Johnson Family 2: Perfect (11 page)

The majority of people at the engagement party were family and Ivy’s friends, which meant he didn’t have to suffer through pitches to invest in the next hot business idea, mothers practically throwing their daughters at him—despite the fact that he wore his ring and was still married—nor be forced to make conversation, because most everyone here knew small talk wasn’t his forte.

Situated on Lake Union, the grounds of Cyrus’s mother’s estate had been transformed into a colorful display in celebration of Ivy and Lucas’s engagement. Bright colors dominated the decorations, and tulips—his mother and Ivy’s favorite flower—had been imported from the Netherlands and adorned the white-linen covered tables in bright reds, oranges, and purples. Upon entering, guests received white note cards with
Advice for the Bride & Groom
engraved in gold letters, with the expectation they would write their advice on the lines below and drop them in a glass box sitting on a table by itself.

Plenty of squealing and hugging took place as guests arrived to celebrate with the future bride and groom. Lucas didn’t have any family members in attendance because he didn’t know his family, but everyone at the party took the opportunity to get to know him and make him feel welcomed.

In addition to chairs and tables set up on the grass, there were stations laden down with more than enough food and beverages. One table had heavy hors d’oeuvres and another was piled high with cakes and cookies. A Bloody Mary station allowed guests to build their own unique version of the drink, and the family’s Full Moon beer was available in abundance. For nondrinkers like Cyrus, one station offered nonalcoholic beverages.

Standing on the perimeter of the festivities with his brother, Trenton, Cyrus’s eyes rested on Daniella, chatting with a guest over near the drinks table. He could hardly take his eyes from her. She wore her hair loose around her shoulders, the way he liked, and she managed to make the simple long skirt and oversized peasant top she wore look like high fashion. To him, she was the most beautiful woman in attendance. Today she was returning home, and he could hardly wait. He could almost feel those long legs wrapped around him, her soft body clinging to his in rapturous release, and his ass clenching under the bite of her fingernails.

A scream pierced the air. Like everyone else, Cyrus turned toward the sound and saw Ivy with her hand over her mouth. He followed her wide-eyed gaze to see his brother, Gavin, coming down the stone steps that led from the back of the house.

The prodigal son had returned.

Cyrus couldn’t see his brother’s eyes behind the dark-tinted aviator sunglasses, but Gavin smiled fondly at his sister as she rushed forward into his arms. He lifted her off the ground and swung her around in two full circles. Once everyone realized there was nothing to be alarmed about, a low hum of excited chatter started.

Cyrus couldn’t hear what his brother and sister were saying, but the happiness on Ivy’s face conveyed her joy at seeing her twin.

“Would you look at that,” Trenton murmured. He took a carrot stick from the crudité cup he held and crunched it. “I didn’t think he would come.”

“I guess he thought better of it,” Cyrus said.

Trenton eyed him suspiciously. “What did you do?”

“I reminded him of how important his presence is to his sister.”

That and threatening to cut him off financially had done the trick. As the executor of their father’s will, Cyrus was responsible for the allowances paid out to all family members. Since Gavin didn’t work, he depended on his allowance to finance his partying around the world.

Trenton laughed. “Yeah right. Whatever you did, it worked. Mother’s happy, too,” he added as their mother hurried over to envelope her son in her arms.

Friends and family greeted Gavin with enthusiastic hugs and smiles, many of whom hadn’t seen him in years, so it was a while before he made his way to them. When he finally did, he sauntered over.

“Good to see you, bro.” Trenton gave him a hug and they slapped each other on the back.

Cyrus’s lips quirked into a smile. “Changed your mind, I see,” he said.

“I guess you’re happy.” Gavin shoved the glasses atop his head. “I’m going to get you back for this.”

“For telling you to come home? I’m not losing any sleep over your threats. Stay a while. For some reason Mother and Ivy want you here and are glad to see you. Look how happy they are, although I have no idea why.”

