All He Really Needs by Emily McKay Page A

less.
    Today, he peeked into the room and saw that his father was
sleeping. He briefly considered waking his father up, but instead he quietly
closed the door just as a nurse bustled around the corner. She was one of three
who cared for Hollister around the clock. Patting her mouth with a napkin, she
said, “I’m sorry, sir. I was just taking a lunch break.”
    “You don’t have to apologize,” he assured her. “You’re allowed
to eat.”
    The nurse, a pretty woman in her mid-twenties with curves and
twinkling eyes, giggled a little. “Thank goodness,” she said with a smile.
    Instead of hurrying back to her food, she lingered. There was
something coy in her posture and expression that let him know that she’d stay
and chat if he wanted her to. It’d be easy enough. He could ask how her lunch
was, tease her about being away from her station, listen sympathetically about
her grueling hours. There’d been a time he would have chatted her up, gotten her
number and a few days later probably taken her to bed. There’d even been a time
when he would have thought that the break he and Sydney were on meant he was
free to do just that. Today, he wasn’t the least bit interested.
    Instead of flirting with the girl, he just asked, “His
condition is still stable?”
    Her expression faltered, but she quickly rallied, nodding
professionally and saying, “Yes, sir. One of us will contact you if there’s the
slightest change.”
    Which answered the question at the back of his mind. She knew
exactly who he was—the heir to the fortune. The man with his hands wrapped
around a golden ticket.
    That was always the problem with women who knew about the
money. And, somehow, they always knew about the money. Except with Sydney.
Sydney had never seemed remotely interested in that.
    He nodded politely to the nurse. “Thanks.”
    Then he made his way down the hall toward the back of the
house, only to see Cooper leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, his hands
shoved into the pockets of his jeans and a smug grin on his face.
    “Boy, you’re slipping.” Cooper liked nothing more than to get a
rise out of him or Dalton.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Griffin said.
    Cooper nodded in the direction of the hall down which the nurse
had disappeared. “Come on, a prime piece of ass like that? Normally you’d be all
over that.”
    “I think I have a little more restraint.” He couldn’t resist
adding a subtle dig. “And a little more class.”
    Cooper pushed away from the door. He flashed a toothy,
humorless grin. “Which is your way, I suppose, of saying I have none.”
    “Hey, that’s not what I was saying. But the fact that you heard
that is a bit of a Rorschach test of your insecurities, doncha think?”
    Cooper had the long and lean build of an Olympic snowboarder,
which is precisely what he had been before he started his own company designing
and manufacturing snowboards. He was the kind of athlete who was as good in
front of the camera as he was on his board. All in all, Cooper was an expert at
playing the game, whatever the game was.
    Which was one of the reasons why Griffin couldn’t get a read on
Cooper’s mood, not until Cooper was close enough to give Griffin a friendly slap
on the arm and say, “So how’ve you been?”
    “Fine.” Griffin resisted the urge to rub at the spot on his
arm. “So what’re you doing here?”
    “I just came by to have lunch with the old man.”
    “He’s asleep,” Griffin observed.
    “He was tired after eating.”
    Griffin held up a hand palm out. “Hey, I’m not criticizing, I’m
just surprised. I would have thought you’d be headed back to Colorado by now.
It’s been, what, a couple of weeks since Dad’s big announcement?”
    “I was busy doing…” Cooper’s voice trailed off as he
apparently fished around for the right word. “Stuff.”
    “Business stuff?” he asked, even though it was none of his
concern. If Cooper could give him a hard time,