Page 2 of The Billionaire's Kiss
My youngest brother’s eyes lit up. “Really? You’d come to my place for dinner?”
I’d been over to Stone’s new home only once, right after he’d moved in a year ago. We tended to gather at Baldwyn’s house for most occasions. “I would.” Looking at my brothers, I asked, “And how about you guys?”
They all nodded, so it seemed we were all in agreement.
“Maybe we’ve been neglecting our baby brother,” I said to the group. “We should start going to his place at least once a month to try out any new dishes he’s come up with. Maybe that will help keep the creative juices flowing.”
“That would be awesome,” Stone gushed. “I’m already thinking of at least three things I’d love for you all to try.”
Patton bumped his shoulder against mine. “Great thinking, Warner.”
Being smack dab in the middle of my four siblings, I’d grown accustomed to playing mediator within the group. Even when I’d been the one to start the trouble, it was usually me who figured out how to mend the fences between us. “I’ll try to be more considerate of your artistic nature, Stone. You must forgive my business-first mindset. It can get in the way of what’s really important at times. And you are what’s really important to me, baby brother.”
“You’re important to me too, Warner.” Stone’s smile was as sincere as they came. “Thanks for bringing up the idea of me cooking for you guys. I hadn’t even thought about it before, and the way it’s already making me feel is beautiful.”
Stone had always been a bit of a free-spirit—he would’ve fit right in with the hippies of the sixties. “Glad to help.”
Baldwyn looked happy as he moved to the next order of business. “So, on to the coming year. How are we going to keep on improving? Patton, I’ll start with you.”
“It’s obvious that the coming year will be an improvement if our convention idea is met with success. We’ll all have to make a plan for the convention we’d like to host. Then, I’d say we hand them to Cohen so he can put dates on them since he knows best which times of the year are our busiest and which could work best for the conventions.”
“I agree,” I said quickly. “Cohen can take care of that. The sooner we have our plans set, the sooner he can schedule each convention and the sooner we can begin promoting them.”
Baldwyn added, “We can each add all of the promotions to our usual marketing efforts. That way, there will be three salesmen for each convention.”
Stone smiled. “Make that four salesmen. I’ve got a wicked following on social media where I can promote for you guys too.”
I smiled at Stone. He was already engaging more with our ideas and plans—it was nice to see that all it took was a little encouragement and a request for a meal. “That sounds great, Stone. Thanks for the help, man.” I loved it when we all came together to accomplish something.
“Yeah, no problem. Once you’ve got your marketing materials done, shoot them to me, and I’ll relay them to my followers.” He chewed on his lower lip as he seemed to be contemplating something. “You know what I just thought about?”
“What?” Baldwyn asked.
“Well, I have been putting up little bits here and there about the resort, and it got me wondering whether I may have been responsible for some of our sales and guests too.” He looked at Cohen. “How can I tell if any of my followers visited the resort?”
“I’ll hook that up for you,” Cohen said. “It’s not hard at all to set up data tracking with Google analytics. That way, you’ll be able to give us some good numbers when we hold this meeting again next year.”
“Cool. I like that idea,” Stone nodded as he looked at me. “Who knows, this coming year might be my year, Warner.”
“I hope it is.” I truly did. Not that I wanted to push him, but I wanted to see him get excited about things again—especially his cooking.
I’d always envisioned him having a restaurant at the resort. Patton had the spa to keep him creative with the design. The rest of us had business to keep us occupied and working steadily.Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, our mother always used to say. I tended to agree with her on that.
Stone had been a bit on the reclusive side since we’d come to Austin. I’d often worry that he was getting into things he shouldn’t be. Many days he’d come in with sunglasses and keep them on throughout the entire day. If he could get excited about work and cooking, then I would be sure that whatever he was doing that wasn’t healthy for him would end.
Baldwyn had always called me the mother hen due to the way I worried over my brothers. I was the one who didn’t drink much. I was the one to turn down offers of cigars and other things people smoked. I was the one who looked after my health and made sure to drink lots of water. And I encouraged my brothers to do so as well, earning me my nickname.
Throughout the years, all my brothers had been hooked on one vice or another. Losing our parents at a young age took its toll on all of us. I seemed to be the only one who didn’t turn to abusing anything to numb the pain.
But I did have my downfalls. I did have pain buried deep inside me from the loss of my parents. Instead of turningtoanything, I turnedawayfrom people fairly quickly.
One spat and I was often done with any girl I’d been seeing. Something kept me from getting too close to women. Probably the fear of losing them, but I never thought about it too much. Not that knowing that about myself fixed the problem anyway.
Since we’d begun working on the resort, I’d dated two women. One relationship lasted a couple of months before I ended it. The other lasted half a year before I walked away from her, leaving her in tears as she kept asking what she’d done wrong. I told her plainly that I was the problem, and I was sorry for the way I was.
A part of me must’ve been stunted after my parents passed in the house fire. I was thirteen at the time, and that year I had my very first girlfriend. Dana Caldwell was her name. We’d given each other our first kisses and thought we were in love.
With the death of my parents, I just shut down. Being kids, we drifted apart. And that’s how my pretty much non-existent love life began.
I did wonder if a day would come when someone would light something up inside of me again. I was in my thirty-first year, and it seemed to me that fate had to have something in store for me. It just hadn’t happened yet, but I wasn’t getting any younger. I’d always thought that I would have found the right woman by the time I turned thirty. I had thought wrong, it seemed.
Despite my poor track record, I hadn’t given up on love. But I wasn’t exactly looking for it either. A part of me just assumed that something would fall into my lap, just as it had with the resort. Or better yet,someonewould fall into my lap.
For now, I was content with having a successful career. A successful relationship wasn’t within my grasp.
At least, not yet.