Gavin laughed. His light brown eyes, the same color as their father’s, crinkled in the corners. The contrast with his dark brown skin was the first thing women noticed about him and made them practically swoon. Cyrus sometimes thought Gavin wore sunglasses so often to make the reveal of his eyes more dramatic.

“Tell the truth, you’re happy to see me, too. That’s why you wanted me here so badly.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Gavin laughed again. “I might stay a while if I can find a way to occupy my time.” He looked around at the attendees. “What’s the scoop on the ladies?” He directed the question to Trenton.

“You don’t waste any time, do you?” Cyrus asked dryly.

“Unlike you, I’m not in any hurry to get married. You are still married, aren’t you?”

“Barely,” Trenton answered.

“And where is the lovely Daniella? That woman should be nominated for sainthood for putting up with you for as long as she did. Are you ever going to give her a divorce?”

Both his brothers looked at him and waited for an answer.

“We’ve recently reconciled. Worry about your own love life and not mine,” he told his brothers.

“My love life is great, as always,” Gavin said. “So who are the single ladies?”

Trenton pointed them out with his chin. “That one over there is recently divorced. The one in the cream dress will be happy to see you. Every time she sees me she asks about you.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Sharon.”

“Oh yeah, Sharon.” Gavin licked his lips and smiled. “What about her, in the gray skirt?”

“That’s Alannah,” Cyrus answered. Trenton’s best friend.

“I couldn’t tell with her back to us.” Gavin shifted his gaze to Trenton and then back at Alannah, who’d now turned around and was in conversation with their mother. “What’s up with you and her? The two of you still just friends?”

“Don’t go there,” Cyrus warned.

“She’s more than a friend. She’s family,” Trenton said.

“She ain’t my family,” Gavin said. “I’m just asking a question. The two of you still platonic? Because if you are, I might take a shot at her. I’ve always thought she was kind of cute.”

Cyrus anticipated the impending explosion as Gavin purposely baited Trenton.

“Cut it out. She’s a good girl.” The note in Trenton’s voice had grown harder.

“You’re a better man than me,” Gavin continued. He kept his eyes on Alannah. “She’s got the nerdy librarian thing going on with the glasses and the bun. If I hadn’t seen Alannah in a bathing suit when she came on vacation with us, I’d swear she didn’t have a body under those oversized clothes. Makes me want to take them off and find out how—”

Trenton walked up to his brother and stood nose to nose with him. “Enough.”

Gavin put up his hands with a laugh. “I can’t pay your friend a compliment? Calm down, I’m kidding.”

“It’s not funny. She’s a nice girl. Show some respect.”

The stare off ended when Trenton stepped back and looked out at the lake. Gavin locked eyes with Cyrus.

“I told you,” Cyrus said with a shrug.

Gavin patted Trenton on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t come home to create problems. I came to celebrate my sister getting engaged and meet the guy she’s supposed to marry. Let’s forget I said anything about the nice and sweet Alannah.” He flung his arm around Trenton’s neck.

Trenton didn’t hug him back. “You play too damn much.”

Gavin grinned to neutralize his brother’s anger. “Come on. Introduce me to the women who aren’t so nice. Those are the ones I really want to meet.” With his hand still around Trenton’s neck, he hauled his younger brother with him toward a couple of women.

“Those two together will mean nothing but trouble,” a voice said. Xavier had walked over with a drink in his hand. As usual, he didn’t dress the part of a wealthy man. He never wore name brand anything, and today had on a plain shirt and jeans. His dreads were pulled back from his face in a thick ponytail.

Cyrus nodded his agreement. “I feel like I should issue a warning to all the women here.”

Xavier didn’t respond, but Cyrus could tell he wanted to talk. They stared after their brothers as they chatted up two of Ivy’s friends standing over by one of the tables.

“You look tired. You need to get some rest,” Xavier said.

“Somebody has to put in the long hours. You wouldn’t know anything about that, though, would you?”

