Page 58 of Billionaire and the Barista

NATHAN

With Gabriella in my arms and looking at me with that expression on her face, I felt as if I could conquer the world. She licked her lips, and I couldn’t help but to kiss her then and there.

It felt good to get the aggravation of Gavin off my chest, it was better to have her in my arms. We separated and continued walking, hand in hand.

I continued my diatribe. “We have timetables we need to stick to for projects to happen when we say they will. I understand that things get in the way, I really do. But Gavin’s pure negligence jeopardizes the entire project. We could be fined if certain aspects of construction are not completed on time.”

“Fined?” she asked.

“Yes, fined. If you work outside the parameters of your building permits. And then there are potential rush fees or having to pay specialists to stand around because we aren’t ready for them. His job on this particular project was relatively easy.”

“If it was so easy, why are you so upset?” she asked, not understanding.

“Because it was his job. I had to rearrange my schedule for three days to take care of something he should have done via email. The guy I met in Houston was incredibly accommodating considering it messed his schedule up as well.” I huffed out a heavy breath. I was getting worked up again just thinking about it.

“And you want to know what that little shit was doing while I was in Houston?”

“Tell me.” Her smile eased my mind and lowered my blood pressure. Why had I gone off all those years ago without her?

Right, the same family business pressure I was under now. Grow up, join the business, buy property and put buildings on it. I closed my eyes. I wasn’t passionate about my job, but I was damned good at it. How I handled Gabriella had been the antithesis of my career. I felt like I had messed up everything with her, but I was so very passionate about trying to fix it.

“He disappeared.”

“What? Oh my God, what? Is he okay? What happened?”

I shrugged. “He didn’t bother showing up at work. Not in the office, not at the site, nowhere.”

She stopped and stared at me. Disbelief was all over her face. I was equally blown away by the gall of him.

“And the kicker is, his father believes him to be some kind of genius at all of this because that’s what my father told him. Gavin is a complete idiot. He has done nothing to show me he has an affinity for this line of work, no interest, and certainly, no follow-through.”

“Your cousin went missing, and you’re laughing about how stupid he is?”

“No, not missing. He took off. He decided he could just take an extended weekend. What he didn’t do was tell Cameron or me. Or any of the site managers who expected him. He told my mom. I swear she thinks the sun shines out his ass.”

“And you?” Her brows crinkled together, and she tilted her head.

“I do not think the sun shines out of his backdoor. Oh, you mean does my mom think… No. I am demon spawn. I am the embarrassing son. Any failure of mine, no matter how old I was, was always held up as a point of showing off how perfect my cousin was. I was held back when I was six. This is something my family has seen as just part of their unending shame in me. At every chance my uncle would remind my father of this. When I graduated college, my uncle said something like how surprising it was that I was able to complete my education because of that incident when I was six. When Gavin graduated with honors, my uncle brought it up again. His son was some perfect example, while I had to be held back. Even while I was in his office, he would make comments comparing the actions of me in my thirties to that of a six-year-old me.” Gabriella shook her head. “Lots of little boys have to do the first grade or kindergarten a second time. It’s becoming more common as educators realize they just don’t have the learned behaviors that are forced on little girls of the same age. There is no shame in that.”

“Tell that to my mother. And maybe my father’s ashes will hear you. That’s the kind of shit that I’ve had to deal with. I was the bad example so that Gavin could succeed. And it turns out he is a bigger loser than I ever was.”

I ran my hand over the back of my neck and tried to get it to pop. I shoved my hands back into my pockets and kept walking.

“He came sauntering into the office, and I had to remember we were at work. I swear if we had been at home, there would have been a real cousin to cousin smackdown. He needs some common sense pounded into him.”

“Beating up your cousin isn’t going to help anything, except maybe land you with an assault charge. You’re bigger than he is, Nathan, and older.”

I groaned. “I know, but those comparisons, and the rivalry our parents forced onto us, run deep. I can have the urge to pound in his smug face and not act on it.”

“Is that what you would tell your child? It’s okay to have those deep thoughts of anger and resentment?”

“Good thing I don’t have a kid, I guess.”

She stopped walking again.

“Look Gabs, if I had a kid, someday, first of all, I wouldn’t pitch him against his cousin or sibling. Secondly, I would tell him his feelings are allowed. Emotions and hurt exist, but there are healthy ways to express them. For example, I like to run, and talking it out is always good. I do know the difference between what Gavin drives me to think about and what I actually do.”

“Okay.” She narrowed her eyes at me. What was she thinking? “What did you end up doing when he came back?”

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