I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

5

Beck

The rain had reduced to a drizzle as the town car dropped Walker and me off in front of the Svensson Investment tower. My brothers were waiting for me in the conference room on the eighty-seventh floor.

While all of us were the products of a polygamist cult-leader father and his many wives, only my full brothers were assembled in the conference room today. Leif Svensson’s genes were strong, and he also only took blond women as his wives. As a result, my brothers and I all looked eerily similar. Our existence was one of the great ironies in my father’s life—in a polygamist cult, girls were preferred for obvious reasons, but my father seemed to only be able to produce sons.

Fortunately, as of Tuesday, he was in jail. Unfortunately, however, our little sisters were still missing.

My younger half brothers lived with my older half brother Hunter in the small town of Harrogate. I could only take the little ones in small doses. Having the college-age kids interning at my company was bad enough without having two dozen Fortnite-obsessed little boys crawling all over my condo.

The adult brothers I had to interact with on a daily basis were barely tolerable. The youngest, Carl, who worked as an account manager at Svensson Investment, was arguing with Liam, the second youngest, who was the COO of Platinum Provisions and had a dessert addiction, which I was forever trying to break him of.

Then came Walker, who I worked with at Quantum Cyber and who liked to pretend that he was the reason the company ran so smoothly even though I did all the work. Mike, cofounder of Greyson Hotel Group with our half brother, Archer, was anal and logistics obsessed, always trying to optimize his business, his life, and mine. Then there was yours truly, who, in addition to making sure Quantum Cyber didn’t go off the rails, also helped my other brothers with their financials.

The oldest was Greg. Arrogant and self-aggrandizing, he was obsessed with money and power and amassing large quantities of each. He was the reason we were here today, and I could tell by the self-satisfied smirk on his face that he had another of his schemes in the works.

“Carl,” Greg barked. “Just go get Liam some water.”

“No, I want a cappuccino with chocolate sprinkles.”

Greg narrowed his eyes at Liam. “Chocolate. Sprinkles.”

“Dude, it’s a life changer,” Liam said, leaning back in his chair. “Way better than that health poison Mike is selling.”

“I’m not selling it,” Mike said in annoyance, looking up from his tablet. “We’ve partnered with an upscale juice bar to offer their cleansing juices at our hotel spas. They’re very popular.”

“It’s just overpriced lemon water.” Liam scoffed.

“No, there’s a special spice blend in it.”

“It’s cayenne, and it’s nasty,” Walker interjected, setting his bag down. “They sell it for like thirty dollars a pop. It’s criminal. I know why Archer thought it was a good idea. He’s a walking bag of terrible decisions. But why did you get suckered into it? Are you sleeping with the juice-bar founder?”

“You better not be,” Greg warned. “You all have the worst taste in women.”

“Unlike you,” I said nastily before I could help myself.

My younger brothers all sucked in a breath as Greg turned his ire on me.

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing.”

“If you’re implying that it’s because Belle has stolen not one but now two huge accounts from us, you would be correct. I did make a terrible miscalculation.”

I eyed him warily.

Greg bared his teeth at me. “But I have now found an opportunity to reclaim the throne, so to speak. And you all are going to help me. Carl.”

My younger brother tapped a button on his tablet, and the image of a tall, sparkling glass tower overlooking Central Park appeared on the screen at the front of the conference room. The tower soared over the skyline, crystal glass reflecting the blue sky and the green of the park.

“Belle’s tower is bigger than yours!” Liam said with a laugh.

Greg’s shoulders tensed. “Which is why it’s about to become my tower.”

The next slide on the screen showed several floor plans.

“These are the condos in the 101 Park Place tower I have purchased for all of you.”

“I want the biggest one,” Liam insisted.

“I’m older, so I should get the biggest one,” Walker shot back.

“How did you buy these without her noticing?” I asked Greg.

