Casanova(23)

Good question.

I tapped my fingernails against my laptop for a second and opened a word doc before I said, “Wait. Where did Camille go?”

He looked around the library and shrugged. “No idea. Back to this. Again.”

“Right. How about we start with what you’re doing for your dad now? It might build a little trust in your character if we start here.”

“You mean his reluctant offer of a real job to do within the company.”

“Gosh, I can’t imagine why he was reluctant. You sound so freaking thrilled it’s as if you might do a happy dance any second.”

Brett fought a smile. “Oh, I am. I can’t wait to have him breathing down my neck every five seconds.”

“If you do it correctly he won’t need to,” I pointed out.

“Fuck me, you’re full of stunning ideas this morning, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said flatly. “If I were, I wouldn’t be here.” I turned my attention to my laptop screen. “Now explain to me what you’re doing.”

“Why doesn’t everybody need to know this?”

“Are there or are there not people in this town who don’t trust you?”

He paused and smacked his lips together. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “Mostly twenty-something women.”

I pressed my hand against my face. See? What was why I reported on stuff like that. I’d never once attempted to restore someone’s character—unless it was in The Sims—and now I was seriously wishing I hadn’t been swayed by the damn money.

“Brett.” I met his eyes. “That doesn’t help me at all. All it does is make my job harder.”

“I’m my dad’s financial assistant,” he said. He scooted up the sofa until he was sitting next to me and could see my screen. “His personal assistants are all too useless for it and Cora doesn’t have the time, so the job kept falling to me. I could find the mistakes they kept making in the financial logs we send to the accountancy firm.”

It was about time he made some use of his freaky number skills.

“Tell me more,” I said, typing up in note form what he said.

“Every morning he’ll send me an email detailing the location of all the transactions for the previous day, and it’s my job to input them all into the program ready to send to the accountant. I put everything into a spreadsheet first, because then I can print it off and check it another way for mistakes. When I’m completely sure it’s right, it goes into the program and then at the end of the month, it has to go to the accountant.”

I finished typing that up and tilted my head to the side. “Amazing,” I murmured.

“What is?” Brett turned his face toward me.

I peered at him out of the corner of my eye. “Ten minutes ago you were an insufferable asshole, but now, you actually sound like you have half a grip on your life.”

“That might just be the nicest thing you’ve said to me since you got back.”

“Might be? It’s definitely the nicest thing I’ve said.” I turned toward him and paused.

His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath on my skin. It was warm and smelled like peppermint, and I stilled. His light eyes, framed by thick, dark eyelashes, were fixed firmly on me.

I dropped my gaze and looked away. His knee brushed my thigh as he slightly shifted next to me. My mouth was so dry that it physically hurt to suck my tongue to force the saliva back into it. “So,” I said in a scratchy voice. “Is that everything?”

He didn’t reply.

“Brett?” I turned back to him and had to draw in a deep breath.

He was staring at me intently, his eyebrows drawn together just enough to make him look conflicted. Something sparked deep in his gaze, but it was the slight part of his lips that had me frozen in place.

“What?” I asked quietly. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but we were interrupted by Camille’s reappearance in the doorway to the library.

“Oh,” she said, making me jerk away from him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Her lips curved up, reminiscent of her brother’s cocky smirk.

“What do you want, Cam?” Brett said, his jaw tight.

She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “You have a visitor.”

“Tell them to come back.”

“I tried. She said she won’t unless I give her your number because apparently the one you gave her is wrong.”

“Imagine that,” I muttered, hitting control and the ‘s’ button to save the document before I shut the laptop.

Brett ran his fingers through his hair, sitting forward on the sofa. “Who is ‘she’?”

Camille shrugged and rested against the doorframe. “She didn’t say. Can you deal with her? There’s a house up for auction next week that Mom’s interested in buying. She wants me to meet her there in fifteen minutes, so I really don’t have the time to handle your sluts.”

I shoved my laptop back in its bag. “I have enough here. I’ll leave you to it. Camille, do you need a ride there?”

“No.” Brett held his arm out in front of me. “Don’t worry. Give me five minutes?”