“My assistant knows everything that goes on in the office. If there’s anything you don’t know, she can bring you up to speed. I know you haven’t worked much with Sydney in the past, but she’s top-notch. She’ll take good care of you.”
Shock must have made his esophagus seize because the sip of coffee Griffin had just taken went straight into his lungs, damn near choking him.
“I don’t… You can’t…” Griffin shook his head. Dalton was stepping down? And he was saying that Sydney would take care of him? The irony was just too much. For years he’d been phoning it in for his job at Cain Enterprises. Just biding his time until he could walk away free and clear. He’d stayed with the company out of duty and because if Hollister knew where his interests really lay, he’d be cut off without a dime. And now, after all this time, Dalton wasn’t just giving him more responsibility, he was handing him the entire damn company. “What the hell brought this on? And what on earth are you going to do if you’re not the leader of Cain Enterprises?”
“I’m going to win the heart of the woman I love.”
Okay. So Dalton had officially gone crazy.
“You’re what?” He sat back, waving aside his question. “Never mind,” he said darkly. “I know who’s to blame for this. Laney.”
Dalton’s mouth curved into a sappy smile. “Yeah. Laney.”
Griffin muttered a curse. “You’re throwing away everything for a woman?”
“Laney’s not just—”
“Yeah. I’m sure. Laney’s delightful. Frickin’ wonderful.” He leaned forward and tapped the center of the table to emphasize his point. “I’ve always liked Laney. And even when we were kids I saw that she was special to you. So if you want to be with her, then be with her. But don’t throw away everything you’ve worked for all your life over it.”
Dalton shot him a look that was somewhere between annoyed and amused. “I never thought I’d say this, but you sound remarkably like our father.”
“God, I hope not.” Griffin leaned back and blew out a frustrated sigh. “It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy, it’s just that…”
He had a lot on his plate right now. In the next month alone, he had two trips to Guatemala planned and one more to Africa. The project in Rwanda was at a critical stage and it was the first in that country. On Griffin’s most recent visit, he’d made inroads to get the project financed by a local bank, but if he didn’t get back down there soon, it might all fall through. The simple truth was, he didn’t have time to be CEO.
Griffin set down his coffee cup to see Dalton watching him with that slightly dazed look people in love usually wore. Griffin wanted to leap across the table and strangle some sense into his brother. “Did it ever occur to you that I might have better things to do?”
For nearly a full minute Dalton just stared at him. Then Dalton burst out laughing, and didn’t speak for another minute until he stopped. “Better things. Nice one.”
Griffin unclenched his jaw. “I’m serious. I just happen to be busy right now.”
Dalton took a lazy sip of coffee and shrugged. “There’s nothing you do as VP of International Marketing that can’t be done by someone else.”
That was probably true. His job at Cain required very little. He liked it that way because it left his hours free for his work with Hope2O. And the occasional dalliance with a beautiful woman…such as Sydney.
But Dalton wasn’t buying his busy schedule as an excuse, so Griffin changed tactics. “Look, you don’t really want to step down at CEO. It’s who you are. You’re the guy who takes care of business. You’re the guy who’s going to find this missing heiress.”
And until this moment, Griffin had believed that. He hadn’t had even a shadow of a doubt that Dalton would find the heiress and, as a result, win the entire Cain fortune as his prize. But he knew his brother. Dalton was fair to a fault. He wouldn’t take the money and run. Once Dalton had secured the Cain fortune, he would carefully divide it up among the three—or four—of them. However, if Dalton backed out of things now, then they were all screwed, Griffin included.
Dalton smiled. “Well, it’s time for you to step up and become that guy because I’m not him anymore.”
The problem was, he wasn’t that guy, either. Ever since he was a kid he’d been hiding his true nature from his family.
He was—and this was a direct quote from Hollister—a pansy-assed do-gooder with a heart of gold. That was a hell of an insult to hear at age nine, especially from the father he worshipped like a god.