Page 28 of The Broke Billionaires Club
8
Stunned,Trevor saw no alternative except to follow his brother outside. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and Trey seemed perfectly content to stroll along at a snail’s pace basking in the warm rays beaming down on his face and completely ignoring the bombshell his brother had just dropped onhim.
Frustrated with Trey’s level of calmness, Trevor spluttered, “Did you hear me? We are getting ready to lose the mall deal…to Selena Chase!” He added the last words for emphasis, trying to get some type of reaction out of this stranger that looked vaguely like his power-hungry, business-mogulbrother.
“Here is the town’s library.” Trey completely ignored his brother’s tantrum. “It used to be a bank, but I bought the building and had it refurbished. The books are from a brick-and-mortar bookstore that closed down thanks to Amazon’s domination of the book market. It’s really a gem, isn’tit?”
Trevor couldn’t get over the look of pride in his brother’s eyes as he talked about this Podunk little library. It was hard to believe that this was the same man known for forging multi-million dollar deals over lunch. “Yeah, I guess,” Trevor finally responded, since his brother seemed to be waiting for ananswer.
Not seeming to sense Trevor’s lack of enthusiasm about the town improvements he was implementing, Trey continued on his meandering walk. “See this ice cream shop? It was an abandoned gas station until I got ahold of it,” he beamed with pride. “They have the best gelato this side of the Mississippi,” he bragged. “Comeon!”
Trevor allowed himself to be dragged inside the rustic ice cream shop, even though he couldn’t help muttering under his breath, “Didn’t you just eat acupcake?”
Trey must have heard the dig because he said, “Life is short. You might as well enjoy it.” With a naughty grin, he added, “Besides, Ellie will help me work it offlater.”
Trevor inwardly cringed at his brother’s insinuation, but didn’t comment about how out of character it was for him to share such details. Since Trey insisted, Trevor sat down with a large cup of Italian chocolate chip gelato. He did have to admit it was rather tasty, but it wasn’t something he would have ever dreamed his brother would focus his attentionon.
“So, back to the mall project…” he started, hoping to force his brother to concentrate on whatmattered.
Seeming to completely ignore the nudge, Trey stared out towards the ornamental, antique gas pumps in front of the shop as he said, “Do you know why this town improvement project is going so well?” He pretended not to hear his brother’s frustrated sigh, instead opting to answer his own question. “It’s because I’m focusing on one piece at a time. I don’t look at it as one big project. Rather, I spend all of my energy on getting one piece right before moving on to the next, like apuzzle.”
Trey seemed lost in thought as he prattled on. “The owner of this property,” he waved his arms around encompassing the gas station-turned-ice cream shop, “didn’t want to sell to me. I just had to find something that he DID want… Turned out that was myPorsche.”
“You sold your Porsche?!?” Trevor bugged his eyes out at the man sitting across from him. That classic, refurbished, pristine car had been his brother’sbaby.
Trey simply shrugged his shoulders. “I did what it took to make the deal.” He turned a more familiar, steely gaze toward his brother then. “Does that makesense?”
And suddenly itdid.
