Loved Either Way, page 40
Lucas smiled at the server. “Nice to meet you, Marley. I’ll take the special, medium-rare. Sour cream on the side, and not on my potatoes. Nothing to follow or for dessert. And no beer, thank you.”
“You better drink something,” Ronald interjected before the server could confirm she had understood Lucas’ order. “Nobody signs paperwork without a drink to make it official—come on.”
“I’ll be driving tonight,” Lucas said, speaking only to the server as he handed his menu over. “No drinks, thank you.”
“Got it,” she replied. “Anybody else ready?”
Refusing to engage his father more than he had to took conscious, consistent effort from Lucas. Especially when Ronald ordered four glasses of whiskey for the table, and a bottle of red wine that would apparently go well with the steaks. The lawyers waited until their clients had ordered before they, too, opted for the special coming out of the kitchen. Once she had all the orders noted into the tablet in her hands, Marley left with a promise to me back soon with drinks.
“No better time, then?” Chandler asked Lawrence.
Lucas’ lawyer’s bushy brows lifted high at the question when the man across the table lifted a legal file to place on the table between them.
“Might as well get a start on it, Hanny,” Lawrence agreed.
The boring legalese that started to be tossed back and forth between the lawyers at the table was a bit much for Lucas. There was a reason he never made a bit for law school when college came up in his life a while back. He wouldn’t apologize or make excuses for zoning out when Chandler opened the file and started with a glossary of terms that could be expected in the final agreement between Lucas and his father.
Instead, his mind traveled to Delaney.
Had the doctor seen her yet?
Did she know if her pregnancy had been lost?
The universe had a special way of fucking with Lucas like nothing else could or did. He should put his attention on the conversation at the table, and the question Ronald had just asked Lawrence about the thirty-day window for the money to be transferred, but all Lucas could think about was the woman he’d called home.
He even checked his phone, using the distraction of the other men at the table to his benefit, just in case Delaney had sent a text message.
But he found nothing.
The not-knowing added on top of the dinner that would be surely full of careful conversation to keep the peace with Ronald left Lucas on edge.
Just a little.
And maybe a bit distracted, too.
“We’re going to have to discuss that,” Ronald said gruffly, folding his arms over his chest across from Lucas. An irritated stare landed on him, bringing Lucas back to the conversation at hand.
“We’re discussing what, now?” Lucas asked Lawrence.
The lawyer shifted his stare from Lucas to Ronald, but then down at the table when he filled in the blank, saying, “The Jacob Dalton Foundation. We’re talking the trademarks and other things. There could be future problems with the same and its connection to—”
Lucas turned his attention on Ronald.
Zero to sixty in a blink.
Had his father done that on purpose?
It didn’t even matter.
“Do you hate us that much?” Lucas asked Ronald.
He hadn’t expected the frank question if the way his stony expression cracked with surprise was any indication. The other two men at the table shifted awkwardly in their seats, one clearing his throat while the other resituated the water glass away from his plate even though he had yet to drink a drop from it.
Ronald, to his benefit, didn’t look away from Lucas. “How I feel about you or your brother has little to nothing to do with the brewery’s registered—”
“Oh, get off it,” Lucas snapped. “How did you even get wind of the foundation when nothing has even been announced? The non-profit registry only came through a few days ago, for Christ’s sake.”
“Easy,” Lawrence muttered under his breath. “We are in public, and nobody wants to get kicked out of this establishment. Some of us eat here regularly. Keep it in mind.”
Right.
Then they might not be allowed back.
Shame, Lucas thought.
He couldn’t care less.
“The brewery’s IP lawyer has alert systems in place should anything come up that challenges the trademarks or other registered marks of the Dalton Brewery company,” Chandler explained, shrugging. “The filing, and your approval, is a matter of public record.”
“I’ll change the name,” Lucas deadpanned, moving in the opposite direction.
It didn’t matter.
The foundation didn’t have to be named after Jacob to memorialize him and the difference Lucas wanted to make for young men and boys just like his brother.
Ronald moved in his seat, grunting something under his breath to the lawyer beside him. The table quieted when the redhead from earlier returned with a tray full of drinks, and the bottle of red wine. Once everyone confirmed they were happy, she left the table once more with a promise that the food shouldn’t take more than an hour.
Fuck.
That long?
Lucas managed to keep his complaint to himself.
Someone else, not so much.
“There’s barely three mouthfuls of whiskey in there,” Ronald bitched about the glass of liquor with more ice than whiskey.
Chandler chuckled at his client’s despair. “Ah, oh, well. Take the drink you wanted Lucas to have—he’s not interested.”
Ronald glanced back to his son who pushed the drink across the table.
“Cheers,” Lucas told Ronald.
“Should have had someone drive you across town,” his father said.
“I’m leaving town, so that wouldn’t work, either.”
Ronald’s scowl deepened; his attempt to stick Lucas with another verbal barb fell short, and it showed between them.
Perhaps it was Lucas’ mention of leaving town that made Lawrence comfortable enough to ask his client about his new penchant for a particular spot upriver.
