The Reluctant Heir. HelenKay Dimon

to have a few private, discreet hookups just for fun with his family nearby. Someone always seemed to be watching. And sometimes it was the guy sitting right in front of him.

      Jackson. Friend, invaluable asset to Jameson Industries and all-around smart-ass.

      “Stop acting like you’re not management.” Jackson finished unwrapping the sandwich and crumpled the paper underneath it. “You could write me a check tomorrow. In fact, you should. You know, just because.”

      Carter knew Jackson was kidding but he’d hit on a sore spot. One Carter couldn’t exactly laugh off since it guided everything he’d done for the last year. “My father ran me out of the family and the business a year ago, remember? No power to do anything here.”

      Jackson swallowed the bite he’d been chewing. “When did you get so dramatic?”

      “You weren’t here, but he did.” Carter grabbed for his food. He fiddled with the paper, trying to untuck the edge, but finally gave in and ripped it open. The smell of tuna fish salad hit him a second later.

      “I missed the actual office fight between you two, but I do remember the fallout. You refused to talk. Derrick was pissed because your dad refused to listen to your ideas about what to do with the Virginia property.” Jackson shook his head as he whistled. “It was a hell of a welcome back from my vacation.”

      “I believe the exact phrase Dad used was that my ideas were beneath the Jameson name.” The dismissive tone echoed in Carter’s brain. No matter how he tried to write off his father and erase the memory, it kicked up every now and then. “He pointed out that I was an embarrassment and should go out and prove myself or not bother to step in his office again.”

      “That is some interesting Jameson tough love.” Jackson took another bite, almost devouring half the sandwich in only a few minutes.

      Carter glanced at the tuna fish, then to his unopened bag of chips. The idea of food suddenly didn’t appeal to him. He blamed the office and the city. Being this close to what his father viewed as the center of his power made Carter want to be anywhere else. To not be a Jameson or have to deal with the steady stream of disappointing everyone. It was easier to be away and just be Carter, not the rich kid who didn’t live up to the family standard.

      He dropped the sandwich and then pushed the paper away from him. “He deactivated my key card to the building and told security to kick me out that afternoon. Derrick undid the orders, or so he said when he called and asked me to come back, but I was done by then.”

      “Eldrick couldn’t make a phone call without having three people help him.” Jackson swore under his breath. Not that he was quiet about it or tried to hide his anger at Eldrick. “But yeah, that will teach me to take three days of vacation. By the time I got back you were driving across the country and the office had descended into chaos.”

      Jackson’s controlled outburst eased some of the frustration coursing through Carter. There was something comforting about having Jackson on his side that made talking about his father tolerable. “Your timing was terrible. You take three days off a year and you picked those days.”

      Jackson did what he often did when talking about family business: he shook his head. “All kidding aside, your father is an ass.”

      Among other things. “Very true.”

      “You have a second chance, you know.” Jackson made a show of taking a drink and wiping his hands on his napkin. Drew out the suspense but didn’t deliver a punch line.

      Carter didn’t shy away from asking. “Meaning?”

      “Derrick liked your ideas about converting the Virginia property. He had me look into the legalities of changing the property’s legal use and run some numbers on the financial feasibility of trying your solution.”

      For the business retreat and possible private club and party event facility? That was news to Carter. “What?”

      “Like you, Derrick doesn’t often agree with your father. He has always been pretty clear that his memories of living at the estate as a kid weren’t great.”

      “It was fine, if you liked yelling.” Carter thought about the big redbrick mansion, stately with the columns surrounded by acres of rolling hills. The pool, the pond, the outbuildings. As much as he loved the house and the outdoors and the open space, it was hard to ignore the bad memories that lingered over every inch of the land.

      He’d been a teenager when his mother got cancer. Only a few months older than that when she went into the hospital, then to hospice to live out her final days, where Dad served her with divorce papers. Eldrick couldn’t allow her the simple dignity of dying in peace. No, he thought his girlfriend was pregnant and he needed to move on. His girlfriend wasn’t and now he was on wife number four and Carter doubted the man was one ounce more faithful to this one than he had been to Carter’s mother.

      Before his mother’s death and the shock and the ripping sensation of having all his safety nets stripped away, life hadn’t been so great either. Dad used his wife and sons as public props while bouncing between ignoring them and screaming at them in private. He was demanding and difficult and manipulative. He liked to pit Derrick and Spence against each other. It was a miracle the brothers managed to maintain any meaningful sibling relationship, let alone establish the strong one they had.

      As soon as he graduated, Carter escaped and shuffled off to college, only visiting when ordered home, which amounted to little more than once a year at the holidays. Even when Derrick had moved back home with the thought of taking over the family business, he’d skipped the mansion and moved to D.C. Insisted the commute to the office would be prohibitive, which was true but not really the reason he avoided the place.

      As the years rolled by, the brothers rarely used the space for weekend getaways or events. For the most part, the big house and the grounds stood empty. Eldrick lived there on and off, depending on whether his then girlfriend or wife, or whomever he was sleeping with at the time, had any interest in the country.

      A skeleton staff ran the place. The only event Carter could remember attending there in the last few years was Derrick and Ellie’s engagement party. Ellie had insisted the party would replace some of the bad memories of growing up there with good memories. It was a nice thought, but Carter didn’t think it had worked.

      “Which is why you should repurpose the house and grounds.” Jackson tipped the small bag and dumped the remaining chips and crumbs on his desk blotter. “Talk to Derrick. Of course, all of this depends on if you intend to stick around.”

      The tone. Jackson might not be related to them, but he shared Derrick’s ability to convey a get-your-act-together message with a few words.

      “Are you trying to lure me back into the family?” For the first time in a long time, Carter entertained the idea and it was all due to his brothers. The idea of fitting in, of being a part of something that didn’t depend on his father’s whims, appealed to him even though he was not a set-down-roots kind of guy. But maybe he could let something matter to him. Maybe.

      Jackson picked up a chip and pointed it at Carter. “Forget your dad. You and your brothers support each other. I understand how that works because it’s how it is with me and Zoe.”

      “Ah, yes.” Carter smiled at the thought of Jackson’s fraternal twin. She looked like him with brown hair and blue eyes, only female and much prettier. Petite and fiery. She was one of the most determined people Carter had ever met. “Your baby sister. You are eight minutes older, right?”

      Jackson’s mouth flatlined. “Pretend I don’t have a sister.”

      “But I love her.” Like the sister he never had, but Carter didn’t say that part out loud. Not when he enjoyed Jackson’s reaction to the joke of potentially tying him even more tightly to the Jamesons through his sister’s dating choices.

      “Get over it,” Jackson said in his most grumbly voice.

      The fact was, they all viewed Jackson and Zoe as