Page 16 of Most Eligible Billionaire

And she’s right about one thing—it’s Mom I should be angry at.

I close my eyes, trying to shake the image of her, frail in that hospital bed, so diminished from the woman I knew. Managing to depart this earth without uttering a word to me. Her last words were to a scam artist. And a dog.

When I open my eyes, my cousin Brett is looking at me, waiting to see what I say. Everyone is always waiting to see what I say.

“Grifter,” Brett says when I don’t speak.

I gaze over his shoulder at her with all of her innocent allure. “We got this,” I say.

He wants me to say more. He’s waiting. He knows I’ll do anything to protect this company, to protect the people whose livelihoods depend on us. He’s nervous.

I give him my smile. I really turn it on for him. “Don’t worry. She’ll be crawling on her knees before this is over. Gratefully,” I add.

Kaleb comes up, balancing on his cane. He, too, wants to see what I’ll do. He’s seventy. He gets that this isn’t his fight. “Girl could do a lot of damage,” he warns. “Especially if she has people.”

“We got this,” I say again. “The little scammer has no idea what she’s stepped into.”

“You can’t contest the will,” he points out unhelpfully.

“Doesn’t matter.” So like Bernadette to put a self-destruct provision into her will. Preventing challenge of any kind. It’s how she was in life. If you argued with her, even about something as objective as the air temperature, she’d shut down the whole discussion.That’s enough, Henry!

Until she finally ghosted on me and the rest of the clan nearly ten years ago. Over a missed dinner, as it happened. A calendar screw-up. Onherpart.

With a simple command I can cause skyscrapers to rise up from brownfield lots or send buildings crashing to the ground, but I couldn’t get a frail old woman to answer the phone. Or the door. Go out to brunch at the Gramercy.

I’m done thinking about her, though. She doesn’t matter anymore.

I turn to the window and try to collect my thoughts. My next moves will have lasting implications for the people in this room as well as the legions of employees and vendors of Locke Worldwide who trust me. They need me strong and smart.

Early on, Brett and I bribed a doorman to let us in to see Bernadette—she preferred the name Bernadette over Mom. We even engaged a therapist to help us bring her back into the family fold. No go.

From our descriptions, the therapist speculated that she might have mild dementia, possibly paranoia; he couldn’t say for sure, and you can’t force somebody to accept help or be treated.

One of the little known facts about extreme wealth is how stunningly long you can go with untreated mental illness if that’s what you want.

You can believe in bizarre things and rave and go out to restaurants and order foods not on the menu, and they’ll call you eccentric and smile and thank you for the huge tips.

And obsequious lawyers on your payroll won’t push back when you decide to leave everything to your dog, in care of a woman who claims to sense that dog’s thoughts or whatever it is, because the checks you write are good.

The checks you write are so very good.

We had no clue she was dying, of course.

I shove my hands in my pockets.

I glare over at Malcomb, sitting there with his colleagues, hiding behind confidentiality. I get it about the confidentiality. Still. He could’ve found a way to alert me.

Years ago, back when Dad died, Bernadette assigned Dad’s share of the voting rights to Kaleb, Dad’s second-in-command. It made sense at the time—I was in high school, too young to run things.

But then I graduated with my architectural degree and took over as CEO. I started to build and acquire other companies, turbocharging our growth.

Still my mother kept Kaleb holding ultimate veto power. She and I would argue about it, back when she was still talking to me.

Kaleb didn’t use his veto power a lot. He was happy to let me make Locke into the powerhouse it is, happy for my excellent ideas, but he’d veto the shit out of the things I cared most about.

I was CEO, but Kaleb was a roadblock to the real change I wanted to see.

Kaleb’s a decent guy, but he’s stuck in the legacy way of building. Cost per square foot.

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