In front of Ronald, unfortunately.
“Are you staying at the camp or with …”
Lawrence trailed off at the sudden turn of Lucas’ head at the table.
“Apologies,” Lawrence muttered fast.
The damage had already been done.
Ronald finally had enough information to put together something important in Lucas’ current life. Delaney, that was.
“What’s her name—Reed, right? Delaney Reed,” Ronald said. “The hairdresser you started seeing just before Jacob … well, you know,” his father settled on saying.
Lamely.
It felt like a punch to the chest to Lucas. He had not given his father a chance to bring up his knowledge of Delaney or her connection to Lucas. In fact, he never even brought it to Ronald’s attention that he knew the man had contacted Delaney’s boss in her former city of residence. A feat made easier by the fact he no longer answered calls from Ronald, and their lawyers did all the talking. As he’d hoped, it all made Ronald think Delaney wasn’t anything interesting to Lucas, and therefore, not useful to his father.
Ronald put the puzzle together way too late.
Oh, well.
Unlike his father, Lucas protected the people he loved.
“I tried to check up on her, but found she’d quit her job and moved from Fredericton. I wondered why you hadn’t taken one of the job offers I heard came your way. Now it makes a little more sense. Are you looking for a specific area to work? I didn’t realize you—”
“She’s none of your business,” Lucas interjected, the edge to his tone drawing a clear line for Ronald. Or so he willed with a tight jaw and a gaze that dared his father to try.
He truly expected Ronald to prove how much of a bastard he really was in that moment. Another attempt to bait Lucas into a verbal altercation, even. Some shit never changed, right?
No.
Ronald surprised him.
His father just nodded, and reached for the glass of whiskey Lucas had pushed across earlier to take a sip. He then tipped the rim in Lucas’ direction, smacking his lips before uttering, “Cheers, then.”
Lucas dared to think the way his father’s eyebrows and mouth drew downward came from a realization of some sadness. Did he understand the privilege to know his son’s personal life had gone along with any lines of communication that wasn’t through their lawyers?
Good.
Maybe the bastard did have a heart.
Lucas hoped guilt and regret tore it apart.
Pulling in a deep breath, and resituating his focus at the table to the legal agreement spread out on the table between the lawyers, Lucas asked, “Is the foundation going to be a hard line here or is there a number we can readjust to make that worth somebody’s while to shut the fuck up?”
Ronald replied, “Keep the name.”
“Ronald, are you sure?” Chandler stepped in quietly. “Maybe we should check with—”
“Take it out.”
Lucas could feel his father’s gaze burrowing a hole into the side of his head.
He refused to turn and look at the man.
“That’s really it, huh?” Ronald asked Lucas, sounding almost tired.
If not bored.
“Is what it?” Lucas asked back.
“This is how you’re gonna break the cycle, then? By shutting me out, pretending like I don’t exist, and making a new life for yourself somewhere else?”
Lucas had said none of those things.
In fact, he never even thought about them.
Mostly.
“This is how it’s gonna be,” Lucas told his father, settling on that being the best out of everything else racing through his head.
Next to him, Lawrence offered a wary, awkward smile. “If we need to bring someone else in to handle the family side of things … I don’t have anyone to suggest. Hanny?”
“I …”
The other lawyer came up with nothing.
Lucas rolled his eyes, and the irritation shuddered through the rest of his body with the action. He wasn’t the only one, apparently.
“Oh, get off it,” Ronald snapped, tossing the napkin rudely at the older man. He pointed at the papers, but Lawrence glared back, unaffected. “Let’s just get back to that, huh? Stay out of the family side of things. We’ve gone over it a million times. The foundation was new, so take it out. We’ll both sign.”
Lucas then looked to his father.
“Right?” Ronald asked him, brows lifting at the question.
“Right.”
It took a few more minutes for the lawyers to work their way to the end of a bunch of babble that, Ronald was right, they had gone over enough times. It all had to be official and correct—a transaction done through appropriate legal counsel. For the benefit of the company, two Dalton men would put away their private differences to handle a company matter.
Nothing more.
Twelve and a half million dollars for the exchange in ownership of Lucas’ twenty-five percent share of the family brewery. The bonus of incorporating a profit ownership to employees from those shares would be great public PR for Ronald as he began looking for the people he would soon be looking to hire. His position in the west needed to be filled. Lucas couldn’t say whether Ronald had found someone to take over his former position, either. The attention would also shift from private Dalton matters to what should matter more—the brewery and employees.
It benefited Ronald to get on with this situation, too. Lucas had already figured that part out himself.
Ronald signed first.
His lawyer followed.
Lucas put his name on the appropriate flagged places next. Lawrence came in last to zip through the ten pages, making a neat pile on top of the file as he finished each one. That was when Ronald leaned forward and grabbed the pile of papers, clutching tight and waving it proudly toward Lucas with a rueful smile.
His father should be happy. Ronald had everything he wanted. The Dalton Brewery was, on paper at least, a hundred percent his.
