride, I stare at Buckhead mansions, each one a monument to someone’s victory lap, and mutter Dad’s Havana lesson.Hold tight.
But how can I when Thalassa let go? Does that mean we chase?
No. We honor her choice. But giving her space doesn’t mean abdication from everything else.
Dean is drowning behind the CEO desk, Marcus is puppeteering budgets if the last reports are to be believed, and my siblings and our soon-to-be-maybe-child deserve a stable enterprise.
The truth is, we could all retire tomorrow. But what legacy is there in that?
In HQ’s west lobby, the receptionists look up as if my hologram materialized. I nod curt hellos and swipe into the top-floor suite where Dean sits at the teak desk, tie dangling from his finger like he’s debating strangling himself with it. His expression brightens a little when he sees me.
“Let me help,” I say as I plop into the guest chair. “Advisory capacity. Twenty hours weekly. That’s all.”
He exhales relief. “Yes. Please.”
We head in for the weekly finance meeting in the Palmetto Conference Room—Marcus’s lair. The mahogany board table is waxed to a mirror finish. Marcus enters exuding grandfatherly calm, silk tie diamond-pinned.
“Atticus!” Arms wide, voice honey. “I heard you’re dabbling in unscheduled labor.”
How this man knows everything before being briefed, I will never know. “Nice to see you too, Marcus. Thought I’d lend a hand for a little while, get the year off to a running start.”
He chuckles. “But retirement is a treasure. You should spend it leisurely. Here,” he says, patting the seat next to him. “You can sit with me.”
Junior execs snicker obediently. In my younger days, I would have smiled along. This morning, condescension tastes like pennies.
The meeting plods. Marcus dismisses Colin’s StarConnector cost-savings analysis with a wave of his Montblanc. “Redundant when our current system functions splendidly.”
