Page 1 of Conflict
GROWING UPa Wellington wasn’t always as easy as people thought. To many in my circle, I was privileged, pampered, and born with a silver spoon, when in reality, that was so far from the case it was laughable. My grandfather built Wellington Enterprises from the ground up, and it was my father and his brother who made it into the conglomerate it is today. Being the son of a man who lived, breathed, and practically ate business didn’t lend oneself to laziness. No, instead of spending all my play days in the park with other pre-school kids, I was already being shown the big man’s office, that one day could be mine if I worked hard enough for it.
It was even worse when you’re the only child of the younger brother, the one who always felt he couldn’t quite measure up. Don’t get me wrong. I love my pops; he’s the greatest man I’ve ever known and one hell of a role model. But his constant rivalry with his older brother, Knox, was never beyond my notice. He loved his brother, loved my cousins, but it was his dream to see his son on top. So, even though I didn’t want to go into the family company, I did it anyway. If he knew, Pops would’ve been pissed. That’s part of the reason I never let on I had ambitions that lay elsewhere. If I could make Pops happy, I’d be happy. And even though I had other ideas, the biggest goal in my life was making him proud. The only person who ever knew I wanted to take a different path in life was my cousin Branson, and the guy’s a vault when it comes to secrets, especially since I know many of his own.
The funny thing is that I ended up loving my job and excelling, much to my father’s enjoyment. My other passion, cooking, stayed my hobby, and once I found a routine with both, I realized maybe I was wrong and being a Wellington isn’t all that bad. In fact, it hadn’t taken long for me to understand my last name was more blessing than curse. After all, if I’d become a chef like I used to dream, I’d have probably ended up hating food, and that would just be a travesty.
There’s something else about being a Wellington, though this one I won’t simply roll over and give into, no matter how often my mother and my paternal grandmother, Kate, love to remind me of it. The Wellington Way, they call it. They insist that it’s some unique familial male gene that causes a Wellington man to stop in his tracks when he meets the woman who is supposedly his destiny. Mom’s eyes gloss over and Grandma Kate clasps her hands together each time they tell me about the heart-stopping, pulse-racing, can’t-live-without-her kind of love they expect me to one day experience.
I never bought into it. Sure, Pop and Mom have always been annoyingly happy and Aunt Amelia and Uncle Knox love competing with them in the P.D.A. department—something my cousins and I all thought was super gross when we were growing up. But it seemed to have missed the next generation. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I even heard one of my cousins mention the stupid phrase. For the longest time, I thought the phrase had ended with the generation before us.
See, there are four Wellington boys. Three—Branson, Knox (a III, yet second-born, which caused some family drama), and Cohen—were born to my aunt and my uncle. I was the only child of my parents, not through lack of them trying, I was unfortunately once told during Pop’s awkward version of the birds and the bees talk when I was a kid.
Branson, the oldest, married his brother’s high school sweetheart. Now, I’m a gentleman and don’t believe in calling a woman anything derogatory, so let’s just say Megan Caldwell Wellington—now again Caldwell—was never quite wifey material.
Knox, the middle and the family namesake… Well, like I said, his brother married his high school sweetheart. The whole thing caused a rift in that side of the family and Knox joined the army immediately after high school graduation. Cohen and I are the only ones he kept in contact with until about a year ago. That’s a whole different story.
Cohen, well… He never seemed to have bad luck with women. Then again, he is the baby of the family, and by the time his dating years came about, I was already rising to the top of the Atlanta branch of Wellington Enterprises and wasn’t exactly checking in with a high school kid to see what his conquests were like.
So, you see, I didn’t think this generation of Wellington men had that fall-hard fast gene the women in our family insisted we possessed. Settling down, monogamy, and relationships just weren’t for us and that was fine by me. I didn’t want or need the heartbreak I witnessed both Knox and Branson go through.
Better to have an empty heart than a broken one.
All the dominoes in the Wellington chain, however, began to tumble when Knox met a good woman and fell. Hard.
Not long after, Cohen’s fiery redhead stole his heart and changed the course of her life to join him at medical school.
And, now, even Branson’s on the verge of his own happily-ever-after with a woman who adores him more than I thought possible. Not once did the family motto come up, so I’d put it out of my mind.
This domino effect seemed to have missed me. Or so I’d thought.
Because, in the least likely place, I met a woman I never expected.
Just like Grandma Kate said, I was knocked on my ass, flipped inside out, head over cock for Alyssa Covington.
The only problem?
At the present moment, she wants nothing to do with me.
Little does Alyssa know, Inevergive up what’s mine.