Xavier bit his lip in annoyance, as if biting back harsh words. Shaking his head, he shot his brother an angry look. “I’m tired of your cracks about the work I do. You’ve never respected it, but it’s work, even if you don’t think so.” Working with nonprofits, he brought attention to the economic inequalities in resource-rich African countries.

“Not the work you were meant to do.”

“What was I meant to do, Cyrus?” He lowered his voice because he’d gotten rather loud. “I’m not you, okay? I was never the CEO type. Father knew that. It’s why he left you in charge. You’re practically a clone of him.” He said the last with disgust, which made Cyrus straighten and stare at him. “Do you even know who you are—outside of being Cyrus Junior?”

“Who else would I be?”

“You have his name, his responsibility, and that’s all you have. Do you have any friends? When was the last time you took the boat out on the lake and relaxed? When was the last time you took a vacation? You sit on your throne on top of Mount Johnson and use money to control everything and everyone. He groomed you well.”

Cyrus laughed softly, mildly amused by his brother’s sanctimonious pronouncements.

“While you’re complaining about the money, what about you, Xavier? Who are you? Why do you feel the need to hide who you are, with the dreadlocks and the bargain basement clothes? You’re trying so hard to be somebody else, to hide from your wealth while still collecting a nice check every month.”

“I hardly spend a dime of my allowance,” Xavier grated. “What I do spend helps others in my nonprofit work.”

“And the money finances your trips, doesn’t it? A few years ago, when you were stuck in a Senegalese prison, it was the money from Mount Johnson that got you freed.” Cyrus looked around at the smiling guests. “I don’t understand why you can’t work at the company our father worked so hard to build.”

“Not everyone is cut out for business, and there’s more to life than money.”

“Why can’t you do both? Save the world and work at the company?” Cyrus said. “Why are you so ashamed of who you are and where you came from? Do you know how many people would love to be you?”

“Of course I do. Do you know how many people suffer everyday because they don’t have enough to eat and because of corporations like ours, underpaying and raping resources from local communities? The rich getting richer and the poor poorer.”

“Save me the tired clichés,” Cyrus said with a wave of his hand. “Your statistics say one thing, mine say there’s a growing middle class, and it’s larger than ever before.”

“Anyone can doctor numbers to coincide with their arguments. I don’t trust your funny math.”

“And I should trust yours?”

“We’ll never see eye to eye on this,” Xavier pronounced. He looked ready to move on.

“Not as long as you continue to run from your birthright.”

“My birthright?” Xavier said bitterly, swinging back in his direction. “The only person Father thought was good enough to run the company was you, and he was ridiculously tough on all of us.”

“Tough but fair.”

“No, just tough. He groomed you to be the next him. It’s so embroiled in you, you don’t even have a separate identity. It started with the name. No one can tell anymore that you have your own personality because you
are
him, and because of that, you were his favorite, the crown prince of the Johnson empire.”

“So jealousy is the reason you’ve abandoned your responsibility to help run the company?” Cyrus demanded. He’d known for a while that Xavier held resentment toward him, but he’d never been certain of the cause.

“Did he ever ask
you,
‘Why can’t you be more like your brother?’” Xavier snapped. He stopped, as if he’d revealed too much. Then he plowed on since he’d said plenty already. “
I
never measured up.”

Cyrus was bewildered by his brother’s remarks. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know. I’m good at what I do,” Xavier said. “I help people and do something meaningful with my life instead of sipping champagne around the pool all day.”

“If you think that’s how my day is spent, you’re wrong,” Cyrus said dryly.

“Everyone knows how hard you work, Cyrus,” Xavier said in a grudging tone.

Cyrus stared out at the guests, not really seeing them. All he saw was his father lying in the hospital bed, giving Cyrus his last instructions to take care of the family and keep the Johnson name clean. To continue building on the family’s success so future generations could benefit. They were tasks Cyrus took very seriously.