“That’s it.”
“That’s it,” Lucas echoed, no smile in sight.
That didn’t bother his father.
Ronald smirked and proved Lucas shouldn’t have given him any credit toward having a heart when he said, “I hope she’s nothing like your mother—but don’t fuck it up the way I did. Always get a prenup.”
Lucas decided then that he would get his meal to go.
Chapter 39
“Delaney?”
“In here,” she called back.
Lucas maneuvered the darkened apartment with ease, stuffing the key Delaney had given him at his first visit into his back pocket. He checked the bedroom first in the hallway beyond the small kitchen, but quickly realized he’d chosen wrong when a soft laugh echoed behind him.
He spun around.
Delaney waved two fingers, water droplets flinging from the tips, from a bathtub filled with bubbles. Other than the entry light over the front door, only candles flickered in the bathroom to offer any light. Covered in shadows, flickers, and bubbles, her sweet smile did the best things to his heart.
Lucas hesitated in the doorway, his hands holding the jamb to help keep him from entering like he wanted to right away. “Hey.”
She lifted one shoulder making bubbles and steam rise. “Hey, yourself.”
She’d tied her black hair into a messy bun high on her head, and a paperback novel sat overturned on the top of the toilet seat next to the bathtub.
Lucas wished he knew what to say.
Or where to start.
Anything.
Delaney saved him by asking, “So, how was the drive?”
Lucas let out an exhausted laugh. “Long and dark.”
From the start to the finish.
Pitch black highway all the way.
He rolled his shoulders, muttering, “My back hurts, but fuck it—what’s it matter?”
His pain wouldn’t compare to hers.
Surely.
“All in all, no complaints,” Lucas finished, winking.
Delaney smiled. “I can’t believe you were halfway here by the time I texted you to say I could head home.”
“I told you I would be here.”
Even if that meant driving fifteen over the limit and refusing to waste time on the phone because his heart had been racing too much to keep a conversation going without running off the damn road. Delaney hadn’t seemed to mind. She promised to wait up, actually.
She looked up at him, then, her quivering smile hitting him in the chest like a punch.
“Good,” she said, “I want you here.” Her chin tipped down when she added lower, “And there was a point today sitting in the hospital when I needed you, too. So, I guess I can say that sort of thing to myself. It just takes a lot.”
“I did tell you to set the bar higher,” Lucas replied.
That made Delaney smile.
Only a bit, though.
“I bet you didn’t bring anything with you, huh?”
“Didn’t even think to pack a bag.”
He didn’t care, either. The extra change of clothes he kept in the back of the Bronco in a reusable bag would do for a day until he figured things out.
“How are you supposed to move in with me if you brought nothing?” she asked, only half serious.
“Let’s just say you’re starting with the best part.”
That made her laugh the most beautiful sound in the world.
Lucas shed his spring jacket and hung it off the ball end of the rod where a towel dried on the wall. The apartment had its pros and cons. The main negative being the small size of the bathroom and kitchen, in his opinion. He barely had enough room to turn around in the space and doing so made him face all the important amenities, or the door, so hunching down next to the tub didn’t exactly leave him a lot of room to move.
Delaney made it worth it by reaching for him the second he got close enough for her to touch. Those warm, wet hands of hers clung onto his forearms first before crawling higher to his shoulders before wrapping around his back. He hugged back, pulling her out of the bubbly water slightly with his squeeze, not bothered at all by her wet body leaving imprints on his button-down shirt. The fact she held tight, refusing to let go, kept Lucas in the same hunched position.
Even their breaths matched for a while.
She buried her face in his neck, mumbling, “Gracen canceled all of my appointments for tomorrow. Didn’t even ask.”
“Good, she should. You probably need a break.”
He felt her eyelashes flutter against his skin with the roll of her eyes, but she still pressed a kiss to his neck all the same. “Don’t worry—she already told me that I can’t put my head down and work to get through everything.”
“Well—”
“They think there was two.”
Her random statement made Lucas blink more than a few times as her fingertips patted the back of his neck. Had she felt the way his surprise raced up through his spine?
“Two?”
Delaney’s exhale came out shaky as she started to pull away. That sad smile curved her lips at the edges just enough to distract him from the strip of papers she produced from under the overturned book.
Along the edge of the tub, she spread out a roll of sonogram pictures that made Lucas’ hands tremble as he picked them up. He didn’t really understand the images in front of him. Every black and white and gray swirl around a circular patch of darkness wasn’t exactly distinguishable.
Delaney pointed out the smaller circle off to the side of several shots. “When the blood test came back with a high hormone level, the doctor did an ultrasound. Based on my last period, and dates of conception, I would be just far enough along to see the embryo this way. If it was there,” she added.
“And one was,” Lucas murmured.
“That’s what the doctor told me, anyway. I think I went through emotional whiplash so many times today that now I’m just numb.”
Lucas’ head snapped up from the sonograms to find Delaney staring blankly into the bubbles down below. “Sweets, it’s been a long day for you.”
