Page 89 of The Billionaire Is Back

“The old fisherman guy who fell off the pier.”

“Now, y’all did that on purpose!” I call out, like the guy in the video.

Jake laughs in spite of his clear frustration with me. “Ya did that on purpose!” he echoes.

“I saw it. Bill is a legend.”

“You didn’t reply. I didn’t even get a Like reaction so I knew you saw it.”

“I’m sorry, Jakey. I meant to respond later, but the day just got away from me. Thank you for sending it. I laughed.”

Jake sighs and puts his hands on his hips. He shakes his head. He is clearly disgusted by me and searching for the proper way to articulate it.

As always, it’s up to me to get a Sweeney to open up about feelings. “This isn’t about fisherman fails. What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is you said you would take care of Claire.”

“I did. I am. I love her, Jake. I’ve told her so.”

“Yeah, I know. Good. Great.” He holds his hand up, like he doesn’t want to hear it. “I get it. But that’s not the same thing as taking care of her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve been on that thing all night.” He points at my phone so aggressively that I take a step back. “And right now she’s in there all alone.”

“Well, she’s not alone. She’s sitting with her best friend and our parents and about a hundred other people, listening to Damien sing a song. She knows I stepped out to make a phone call.”

“You’ve barely said two words to her since we got here.”

“Thatis definitely not true.”

“Okay, look, I haven’t counted exactly how many words. But you’re just nothere, man. And I know you gave her a lot of shit and bought her a lot of shit and did all these really nice things that only a rich guy can do, but I don’t care about that. I want the guy who says he’s going to take care of my sister to give her the attention she deserves.”

I let out a long, slow breath. I’d say that I can’t believe that I’m hearing this from Jake and not Claire, but this doesn’t really surprise me at all. “Jake, I shouldn’t even be out tonight. I should be working. Making calls. Sending emails. Reading reports and dictating memos to my assistant. You have no idea how busy a CEO is. It is nonstop responding to input, making decisions, communicating with people, and getting shit done. It only slowed down for a little while because the deal was on hold and I came home to help Dad, but things are getting crazy again.”

“Does she know that?”

“Yeah. We’ve talked about it. We know it’s going to be a challenge, but we’re up for it because we love each other.”

I can tell Jake isn’t satisfied by that answer but he doesn’t know quite how to respond to it. Someone goes into the bar, and the sounds of Damien’s guitar, cheering, and applause slip through the door. We both look toward the Sea Dog.

“Listen, I gotta make this call. I want you to keep sending me ridiculous videos, and I want to laugh about them with you. I want to get in there and sit next to Claire and hang out with you and Vera and our parentsand listen to my brother play. Believe me, that’s what I want to do, but there are a lot of other things that Ihaveto do too. Okay?”

Suddenly, Jake gets that look, like he’s about to turn on the fire hose and I’m about to get blasted with all the words he’s been trying to find for the past half hour. “No, not okay. I do get it, y’know, Mr. Big-Shot Billionaire. I know you work hard for the big money. We all get it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard for the other things in life too. Including my sister. I’m glad you told her you love her. I’ve scared off a lot of guys who tried to get into her pants because I knew they weren’t good enough for her and I knew they wouldn’t treat her right. You? You’re good enough. But treating her right, taking care of her—that means going all in. This is all or nothing, bro. So you need to do me a solid. You think about whether or not you’re capable of going all in for Claire. If you want out, I need you to get out now. Because the longer you wait, the worse it’s gonna get.” He turns to walk away from me. “See you inside.”

Well played, dude. Well played.

Taking up any more time trying to convince him of my intentions would be a poor use of that limited resource. I need to show him that I’m all in. Actually, I need to show Claire. And I can do that after I call my assistant back.

She answers on the first ring. “Sorry to bother you so late, Mr. Barber.”

“I miss the days when you used to ask me to call you so you could tell me something good.”

“When did I ever do that?”Alice scoffs.

“What’s going on?”

“Harrison Lynch is like a giant, grouchy, extremely well-dressed, handsome cockroach. With big hands. We just can’t seem to snuff him out.”

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