My older brother smirked. “Shell companies within shell companies, and then I hired actors to pretend to be the buyers. Belle’s not going to know what hit her. The plan, gentlemen, is that we will all have voting rights in the HOA. The tower hasn’t been filled up yet, and besides, hardly anyone attends those HOA meetings. We’re going to infiltrate the HOA then change the bylaws to make it even more difficult to buy a unit. Then when Belle and her firm are hemorrhaging money and the banks come and want a return on their loans, we will purchase the rest of the units for below market rate. Then the tower is mine.”

“This is devious and underhanded, even for you,” Mike said after a moment. “It also seems like a terrible idea.”

“I don’t expect little minds to comprehend my greatness.”

“She’s never going to forgive you,” I warned Greg. “You won’t have any hope of getting back together with her.”

“I have no desire to,” he said, though he was fiddling with the corner of his notebook. He saw me staring and slammed it closed.

“We will win. Any questions?” The way his eyes glittered made it seem like he did not want any questions. But Walker raised his hand.

“Can I have the penthouse?”

“No, the penthouse is mine.”

Greg’s assistant knocked on the door.

He waved her away.

She kept knocking then opened the door.

“We’re done in twenty, Marnie,” Greg stated.

“Twenty more minutes of this?” I asked. “I didn’t come all the way over here to listen to you all complain about who gets what apartment.”

“Fine, then you can have the smallest one,” Liam said.

“Greg,” Marnie said, voice urgent. “Your family is here. They brought your little—”

“Tell them to wait,” he said. “We’re in a meeting. I can’t deal with the kids right now. Hunter needs to keep them under better control; those boys are feral.”

But it was too late. The patter of little feet racing down the corridors and the exclamations of surprise from Greg’s employees rushed like a wave through the office to the conference room.

High-pitched voices shouted in the hallway.

“It’s so beautiful!”

“It’s like a movie!”

“Can we go shopping?”

I froze.

Greg and I looked at each other in shock and disbelief as eight blond, gray-eyed little girls streamed into the conference room, inspecting the high-end furniture, crowding around the window to admire the view, and snapping selfies.

Liam’s mouth hung open. Walker slowly knelt on the floor, and several little girls crowded around him, offering him cookies and telling him all about how they had decorated them.

“What the hell, Crawford?” Greg said when our half brother, with his military short hair and a ragged scar over his eye, followed the crowd of giggling girls into the conference room. He had his hand on the shoulder of another girl. She looked like the oldest and was maybe about twelve. Unlike the others, she seemed wary.

Our half brother Remy followed him in.

“Special delivery,” Remy bellowed, practically bouncing up and down, he was so happy. Even Crawford, who normally had a sour attitude, was grinning.

“Where?” I said, unable to form the words.

“They just appeared in Harrogate in the middle of the night, hiking down the street,” he said.

One little toddler crawled up my leg, into my lap. I hugged her close to me, admiring her adorable little cheeks and big gray eyes.

“They can’t stay in Harrogate, though,” Remy explained with a grimace. “There were some… issues. Isn’t that right, Enola?”

The girl next to Crawford scowled. In that moment, she looked just like Greg.

“Those boys are filthy and uncivilized. They eat off the floor and don’t shower.”

“Sounds about right,” Greg said.

“We can take them,” I assured Crawford.

“Can we?” Greg said with a scowl. “The kids are supposed to live in Harrogate, not here. That was the deal.”

“But they’re so sweet,” Liam cooed, reaching out to pat the head of the girl on my lap. She promptly bit him on the hand, scrambled up onto the table, and yelled, “I’m the princess!”

“No, I am!” another girl said, scrambling onto the conference table to tackle her sister.

A slightly older girl grabbed the carafe of coffee on the sideboard and began to chug it, egged on by three sisters.

“Liam, make them stop!” Greg ordered as another girl picked up a jug of water to throw it at her sister who had stolen her cookie. She missed, and Greg and his laptop were drenched.

“You ruined his stuff!” Enola yelled at her sisters, joining the fray. “Stop it, all of you! Stop it this instant!”

Her sisters ignored her, and a brawl broke out under the conference table. My brothers and I scattered. Crawford and Remy watched in amusement as Greg dripped indignantly on the carpet.

“We’re going to just leave you all to get acquainted!”